Katharine's album, track by track Of all the top Idol finalists from last season, Katharine has been the one with the highest post-show irritation factor. Where Taylor's offered some disarmingly candid interviews, Chris has comported himself with dignity in the wake of massive success, Elliott has comported himself with dignity in the wake of ..
. well, not much yet, Paris has been pretty much below the radar and Kellie has actually improved her public image, Katharine has been plagued with a number of highly publicized incidents (voice problems, foot injury, missed and abbreviated Idol tour shows, bulimia, etc., etc.
) and sometimes airheaded comments. And when she delayed her album's release repeatedly, and decided to do a contemporary rhythmic pop album instead of going in the Eva Cassidy/Diana Krall/Jane Monheit traditional pop-ballad style many expected after , I was fearing the worst. And when I saw the early official publicity photos (and the ones in the press packet accompanying the album), I was not reassured.
But happily (and I say happily because the more Idols that make good albums, the faster we can get start eliminating the widespread condescension and dismissal that mainstream observers love to project toward the show and its stars), I was wrong. Season 5 has produced a good crop of Idol albums -- Taylor, Chris and Kellie have all delivered in their different areas of specialty -- and Katharine's is right up there with them. It's not flawless by any means.
There are some unfortunate choices of material, some of which make Katharine sound awkward trying to be down with the sounds of today and and others that just make for tedious listening. The overall sound is not that different from the glut of Britneys, Jessicas, Ashlees, Paula DeAndas, JoJos and so forth, but Katharine adds another dimension because she's a fine technical singer. (Well, JoJo can sing, too, but apart from her two superb hit singles, her material pretty much wallows in mediocrity.
) My colleague Elysa Gardner says Katharine and the songs just reminded her of warmed-over Mariah Carey imitations, and there's some truth to that -- but the key point is that Katharine's model is the good Mariah, the Mariah of rather than the Mariah of ...
(Not a big fan of Mariah's repertoire, just for the record.) There are times that remind me of Christina Aguilera, too (another good singer whose material is largely abysmal). But altogether, this is a consistently solid album with a few real high points that rank among the best songs in the overall Idol canon.
Owing to the (unexpected) length of this post so far, I'm going to make you read on for the traditional track-by-track analysis, which follows (plus clips if you want to sample the tracks).
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