Kris Allen has been a little quiet lately in order to focus on touring, but the Idol cutie reared his sexy head today to premiere the music video for his new single “The Truth”. The Toby Gad-produced tune is the second single from Kris’ self-titled debut (which has only sold around 313k since its release), and features Train frontman Pat Manahan.

The music video for “The Truth” is kind of what you’d expect, and kind of not. Kris and Pat do the predictable by singing and playing guitar in the desert, but the clip is elevated from your usual formulaic mediocrity thanks to some beautiful cinematography and set pieces, courtesy of director Aaron Platt. It’s the little touches — like having Kris’ silhouette illuminated against a dusky, desert skyline, and the finale in which he performs amongst a sea of blinking chandeliers — that really make the video worth the four and a half minutes of your time.

Besides having a great video, the song itself is quite fantastic. It’s one of the best cuts from Allen’s debut disc, and is just waiting for AC and Top Forty radio to eat it right up. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really charted yet. The 1.5 million-selling ”Live Like We’re Dying” is still top ten on the AC charts, but “The Truth” is nowhere to be seen. Hopefully it follows in it’s predecessors footsteps and is just another slow burner.

Check out the video below.

The American Idol finale may have been all about the diva’s Christina Aguilera and Janet Jackson, but the night was also home to several other fantastic performances.

All the previous winners of American Idol (Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks, Taylor Nobody Cares and Kris Allen) joined forces to perform “Together We Are One” as a tribute to Simon Cowell, who is leaving the show and heading over to rival series The X Factor.

It was a great performance, but Kelly and Carrie clearly slayed their classmates. They outsung everybody else on the stage and showed that they really are two of the best female vocalists in the industry today.

Also performing was runner-up Crystal Bowersox, who was joined by one of her idols Alanis Morrissette to duet on “Ironic” and “You Oughta Know”. Crystal should’ve won the show, but it’s better that she didn’t because now she won’t be locked into one of those shifty contracts like Kelly Clarkson is.

Last up is Kris Allen, who thanks to the shining star that is Adam Lambert, is often overlooked as a talented artist in his own right. Kris gave a vocally perfect performance of his new single “The Truth”, which actually sounded pretty close to the actual CD version.

I really hope it’s a hit for him.

Check out all the talented singers below.

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He took his sweet time but American Idol champ Kris Allen has finally gotten around to releasing a second single, “The Truth”, from his self-titled debut album. As I previously reported the song has been reworked as a duet between Kris and Train frontman Pat Monahan. You can check out the official artwork above.

Kris and his label have high expectations for the new song, but that also comes with a few worries considering that his last single “Live Like We’re Dying” took months to catch on and become a hit.

To be honest, I was a little worried when it first came out and it wasn’t doing great. [Laughs.] But I think it’s just about working hard and getting people to hear the song, and then everyone started believing in it a little bit more. I remember getting a text from Keith Urban saying “I’m not gonna lie: The first time I heard that song I wasn’t crazy about it. But after a couple listens, I really, really like it.” And I mean, I think that’s how everybody felt about the song. And I think that’s a testament to a good song. You don’t have to love ‘em the first time you hear ‘em. It grew on people.

He also admits that the addition of Pat Monahan to “The Truth” is to help the song get radio play and do well on the charts, which I guess was pretty obvious in the first place.

Well the first single ["Live Like We're Dying"] did so well. It took a while, but it’s done really incredible. It exceeded all my expectations anyway. But me, and everybody at the label, management, we all wanted this second single to do really well, and that was the idea that some people from the label came up with. [source]

Another hit single for Kris Allen is pretty important right now because his album still has yet to go Gold, and American Idol management are so fickle that once the money dries up they’ll easily drop an artist without batting an eyelid.

Anyway we could be hearing some new Kris Allen music soon because during the interview he mentioned that he may play some new songs while he’s on tour with Keith Urban, and then he said that he had some big news coming around August but refused to specify exactly what. Very cryptic.

Seven months after the release of his first single “Live Like We’re Dying”, American Idol winner Kris Allen looks like he’s finally ready to move on after premiering a new version of “The Truth” on his official website today.

The Toby Gad produced song, which appears on Allens self-titled debut, has now been updated to include a feature from Train frontman Pat Monahan, who is currently riding high on the charts thanks to the success of the Train hit “Hey Soul Sister”.

Kris hasn’t confirmed “The Truth” as his official second single, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be since he’s gone to the trouble of adding a big name to feature on the song, and then premiered it on his official site.

Unfortunately it could all be too little too late for Kris, who has so far only sold 300k of his debut album while runner-up Adam Lambert has doubled those sales with his album For Your Entertainment. However Kris did manage to score a sleeper hit with his single “Live Like We’re Dying”, which initially flopped on the charts before making a comeback, hitting the top twenty of the Hot 100 and selling over 1.2 million copies in total.

American Idol season eight stars Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta returned to the stage that made them famous tonight when they both performed on the results show.

Kicking things off was the very talented Iraheta who gave the very first televised performance of her new single “Scars” which can be found on her debut album Just Like You. The 17-year-old did a wonderful job but we shouldn’t expect anything less since she’s had plenty of practice when it comes to singing on the Idol stage.

Following Allison was Kris Allen who delivered a beautiful (if not a little melodramatic) rendition of the Beatles classic “Let It Be”, which of course was performed with a Haitian montage playing in the background.

If you liked Allison’s performance you can give her career a boost and pick up the song on iTunes, or you can help out Haiti and pick up Kris Allen’s version of “Let It Be” which will have 100% of the profits sent to the impoverished country.

American Idol winner Kris Allen arrived in Haiti today with the UN to help out aid efforts in the country. {pic source}

The first stop on his trip was the Place de la Paix camp for mothers and children, where he performed “Amazing Grace” in one of the many crowded tents filling the camp.

The footage of Kris’ trip will be used in the Idol Gives Back special which airs April. Kris will be presenting the footage, performing, and talking about his trip and giving advice on how people can help Haiti.

In other news his lead single “Live Like We’re Dying” continues to climb the charts five months after it’s release, this week reaching a new peak of #21 on the Hot 100. Kris will be performing the song on American Idol this week so keep an eye out for that.

American Idol season 8 contestants Kris Allen, Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert, or “Kradison” as they’re now known, performed a concert at New York City’s Highline Ballroom on Friday night.

The show included individual sets from all three Idols, but fans at the venue were treated to a huge encore when Kris Allen, who was closing the concert, brought out Allison and then Adam to sing a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”.

During the performance Allisons vocals almost blew the house down, whilst Glambert did his usual on-stage showmanship and Kris rocked out on his guitar. If these three ever start slipping on the charts (well two of them already are) they could form their own band because this performance rocked!

My man Kris Allen filmed for AOL Sessions last year, and now after several months they’ve finally been released online (why the delay?).

Kris performed his hit single “Live Like We’re Dying”, which just this week reached a new peak of #23 on the Hot 100 and has now shifted around 750k and counting.

During the Sessions Kris also performed “Is It Over”, “Can’t Stay Away”, and “Red Guitar”.

Thanks to Andres for these!

It’s been a while since I did a post on my man Kris Allen, so I thought I’d bang one out now for the few KA fans out there.

The American Idol winner got off to a pretty slow start with his lead single “Live Like We’re Dying” debuting at #89 on the Hot 100 last year before quickly falling off the charts. Well in Kris’ case slow and steady wins the race because the song gradually started gathering steam again last November, and just last week it reached a new peak of #25.

In this weeks chart the song has held steady on the Hot 100, only slipping one place to #26, and it’s total sales have now reached a very impressive 685k (and counting).

Unfortunately his self-titled album hasn’t managed the same success as “Live Like We’re Dying”, but it’s now sold about 250k which is quite good considering that it debuted at #11 with only 80k, and there’s only been one single lifted from the project so far.

If you ask me it’s about time that Kris started getting some bigger promo slots like Adam Lambert has been getting, especially since “Live Like We’re Dying” has so far outsold all three of Adam’s singles put together.

In other news Kris has announced that he’ll be heading over to Haiti in March to lend a hand with relief efforts in the country.

And finally, you can check out a recent performance of Kris singing the national anthem at the NFC championship game below.

American Idol Kris Allen was one of the many guests at the Z100 Jingle Ball on Friday night, performing two songs from his new self-titled album. Kris also surprised everyone by performing a special Hip-Hop medley containing his now famous cover of Kanye Wests “Heartless” and the Coolio classic “Gangsters Paradise”.

This dude is so talented and his covers are always 10/10. “Heartless” never gets old even though he’s performed it about a million times now.

Anyway Kris is currently deciding on the follow-up single to his minor hit “Live Like We’re Dying” which peaked at #41 on the Hot 100. What do you think it should be?

Numbers never lie, though I bet that Kris Allen wishes they would after Billboard reported that his self-titled debut only sold 80k, missing the top 10 at #11 and becoming the lowest opening-week sales from an American Idol winner ever.

The news is somewhat alarming, but Kris’ record label Jive don’t seem be breaking a sweat – yet.

“We 150 percent believe in the Kris Allen record,” said s spokesperson. “And the indicators of radio growth and digital single sales prove we’re correct.” [source]

Jive also cited the fact that Kris’ single “Live Like We’re Dying” just re-entered the charts at #70, and that his target audience (Hot AC) is one where slow-and-steady progress is usually the norm.

One person who doesn’t seem to be concerned with the sales is Kris Allen himself, who earlier this week addressed the issue to MTV.

“I didn’t try out for ‘Idol’ to be #1 on iTunes, I tried out for ‘Idol’ to make music, and that’s what I feel like I’m doing,” Allen said. “I’m not trying to go quadruple-platinum, like Carrie Underwood.”

“I actually talked to [Jive Records], and I was like, ‘Are you sure we want to come out on this day?’” he laughed. “I mean, John Mayer, Leona Lewis … 50 Cent. I’m scared of him. He got shot, dude. I’ve never gotten shot. John Mayer hasn’t been shot. Leona Lewis, she got punched, but she didn’t get shot though. It’s 50 Cent, dude.”

If you ask me Kris Allen should’ve just released his self-made pre-Idol album Brand New Shoes. Well not really, but it is an incredible soul record that shits on anything in the charts right now.

Do you think that Kris will be a slow climber just like Jordin Sparks was, or is it all over before it even began?

American Idol stars Kris Allen and Adam Lambert are sharing the cover of the latest issue of Billboard magazine, but the accompanying article could almost make you wonder why they bothered to include Allen at all.

Whilst Glambert has scored an in-depth three-page feature detailing his rapid rise to fame, new album, image and much more, poor old Kris Allen has been lumped with a simple Q&A.

It’s yet another blow to the American Idol winner who has been upstaged by his runner-up at every turn, the most noticeable instances being Glamberts post-Idol Rolling Stone magazine cover and performance slot at the upcoming American Music Awards.

The lack of media interest also seems to be translating to record sales, with Kris’ self-titled debut predicted to sell about 85-90k in it’s first week on the Billboard 200, which is enough for a debut of around #7.

It’s no surprise though when you consider that the album seems to have been put through the manufactured music industry machine, replacing the soulful piano & acoustic driven numbers that Kris was known for in favour of watered down radio rock.

Is Kris Allen just another mismanaged victim of the Idol machine that chews up & spits out stars like there’s no tomorrow, or is he legitimately being outshone by the genuine star in Adam Lambert?