Katharine McPhee
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Performer: Katharine McPheeEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-01-30
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
- Love Story
- Over It
- Open Toes
- Home
- Not Ur Girl
- Each Other
- Dangerous
- Ordinary World
- Do What You Do
- Better Off Alone
- Neglected
- Everywhere I Go
Music reviews of Katharine McPhee
Music Review: Soulful, Beautiful, and just a bit Eccentric
Rating: 5 Stars
Okay, so I've had this album for close to two years now, and I don't think I've made a review yet. I was listening to it yesterday, and something strange struck me. Though it has been two years, I am STILL listening to this album. So I must really love it, huh? I don't know what it is about this album, but it gets me. McPhee's voice gets me. I've gone up and down on my critiques for each of these songs. One day a song will be #9, and the next it will be #4 and vice-versa. So I can't trult "rank" the album beyond my favorite four tracks (Neglected, Everywhere I Go, Better Off Alone/Not Ur Girl), but I can definitively (and, for your sakes, succintly) state how I feel about each one.
1. Love Story-This is the premiere throwback song of the album. Nice horns. There's a great kick-off in the beginning that sounds like a live band playing. Next, the "woo woo woos" start in, and I feel like I'm back in the 70's. It's soulful, it's groovy, it's upbeat. This is definitely the right song to start off the album. An energetic tribute to finding love before it was too late. Katharine's voice perfectly captures the bittersweet tone of the song. The record company should have given the song a chance. It's a hit.
2. Over It- Honestly the weakest song on the album. I won't say much about this one because I'm confused about how I feel about it. It's a nice pop tune, but it's not authentic Katharine. It barely even sounds like her, thought it's clear she's singing it, even though it's not clear that it's actually her voice. I like the song in parts (just the chorus and the bridge, really), but I would like it better if the producers had lain off the vocal synthesis. Wrong choice to make the album, wrong choice for a single.
3. Open Toes-Haha. So once you learn not to take this song seriously, it's pretty amazing. Katharine definitely sings her butt off in this song despite its parododic content. Really, she sounds like a purer Christina Aguilera with more sincerity and less emphasis on runs. Her voice, simply by being what it is, lends substance to this song. She sings the bridge with unabashed seriousness, and suddenly the theme of the song becomes clear, though erratic. The song isn't *gasp* really just about open-toed shoes. It's about not letting things in life get you down, and sometimes you just have to do whatever makes you happy, no matter how silly it is. As the last line in the song states "Only got one life, feeling good tonight, no this girl's not staying home." The song tells a different part of the story from beginning to end (goes from "I've been needing a girl's out" to a statement of why). It's genius really. So I say not to take it too seriously because it's more than what's on the surface. Not sure if that makes sense.
4. Home-So this is one of the premiere ballads. It sounds like it belongs to a movie soundtrack. It's lush, epic, romantic, and inspiring. The best line is "it's hard to feel beautiful in your own skin" or "it's hard to see beautiful in your own eyes." Both lines end with "but you make me beautiful for the very first time" at the end of each verse. Katharine sings the lyrics as if they were a part of her soul. It's somewhat ambiguous because it can be a song of romance, of friendship, or religion. It can be about any person that makes you feel "at home." Incredibly moving.
5. Not Ur Girl-She brings back the throwback sound here, but it's more 80's than 70's with a vocal sound of the 90's. Soulful, but utterly a fun pop song. Think of the upbeat Whitney Houston. This is the second McPhee co-write (Open Toes was the first). I would say these lyrics are among the best of the album. Katharine completely captures the attitude of the song, but doesn't leave out any of the emotion. She senses the flirty side to the song, while not abandoning the underlying hurt and sense of betrayal that the lyrics bring out. Her vocals are uplifting, but sadly tinged with a regret and a longing that is hard to miss. This is most presented on the second verse with the lines "And if you see me walking by, don't be surprised if I say `Hi', but it won't be any more than just that. Not moving down the fast. Oh we just collided in the fast lane..." The song is really sad in the way that it portrays how making a friendship into "something more" can ruin the friendship.
6. Each Other-90's midtempo pure R&B track. Standard, but beautiful in its simplicity. No overdone vocals or overdone production. The bridge gives me goosebumps. Katharine sings it in a soft, romantic, resonating voice that is her trademark and separates her from everyone else out there. My description may be sparse, but this really is one of my favorites. The production in the beginning could be tweaked a bit, so that the drum/clapping isn't quite so loud. That's my only criticism.
7. Dangerous-This one also has an oldies-meets-newsies feel to it. Katharine continues to be able to display emotion in a song that is vocally simple. The song is about wreaking revenge upon a cheating, player boyfriend, but even though the choruses are playful, the verses and bridge reveal a deep seated pain. The song shows off her rich, soulful middle register at its upmost. The way McPhee sings the last line before the final instrumental final "Oh protect your heart, he'll tear it apart" once again shows why Katharine can infuse an emotional depth that by anyone else would just be a fun or angry pop song. She's multi-dimensional, making repeated listens of her music all adventures unto their own with the new nuances one can find.
8. Ordinary World-Another one that belongs in a movie soundtrack and not a pop/R&B album. Ordinary World plays like a really good Disney song. Katharine continues to display different sides to her voice, and once again shows the triumph of simplicity over spectacle. The song is at its best in the beginning, where Katharine croons forlornly. It's almost as if she's talking or whispering, her voice almost breaking, but not quite. She breathes life and depth into the Disney lyrics, bringing the song to such a place that anyone listening who has lost a loved one, by distance or death, in their lives will feel their own heart breaking as the song encapsulates the feeling of going through a life that is never quite the same as it was before that person went away. I've teared up a few times listening to this song, and it is probably one at the bottom of my ranking.
9. Do What You Do-This is probably the track I have been up and down with the most. It has the feel of a club song from either the 70's, 80's, or 90's with some new-wave attitude thrown in for good measure, making this the most eccentric, electic and strangest song on the record, in lyrics and production. It's all over the place, disingenuous, frantic, and a little cluttered, but somehow it works. McPhee's voice drives the song and captures--yes you're hearing me right--the "sexual" frustration of the lyrics, but she does so with innocence, like a virgin who doesn't understand her own feelings but knows that this guy she's singing to knows what to do. Um, I'm gonna stop before I get too graphic. But it truly is all innocence and the anticipation of...um...lovemaking. But, her voice is truly great on this track, powerful and beautiful. The bridge is the highlight. She hits her highest note on the album in this one!
10. Better Off Alone-*sigh* This is a fantastic performance from Katharine. After I was done listening, I wanted to clap, cry, jump up and down, and I ended up doing all three. It is definitely another song that I could hear on a movie soundtrack. It draws influences from blues, soul, and R&B classics. It's epic, sweeping, emotional, and Katharine's low, earthy vocals brings the song to a real and painful place from the first note, and her voice soars higher and higher before sweeping back down to that haunted and sincere low tone that no one but Katharine has, evoking the way Mariah used to "sang" back in the day. Far and away the best power ballad on the album.
11. Neglected-This will be the hardest song for me to critique...Why? Because it's my favorite song on the album, not to mention among my favorite songs of all time. I could write an entire essay on its greatness. Katharine's last and final co-write of the album , this is utterly the most personal song on the album. A mid-tempo R&B ballad, Neglected is haunting, mysterious, chilling, painful, and beautiful, using the contemporary melodic intricacies that made R&B so great in the 90'sLike Better off Alone before it, it shows off Katharine's best instrument, her deep lower register. She weaves in and out between this deep register and a soft, high register that is unlike anything I've heard before. Listen closely to her enunciation of the last word of each line in the first two verses. Vocally, it sets her apart from every other singer, including those I've been comparing her to thus far. It may be subtle, but it gives me goosebumps. The mystifying chorus is hypnotizing to the senses with its Middle Eastern feel and somewhat inexplicable lyrical use. The bridge brings an unexpected, delightful surprise. It begins with Katharine's lovely deep register, but when it gets to the line "believing in all of your lies..." a separate voice joins in, and both sing the same lyric. Soaring and powerful, this voice takes over lets loose the pent up tension that's been building in the song. Outraged, it implores "How could you? How could you neglect my love?" Then the song ends as simply as it begin, with Katharine's haunting and low repetition of fading "da da da da da da da da da da." I can never get enough of it.
12. Everywhere I Go-Right behind Neglected as my second favorite song of the album. Objectively, I can even say it's the best song on the album, due to the deceptively simple, genius and laidback production of Babyface and his poignant lyrics. Mid-tempo? Check. R&B? Check. 90's? Check. This song takes the most influential sounds of the album and forms a masterpiece. Lyrically, it's on another level, making the song sad and funny at the same time. Katharine's yearning voice evokes the wronged sentiment of the song's confused and lost subject. What I hear most to this song is how relatable it is. How many have convinced themselves that they're over someone only to realize that, painfully enough, they're not? How many have been led on in a relationship, thinking everything is hunky dory when out of nowhere, their significant other drops them like a bad habit? As Katharine sings "I just can't get you out of my head. So it annoys me, he wasn't man enough to come and tell me I was never the one like you said I was. You knew that you didn't love me anymore." The song finds it lyrical cleverness in weaving in and out between 3rd and 2nd person, singing to the world at large and then to the lover who has been callously breaking hearts. This song should have been the single, not the over-synthesized "Over It." I firmly believe it could have been a smash.
Description of Katharine McPhee
All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.Katharine McPhee has a cloudless voice and a warm, wide-eyed Alice in Wonderland quality that won her swarms of fans on American Idol's fifth season--if Simon Cowell had a ready antonym for "ghastly," there's little room for doubt about which contestant he would have applied it to. While debates over whether McPhee's considerable grace and talent should have won her the TV competition rage on across the Idol-viewing landscape, one thing's certain: she's made a debut album good enough to render such determinations meaningless. Katharine McPhee is an R&B-leaning pop disc that pulls the urgency and tenderness out of her voice and pins it smack in the center of each song. The slickly produced opener "Love Story" displays a certain swagger, and "Not Ur Girl" and "Open Toes" follow it up with still more spunk and attitude (something some McPhans asked to see more of on AI). If there's a crisp, smartly maneuvered Christina Aguilera-meets-Beyoncé-and-Mariah sensibility at work in those songs, the ballads belong to McPhee alone. "Somewhere over the Rainbow" made her a star on TV; "Ordinary World" and "Better off Alone" have the staying power to make her a star in music. --Tammy La Gorce
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