Pop
Archie Music, 2025
For years now, Archuleta’s entire public persona has revolved around a single narrative arc: closeted Mormon boy breaks free and discovers his authentic self.
If you follow his career even peripherally, you’ve heard this narrative so many times it’s become a mantra. TV interviews? Coming out story. Magazine features? Leaving the church. TikTok videos? Why not both, with a side of spiritual liberation?
One can’t help but wish Archuleta had hired a manager savvy enough to say, “David, your story matters, but maybe let’s also develop some other dimensions to your artistry?”
Because at this point, hearing him discuss his journey feels like watching someone show you their vacation photos for the fifteenth time – yes, we’re happy you had a good trip, but could we maybe talk about something else now?
Finally, Earthly Delights arrives alongside an upcoming autobiography — surprise, it’s about coming out and leaving the church — and the EP itself serves as an extended musical meditation on… coming out and leaving the church. With bonus horniness! Songs like Crème Brulée and Dolce Amor telegraph the “I’m discovering sensuality!” message with all the subtlety of a neon sign in a dark room.
Here’s where Mr Archuleta faces his most fundamental challenge: pulling off sensual, seductive music requires a certain confidence, swagger, and raw charisma that not everyone possesses. Adam Lambert has it in spades – the man could make reading a phone book sound like a proposition. Freddie Mercury practically invented the blueprint for channeling sexuality through music. Even John Legend, love him or hate him, knows how to smolder.
David Archuleta, bless his heart, does not have this quality. Not even a little bit.
What should feel seductive and liberating instead comes across as awkward and tentative, like watching someone’s first attempt at flirting while they’re simultaneously having a panic attack. There’s no heat, no genuine sensuality, no sense of someone reveling in newfound freedom. Instead, we get what can only be described as “nervous puppy energy” – earnest, well-meaning, but utterly lacking in the carnal confidence these songs desperately need.
Mr Archuleta finds firmer footing on the more standard pop ballads and midtempo tracks here, which makes sense, as they are his natural habitat. But this creates another problem: these songs are musically indistinguishable from the pleasant-but-forgettable material he was churning out before his big personal transformation.
Listening to these tracks is like hearing him tell the coming-out story for the umpteenth time — there’s a wearying familiarity to it all. The production is competent but uninspired, the melodies are pleasant but instantly forgettable, and the whole thing feels like it could have been released at any point in his career with minimal changes.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Earthly Delights is the disconnect between the dramatic personal journey Mr Archuleta has been documenting and the complete lack of musical growth on display. For someone who’s supposedly undergone massive personal transformation, his music sounds remarkably similar to what he was making as a closeted Mormon pop singer.
Where’s the experimentation? The risk-taking? The sense of an artist finally free to explore sounds and styles they couldn’t before? Instead, we get safe, bland, radio-friendly pop that happens to occasionally reference desserts in what we’re supposed to interpret as a sexy way.
It’s like he broke free from one box only to immediately climb into another slightly different box that’s still fundamentally limiting his artistic range. The backstory promises revolution; the music delivers incremental updates at best.
