This past New Music Tuesday, Lee DeWyze’s major label album debut, Live It Up hit store shelves. As an American Idol fan, the day the winner’s album comes out is always fun for me.
After listening to the album a couple times through, I felt the best way to talk about the album was to talk a little about each song. So here we go!
Track 01 — “Live It Up”
I feel like “Live It Up” really encompasses what the album is about, and more so sets the overall tone of the album. In a way, this entire album feels like a relationship, which I will expand on later, and “Live It Up” is that first meeting/first date. 
This track was originally supposed to be DeWyze’s first single. I do understand why it was swapped last minute. I do think that it’s a better song than “Sweet Serendipity,” but I don’t know how well it would fair on the radio.
Track 02 — “Sweet Serendipity”
Before the album came out, I reviewed “Sweet Serendipity” for BlogCritics, and for what it’s worth, the song has grown on me since that initial review.
Now, it’s still not my favorite track on the album. I still think it sounds very similar to Kris Allen’s “Live Like We’re Dying,” but my big issue that I have with the song is all the ad-lib singing, where the chorus could have been incorporated. I really noticed this during the live performances, and I just think if the extended chorus was added in before the ad-libbing it would make it that much more sing-a-long friendly.
Track 03 — “It’s Gotta Be Love”
Never judge a song by it’s cheesy title. Or it’s 30-second snippet, that upon first listen did the song absolutely no favors.
I actually really like this song. It has a fun melody, that will make it a great song to perform live. DeWyze is very honest in his songwriting about those feelings you get after you meet someone and spend time with them for the first time. Granted, the lyrics “my knees are weak, my heart skipped a beat” are cheesetastic, but the song as a whole is good.
Continue reading Song By Song Review: Lee DeWyze — Live It Up
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