Let's move away from recent American Idols on tour, such as Sanjaya Malakar, for a moment.

USA Today recently reviewed the upcoming album by Constantine Maroulis. Here is its take:

Good things about it: Constantine's voice, which stays mostly free of Broadway boom-the-room excess and displays appealing grit. On one song (I Thought It Was Something) he sounds quite similar to Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, not what you might expect.

Also, some of the songs are pretty impressive, notably Right to My Head, which is a little like Bowie/Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes, and Child of the Revolution, which echoes the similarly titled T. Rex song (Children of the Revolution) in more than name. (It's not just '70s songs he's good at evoking; the '80s-ish rocker Heaven Help the Lonely could be the album's best track.)

What's not so good: other songs, which range from overblown (ballads Sister Sister and So Long, the end of Midnight Radio) to simply dull (Everybody Loves) to downright awful (Several Thousand).

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.