An 'Idol' also-ran awaits verdict on second album

BALTIMORE - For Elliott Yamin, the third-place finisher in

American Idol's

fifth season, acceptance of his second album, the recently released

Fight for Love

, is all but guaranteed.

Acceptance, yes, but love?

The jury (or at least the critics) are still undecided on that question.

Some reviewers deride Yamin's sophomore effort as formulaic; others find the material stronger than his maiden effort.

What's an artist to do? Over the phone, Yamin, 30, whose self-titled debut peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's Top 200 list, offers a vocal shrug.

"I'm just glad people are listening," he said, adding: This record is "very different than my first one. It's more contemporary, more soul-pop and R&B-pop. I also cowrite seven or eight songs and three or four of the bonus tracks" - a process he describes as liberating.

The key to writing, he said, is "losing your inhibitions." You never know when an idea that sounds off-the-charts crazy might bear fruit.

For example, the song "Apart From Me" is about lovers who have been separated. Yamin thought it would be interesting to emphasize that theme by adding an echo effect behind the lead vocalist - the kind of reverberation that might be heard while talking over the phone.

"This album," he said, "really helped me grow as an artist."

On the fifth season of Idol, the likable young man from Richmond, Va., won millions of fans with his tremulous, throbbing vocals, an unusual personal story (he didn't let a 90 percent hearing loss in his right ear deter him from a musical career), and his devotion to his mother, Claudette, herself a former professional singer. She died in March 2008 at age 65, and Yamin acknowledges that the most recent Mother's Day was hard for him.

On the album, he confronts his feelings of loss in the song "Someday": "Woke up this morning/ Needed to talk/ Picked up the phone and started to call/ And that's when it hit me/ That you were gone."

Writing "Someday" was cathartic, but, "Mother's Day will always be difficult for me."

Given Yamin's nice-guy vibe, it's interesting that this year he didn't champion the cause of Idol winner Kris Allen, whose stage persona is similar to his own. Allen's music, he said, is "bland."

Instead, Yamin backed charismatic Adam Lambert, this season's runner-up.

"Adam is an artist," Yamin said. "He deserved to win."

Yamin has noticed, as have others, that the third- or fourth-place finisher each season often has a bigger post-Idol career than do the winners.

Although Chris Daughtry, who came in fourth in Season 5, had the biggest success, Yamin has had a more substantial career than either Taylor Hicks, who won the competition, or Katharine McPhee, who placed second.

He speculates that the big labels put immense pressure on the winners to produce generic music that is calculated to be commercially successful, but lacks personality.

"You have to do things your own way," he said, "and not rely on the suits."