Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	61/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Artistdirect	link
Billboard	(positive) link
Blender	link
Entertainment Weekly	B link
Newsday	B+ link
Rolling Stone	link
Us Weekly	link
USA Today	link
TuneLab Music	link

David Cook is the first major-label studio album from seventh season American Idol winner David Cook. The album was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States by RCA Records. It was certified platinum and has sold over one million copies in the United States. It has produced two top twenty singles, "Light On" and "Come Back To Me". The single "The Time of My Life" has also been certified platinum by the RIAA. "Light On" was certified platinum in January 2010.

The album's reception has been generally mixed to positive. Entertainment Weekly gave the album a positive review saying, "They give David Cook's clutch of bombastic verse-chorus- verse rockers an impressive melodic sheen, one well suited to Cook's husky, expressive vocals. If anything, the series of booming midtempo anthems (most notable among them "Bar-ba-sol" and "Mr. Sensitive") could use a little sandpapering around the edges." Allmusic concurred writing, "He not only is a star thanks to AmIdol, but he's always been ready to do big, happy, crowd-pleasing grunge-pop, as his self-released 2006 debut, Analog Heart, proved. David Cook is remarkably similar to that now-suppressed effort, heavy on crawling, melodic midtempo rockers and power ballads, only given more gloss in its production and writing."

Billboard said of the album, "Much like his predecessors' quick-turnaround debuts, Cook's is fairly generic, but its rock edge is dirtied up with crunching guitars and the artist's tuneful growl. There are a host of big, anthemic choruses that highlight the power of Cook's voice, namely the soaring "Declaration" and Chris Cornell/Brian Howes-penned "Light On." Elsewhere, Cook exercises his right to rawk with the swaggering, gritty "Bar-ba-sol" and bares his soul alongside a delicate piano and string arrangement on "Permanent." There are some lyrical missteps ("Life on the Moon," which marvels at the titular concept), but as the lone rocker winner of "Idol" to date, Cook stands apart from cookie-cutter pop."

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