Taylor Hicks is best known as the winner of the fifth season of American Idol.  His self-entitled album, Taylor Hicks, did exceptionally well and hit the number two spot on the US album charts.  The Distance is Hick's  sophomoric release and provides his fans with more of the same classic Taylor Hicks music.

On the positive side, the songs are all good songs that have a lot of pop "appeal."  These are songs that were written and sung to bring much commercial success.   However, the songs, at least the lyrics, do not sound synthetic like too many pop songs and have some real heart.  Hicks also shows why he won the top Idol honors by displaying some amazing vocals.  Some of the songs are amazing, such as my favorite from the album, "Nineteen," which provides some great lyrics and vocals.  But the album starts out strong with the title track and continues strongly from there.

If you like Taylor Hicks, you will love this album.  Period.  However, my main criticism of this album is not of the vocals, song selection, or lyrics.  Instead, I feel that the musical accompaniment or even the production of the instrumentals could have been stronger in a number of the tracks, especially with a background of Nathan East (bass) and Michael Thompson (guitar) ( although they were able to let loose in "Seven Mile Breakdown").

This was a very good album.  Taylor Hicks fans will be very pleased.