Will they sing?

New CDs are pouring forth from the ‘‘American Idol’’ plant this fall as former winners and runners-up make bids for post-show fame and fortune. Here’s a rundown on five recent releases, including discs out today from Fantasia and Taylor Hicks (the season 5 champ’s debut).

Chris Daughtry
Album: "Daughtry"
Obligatory triumphant back story: Hard-rocking dude marries young and works a crummy job to care for his wife and adopted stepkids. (Less-triumphant postscript: his fourth-place finish.)
Sounds like: Every single one of the tortured-soul hard-rock bands he covered on the show -- Live, Creed, Nickelback, et al. -- meaning "gritty" guitar rockers and broody power ballads with lots of gloss.
Verdict: B- Chris Daughtry has already sold close to 500,000 copies in three weeks without a hit single. If he can convince rock programmers he's not some pop wussy -- which should be easy, as songs like "It's Not Over" and "Breakdown" already sound like their playlists -- this will likely be the best-selling album of this year's "Idol" class.
If it tanks: It won't, but we hear Fuel is looking for a lead singer.

Fantasia
Album: "Fantasia"
Obligatory triumphant back story: Single mother surmounts functional illiteracy to become the season 3 victor, win a Grammy for her 2004 debut, and pen a best-selling autobiography, "Life Is Not a Fairytale," later adapted for a hit Lifetime movie in which she starred.
Sounds like: A new and improved version of her debut, "Free Yourself," with better, sassier, catchier songs and a more confident Fantasia getting bold on club bangers and getting down on slow jams.
Verdict: B+ Fantasia's weaker first album went platinum. This could double that.
If it tanks: Season 3 castmate Jennifer Hudson might've won the movie role, but if they revive "Dreamgirls" on Broadway or as a road show, Fantasia could put her TV-movie acting chops to the test.

Taylor Hicks
Album: "Taylor Hicks"

Obligatory triumphant back story: Alabama roadhouse veteran knocks around the bar-band circuit for a decade before galvanizing his voting bloc, "the Soul Patrol," to help secure this season's crown for his salt-and-pepper-flecked head.
Sounds like: A record Michael McDonald or James Ingram -- both artists Hicks covered on "Idol" -- would be happy to call their own. It offers a preponderance of poppy melodies, happy horns, and stripped-down R&B grooves that are retro with an adult contemporary sheen.
Verdict: B Calculated, but not without its charms. Unlike on TV, Taylor Hicks undercooks the ham here. Without his clunky "Idol" dance moves, you can concentrate on some of the skilled zigs and zags his gravelly voice takes.
If it tanks: He'll get to play in better, more brightly lit bars for the rest of his life, thanks to the "Soul Patrol."

Kellie Pickler
Album: "Small Town Girl"
Obligatory triumphant back story: Small-town girl overcomes a no-account mama, an incarcerated daddy, and an inability to pronounce "calamari" to charm judge Simon Cowell and America with her twangy dumb blonde routine.
Sounds like: An average version of (take your pick) Jo Dee Messina, Shania Twain, early Faith Hill, Gretchen Wilson, Lorrie Morgan, and on and on.
Verdict: C Kellie Pickler's cute, but her voice is nearly as small as the town she comes from -- OK on the up-tempo stuff, nasal and thin on most of the ballads. This is pretty generic Nashville-assembly-line stuff. (Except for the surprisingly effective " Where were you mama?" tear-jerker "I Wonder.")
If it tanks: The erstwhile naif already has a sitcom pilot in the works (about a -- you guessed it -- small-town girl). But so did season 4 contestant, and brief Pickler paramour, Constantine Maroulis last year.

Ruben Studdard
Album: "The Return"
Obligatory triumphant back story: Alabama choirboy with linebacker physique is dubbed "the velvet teddy bear" by Gladys Knight and overpowers voracious "Claymates" to win season 2.
Sounds like: Surprisingly cheap-sounding and cobbled-together series of slow jam cliches about love, lovemaking, and lovebreaking that are meant to conjure Luther and R. Kelly but fall way short.
Verdict: D+ can sing, but his efforts to date have been less than thrilling, and this is no exception. His time to make an impact may be running out.
If it tanks: He could open a chain of Build-a-Velvet-Teddy-Bear stores or become a soloist in Knight's gospel group, Saints Unified Voices.