Katharine McPhee is dominating our American Idol Picture of the Day archives.
Whether she's posing with topless guys, clean-shaved guys, or getting hot and steamy for a music video, McPhee looks good on camera.
The same can be said in this photo below, as Katharine poses with Vanessa Minnillo. We hope her boyfriend, Nick Lachey, doesn't get too jealous ...
When your album sales are faltering, what's an American Idol runner-up to do?
Grab a razor, of course.
Seen here, Katharine McPhee provides a pair of model companions with a lady's touch at the launch for the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom in New York on Thursday.
We'll get back to reviewing various American Idol contestants, such as Rudy Cardenas and Lakisha Jones, from this season in a moment.
But let's talk about Katharine McPhee album sales first. Unfortunately for last season's runner-up, the second week of sales for her debut CD didn't fare as well as her first.
The album was at number-two a week ago - but fell to number-11 this week. McPhee sold 48,000 discs, down 58% from her debut week of 116,000; her rounded total is 163,000.
Kat really needs a boost from the single; if not, her current pace would suggest an album that would top out at somewhere in the 300,000 range. That's safely ahead of Diana DeGarmo/Justin Guarini territory, but would fall behind every other top-two finisher.
Then there's Carrie Underwood.
Thanks to her pre-Grammys hype, Underwood saw sales jump from No. 24 to 19, selling 38,000, an 18% increase. (Next week, after two wins, she could jump a lot higher.) Her total is now 4.86 million.
American Idol fifth-season runner-up Katharine McPhee had a genuine shot at Billboard's peak position, with her eponymous debut album hitting record-store shelves last week.
But ultimately, McPhee couldn't quite contend with Norah Jones.
The singer/songwriter's third studio LP, Not Too Late, ran away with the title belt, opening at #1 with more than 405,000 sales, according to the latest SoundScan figures.
McPhee's LP finished a distant second on Billboard's albums sales chart, selling close to 116,000 units - a respectable total, but not nearly enough to top the chart this time around.
Interestingly enough, Daughtry - the self-titled debut from fellow Idol finalist Chris Daughtry's rock collective â follows McPhee at #3, with 77,000 scans.
Meanwhile Taylor Hicks, the self-titled debut from the man who surpassed them both for the American Idol title last year, slips further out of the chart's top 50. That disc finished this week at #76 after selling just 12,000 copies during its eighth week of release.
A new Katharine McPhee album means a new slew of interviews with the American Idol runner-up. Here, she sits down with TV Guide ...
TV Guide: How did being on American Idol change you?
Katharine McPhee: When you're in that [competitive] place, everything you hear affects you because you're already so sensitive and stressed and tired and overworked. When people ask me, "How was the experience?" my first reaction is always negative, which is not right of me. I think I'll look back at this 40 or 50 years from now, and it'll be like, "Wow, I was part of history."
TV Guide: What was the hardest part?
McPhee: I think those Idol forums â like AmericanIdol.com â should be shut down. It's basically just an opportunity for people to say the meanest things without consequence.
TV Guide: Meaner than the judges?
McPhee: The judges never made me cry. But their comments hurt. I was constantly fighting the pain and putting Band-Aids over the wounds to keep going.
TV Guide: You've just released your self-titled debut CD. What was that like to make?
McPhee: The thing that was hard for me about the studio is that I love to talk. And I was so isolated in the booth. It was pitch-dark and quiet, and [the producers] would be outside talking and I'd be like, "Hello? Guys? What are you saying about me?" I would hope that my second record would be less of me judging me.
TV Guide: You judged yourself in another way: Prior to Idol, you were treated for bulimia. Are you staying healthy?
McPhee: Everything's changed for me, and it's pretty miraculous just to be in a healthy body and to promote healthy bodies. But what's still hard is body image. Sometimes I love my body and sometimes I think I look so ugly. I'm just being honest.
TV Guide: On your CD's liner notes, you tell your boyfriend (actor Nick Cokas) that you love him more than you can say. What can you tell us about him?
McPhee: I actually snuck out of the Idol house to see him in the beginning. It was great to have that touchstone, a confidant. And then, as the show progressed, I just got really wrapped up in it, and I wasn't nice to him.
TV Guide: Your CD is sassy, upbeat and very different from the power ballads you sang on Idol. Was that sort of the point?
McPhee: If anyone had ever asked me what kind of record I wanted to make, I would've said, "An R&B, pop/soul album," because that's what's on the radio right now. If the record succeeds or fails, at least I can say, "I chose to go this direction." Nobody molded me.
TV Guide: Will you be performing on American Idol this season?
McPhee: If they'll have me back, I'd love to. I love the producers, Ken [Warwick] and Nigel [Lythgoe]. I want to look them in the face and say, "This is the Katharine that I wish I could've been."
TV Guide: Did you ever break down?
McPhee: [Pause] The only time I cried was when Chris Daughtry was eliminated. They said, "Chris is going home," and the show ends and everybody's basically looking at me saying, "It should have been you." They're not actually saying that, but that's what I'm interpreting. Simon [Cowell] said, "You live to see another day." And I just started crying. It felt weird and bad.
Katharine McPhee is making the publicity rounds. In support of her new album, the American Idol star sat down recently with the Associated Press:
Your single just came out, your record is next. How do you feel?
I am so excited. I just look back to a year ago, at this time I was getting ready, preparing for American Idol and I wasn't able to tell anybody I was going to be on America Idol. It's a pretty miraculous thing that I'm now promoting my first single, "Over It," which I'm just loving. ...
It's just a fun pop, up-tempo record. It gives you a little bit more of an insight to who I am, a different side of me. I dance in my car to it and have a great time. It's kind of a celebration of young girls coming together and a lot of those kinds of tunes.
How has your sound changed since you left American Idol?
I always wanted to just sing the kind of things that were a little bit more challenging, rhythmically challenging, like different syncopated kind of beats and stuff like that I didn't get a chance to do on American Idol.
What should fans expect from this record?
It's not a record that I'm just trying to be like, "Oh, I want to be like everybody else." It's something I really relate to, and it's something that is a part of me. I think when you walk away from this record you're going to feel like you know a part of me better -- the girl who was in college or the girl who was in high school versus the girl who was on Idol. You just get to know a little bit more, which is important for a new artist.
How does working in the studio compare to musical theater?
With musical theater, it's so much easier to obviously connect with what you're singing about because you have a live audience and you're getting energy from them. When you're in the studio it's so easy to just kind of be singing the lines, having no emotion behind it. ... That was something that I had to learn in the recording studio, that I had to not only just sing it and make it sound pretty but that the emotion had to carry through.
Your image is much sexier now. Was that intentional?
We didn't think, with this kind of music, a long gown was going to mix well together. That's definitely a part of me. What girly girl doesn't want to get dressed up and go to the prom and look beautiful? But for this kind of music, it was more the side of me who's a typical day-to-day jeans and T-shirt kind of girl with some cute high heels and a ponytail. The cover of the album is pushing the envelope.
It's always about wanting to get people's attention and making a statement.
Katharine McPhee released her debut album yesterday.
And now we have this exclusive shot of last year's American Idol runner-up getting in touch with her sexy side during a shoot for the CD's first music video, "Over It."
It could serve as inspiration for Tatiana McConnico and other young hopefuls in Season Six:
The debut album by Katharine McPhee comes out today. What follows is a review of it by The Boston Globe ...
Six years into the process and they still can't get it right the first time.
They would be the folks charged with helping American Idol contestants make a debut album that just hits it out of the park. An album that isn't, without fail, composed of one big money track, a couple of good songs, and a lot of personality-free filler.
Last year's almost-Idol Katharine McPhee had better pray that top 40 programmers get behind her the way country radio did for 2005 champ Carrie Underwood if she hopes to make it to that all-important second album. Because like Kelly Clarkson before her, McPhee's debut doesn't do justice to what she likely has to offer.
Out today, this unbalanced but promising self-titled debut follows the established American Idol formula almost to the letter.
Although McPhee, a former student at the Boston Conservatory, was positioned as an old-fashioned vocalist on the show with her fan-favored rendition of "Over the Rainbow," she also excelled at lighter pop fare such as KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree."
The album's cabal of songwriters and producers - including, but not limited to, Timbaland protégé Nate "Danja" Hills , pop song doctor Kara DioGuardi , and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds - try unsuccessfully to cram both of those sides, and a few others, onto one record.
The first single, "Over It," is a soul-spiced, mid - tempo kiss-off of the sort that's been especially popular of late -- see Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" (by the same writers) and Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone. " It's a good style for McPhee. Yet her generic vocal makes it sound as if it could be a demo for any one of the above
An obligatory pair of big, blowsy Mariah Carey-style piano anthems should play to the core Idol audience, but they do nothing to illuminate who the 22-year-old California native is beyond a pretty girl with a pretty voice.
A few ill-advised flirtations with the type of sister-friend soul associated with Mary J. Blige -- impeccably produced by Hills -- only manage to make McPhee seem squarer than she actually is, and a lite-reggae number is best not spoken of again.
But for almost every ridiculous song like "Open Toes" - a slick dance track that's supposed to be in the sassy Christina Aguilera mold but, by being about shoes, is just silly - there is a gem like "Better Off Alone." This ruminative blues sounds relaxed and emotionally honest, and plays into strengths McPhee displayed on the show.
Nonsensically , McPhee and her handlers placed "Better Off Alone," as well as the dreamy Babyface contribution "Everywhere I Go," at the end of the album. Hopefully, next time McPhee will play to her strong suit instead of trying to play all her cards at once.
With a new look and new sound, Katharine McPhee is promoting her debut release, which hits stores on Jan. 30.
During a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with AOL Television editor Geoff Bennett, McPhee opened up about her new album, an upcoming role on Ugly Betty, and what was really going through her mind during the American Idol finale.
AOL has exclusive excerpts of your new CD, and I have to admit I was expecting it to be Streisand-lite. But it's way more Beyonce than Barbara. How difficult was it to make a CD so different from what people would expect?
You know, on the show, you're just trying to get by. I didn't necessarily think that if I chose a song, it was also the kind of sound my record was going to take. I was just thinking about Katharine the competitor, not Katharine the recording artist. When it was time to make the record, it wasn't hard to make the decision; it was hard to communicate that to everybody. If anyone ever asked me what kind of record I wanted to make, I'd always say a pop/R&B record.
But those aren't the songs you chose on the show.
On American Idol, I kind of went with what was naturally safe for me. People are like, "Oh, she made such a different record than we thought." But no one really knows what kind of artist you are going to end up being. No one really knew that Kelly Clarkson was going end up being pop/rock. With Chris Daughtry, it's great because he had a direct vision. But it's different for everyone.
So you feel like it's an accurate representation of who you are as an artist?
Yeah, it's my first record, so I think my second - if, God willing, I get another chance to make another - you'll find more pieces that are really me. It can't be a perfect record; it's the first. It was made really quickly and all that kind of stuff, but I'm really proud of it, and it definitely expresses who I am.
You have a couple dance tracks on there. Are you going to dance in your videos or on tour?
I don't think I ended up with as many dance tracks as I wanted. (Laughs) But I'd really like to.
I imagine you spent a lot of time envisioning what being a pop star would be like. What's been the biggest surprise?
Well, there's a lot. For me it was [realizing] all the people who are involved in making the record and how long it really does take to just sing a line [while recording]. A producer will make you sing it over and over and over again. And as an artist, you do a lot of photo shoots. And it's amazing how many people are standing behind the camera to make you look beautiful. It's so glamorized, and [in reality] it's just really not. You hear celebrities say that all the time, but you really just don't understand it until you are in that position.
And how will American Idol figure into your future? Will you try to distance yourself from it?
I would love to come back this season. I know where I came from, and I'm really grateful and excited to see the people I was with for nine months. Your credibility, if you become successful, will come. Kelly Clarkson has made herself very credible and accepted. And I don't think there's any rush to separate yourself. I think people are accepting 'Idol' more and more as a legitimate competition for talent.
Do you think it's even important to win anymore? I mean, what benefits did Taylor get that you didn't?
Well, at the moment, really nothing. (Laughs) I mean, I think it just depends on luck or destiny. But look at Chris. He's doing amazing, and Jennifer Hudson won a Golden Globe. So I think you don't have to win to do really well. I think you need to make an impression, though.
We asked this question previously of Kelly Clarkson.
Now, we'd like readers to chime in on their preferred look for American Idol Five runner-up, Katharine McPhee. Do you like the star all made up? Or all natural?
