Billboard.com
1/9/08


Katharine McPhee has joined fellow "American Idol" contestants Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard as former members of the Sony BMG family. The artist has parted ways with RCA after a solitary album, a 2007 self-titled affair that debuted at No. 2 on The Billboard 200.

A label source confirmed McPhee's departure, which was first reported by Entertainment Weekly.

McPhee struggled to connect with a wide audience with her debut, which was led by the single "Over It." That track topped out at No. 22 on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream chart and No. 29 on the Hot 100. The album has sold just 366,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As McPhee told Billboard last year, she quickly realized the art of the compromise when it came to record the album, fresh off the road from the "American Idols Live" tour.

McPhee fell particularly in love with two tracks from producer Ryan Leslie, but then they wound up not making the cut. "I'm learning that's the way it goes in this business," she said. "You give and you take."


In contrast to "Idol" stars like Bo Bice and Hicks, who had already spent years pursuing a music career, McPhee's prior experience was limited to musical theater. Once in album-making mode, she also struggled with putting her own stamp on material that had been submitted by veteran songwriters.

"The demos, it's so hard once you hear whoever is singing to get that out of your head, especially for me, being new to recording," she said. Being able to craft songs with outside collaborators like Danja, Babyface and Kara DioGuardi generated "the memory of where we were when we were writing the song. There's a kind of history behind it."
[Edited 1/10/08 21:17pm]

Copycat said:

Honestly to me she actually was one of the few that had the "voice" but sometimes vocals are not whats being looked for especially now. Though she is a complete package, ballad wise her track "Ordinary World" was what Mariah used to be able to do but stopped doing about a decade ago, so i knew that wouldnt catch on. Mcphee already has 2 movies coming out this summer, so im not surprised she is off the label because i think most idols are on 1 album deals, especially non-winners, i think she will either hook up with another, i heard that she already has a track for her upcoming movie soundtrack, so if its an indie release or theres another deal in the works, who knows, but just checking her officially run site and myspace site, she wont starve for attention and fans.

Also this is re-structuring time at labels, the 4th quater closes at the end of February so expect to see more people not re-signed.
[Edited 1/9/08 17:45pm]

Could record companies be losing that much money on these artists as well as having that little confidence in their futures.

I'm not an AI fan by any means, but the entertainment industry is in trouble between plumetting record sales and the writer's strike. Hopefully once this recession (which is going to happen soon) ends, there will be some kind of rennassiance of music (in a different format and in quality) as well as TV and movies.

VinnyM27 said:

You see i acutally dig Katharine Mcphee and thought there was something to work with, but as usual the label wanted to go the safe route and try to make her this "hip hop" sounding girl on alot of tracks, which didnt work considering she was coming from "musical theater" they had some ballads to work with and should have been singles but they seemed to give up right after the first single. Which is why i still say to people had any of their fave artists like Prince,Inxs,U2,Rem,Depeche Mode,The cure etc..come out now they would all be dropped after their first record. The industry does not want to invest in someone that might be around past an album which is sad, its either make it now or next please. As i said a few months back the Music Industry now is just like the Movie Industry, with its bloated marketing costs, its doomed to failure, and when it fails the ones that will get cut are not the ones causing the failure.

As far as confidence, people at labels have no clue on the music front, and i say that because i was around people who were around them 24/7, and what they all said was that people at labels, no nothing about music at all, they are mainly all Business majors, accounting majors, law majors and marketing majors, notice the one missing thing? a music major. and though people dont wanna admit it, the system wasnt always set this way, 20 years ago a label wasnt afraid to lose a million on a Prince record because they had someone of his stature, now "loss" is unacceptable. As for Katharine McPhee, she is 100% better off, because she actually has talent and seems to be a happy content person, as for labels, well they arent to happy and content, and the future doesnt look bright for them.