As he rushes to complete his first post-Idol album, America's favorite faux-grunge rocker knows what's coming: the dreaded Daughtry comparison. "Um, I look at it this way," Cook says. "I've been called way worse." To make what he describes as a set of "substance-based rock," Cook recruited American Idiot producer Rob Cavallo and added an unreleased Chris Cornell song to the set. "I don't know what the expectations are," he says, "but I want to put out a Joshua Tree or White Album." He chuckles: "Hope for the best, expect the worst."

Check out all of the albums in the 2008 Fall Music Preview