McPheever Rises

You can hear Katharine McPhee's first single and B-side here. It's not really released for another couple of weeks, but I guess Kiss radio is special. Anyway, I point it out because the recording is actually so much better than I was expecting it to be. "Over the Rainbow" has replaced "My Destiny" as the main single, which is a great change, with "My Destiny" now the B-side instead of "Think," which is already available on the AI S5 Encores CD. I didn't think she could top her "Over the Rainbow" performances on the show, especially after hearing her sing the song many times on various radio and TV shows since, but it's amazingly good on the recording. It was obviously recorded before she started losing her voice towards the end of the show (her first couple of post-show performances on the radio and TV sounded painful, almost, but she seemed to be recovering by her appearance on The Early Show last week). She's been singing it too fast on her media appearances, I suppose due to time constraints, but she lets it linger on the recording, and it's delicious.

And, get this. Even "My Destiny" sounds a lot better. Sure, it's still got insipid lyrics, and it's still overly bubble-gummy, but compared to what we heard on the show, this is way better. As in, actually listenable. In an interview Kat mentioned that they'd had to drop the key a half-step to accomodate the fact that she was losing her voice and running on cortisone and adrenaline the night of the finale, and that it sounded better on the recording. She wasn't just making that up...her voice is in better shape here, and the key really does make a difference in the tone of the song. But I hope she gets better-written songs from here on out.

Incidentally, Taylor is People Magazine's Most Eligible Bachelor as of tomorrow's issue. In case you're interested.

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• katharine-mcphee
• american-idol