Track Listing

1. Love Story
2. Over It
3. Open Toes
4. Home
5. Not Ur Girl
6. Each Other
7. Dangerous
8. Ordinary World
9. Do What You Do
10. Better Off Alone
11. Neglected
12. Everywhere I Go

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3181 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-30
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Katharine Sings
Katharine has a beautiful voice and she is a beautiful girl. I don't care for the songs that are on the contemporary side. I don't like singing with to much voice fluctuating (or rungs). The slower songs are very good. I hope the next album is less contemporary. I would just get songs I like.

I don't like this feeling anymore
I could see Katharine McPhee falling into the same path Kelly Clarkson fell into. Katharine's debut isn't amazing by any means but you end up liking it a lot simply because her vocals are so strong (much like Kelly's debut). And with each further CD she'll realize who she is musically more and more and come into her own. For her first outing, though, she could've done so much worse.

The first two songs, Love Story and Over It, are pretty much just average pop fare. Nothing special but easily listenable. Open Toes is where the CD actually starts for me. After Open Toes you have only a couple songs that are so-so and quite a few that hold their own.

For the most part the lyrics aren't great. Perfect example, Open Toes. I love that song but the lyrics are so cheesy. Love Story is the same way, its your typical romantic comedy condensed into three minutes. Probably the only two good songs lyrically are Home and Neglected, the latter being the better of the two. Yet another thing she has in common with Kelly Clarkson...anyone see a pattern here?

For all the bad things you can pin on this CD, you have to admit that it's oddly enduring. For no reason--if you're anything like me--you'll feel compelled to listen to it. I figure any CD, or artist, that can do that deserves some type of bonus.

My favorite songs are Over It, Open Toes, Dangerous, Ordinary World, and Neglected. Anyone merely looking for pop music with no desire to be anything it's not, look no further than Katharine McPhee's self-titled debut.

LOUSY PRODUCTION!
Who produced this album? It sounds like it was recorded in a trash can. Horrible production!!! I like Katharine, but this is a horribly produced album!