"American Idol" Contestant David Cook Tops Amazon MP3 Chart, Then Vanishes

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After enjoying last week as the top-selling album at the Amazon MP3 store, American Idol contestant David Cook's 2006 album Analog Heart was pulled from the digital music service. No reason was provided by AI producers or Amazon as to why the album was made unavailable, but web-based rumors that Cook was actually an AI-installed "ringer" in the competition began to swell following Cook's top-selling week (he even edged the debut of Mariah Carey's E=MC²). In reality, Cook is not the only contestant this season with some sort of history in the music biz: Eliminated Michael Johns and Kristy Lee Cook were both major label signees, and two contestants' records — Carly Smithson's (then Carly Hennessey) 2001 album Ultimate High and Brooke White's 2006 Songs From the Attic — are still available on Amazon. So why did Analog Heart get the ol' "Not Available?" Was this a plot hatched by AI producers to quell the David Cook fervor, or did Mariah Carey have some hand in this to ensure a number one placement for her new album? Let the conspiracy theories commence.

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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