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Here are some comments Randy Jackson made about the Kat/Elliott duet on his new CD.
He expresses gratitude to Idol for bringing him together with Elliot Yamin and Katherine McPhee. "When people hear them sing on this track," Jackson declares of 'Real Love', "they're going to be completely blown away."
www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/01/25/randy_jackson_drafts_all_star_team_of_ar
I can not wait to hear this!!!
That's awesome Bill, I can't wait to hear it! Kat and Elliott were my two favorites from Season 5, so I'm totally digging this collaboration. On another note in regards to Randy's album, I just received this e-mail from OnCamera Audiences -
Paula Abdul is performing in a live music video of her new hit, Dance Like There's No Tomorrow with Randy Jackson and his band and free tickets are available to be in the audience and be a part the video! The video will be recorded and then air as part of the Super Bowl next weekend. Yes, you read that corectly! Watch Paula and Randy perform in an intimate studio, be in their music video, and take part in Super Bowl history! The video is being taped this Sunday, January 27th at Fox Studios in Los Angeles and the arrival times are 12 PM and 3 PM. The minimum age to attend is 12 and all tickets are free! For more information and to request tickets, please use the following link. Thanks! PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS EVENT IS STANDING ROOM ONLY.
Unfortunately, I'm not a LaLa Lander and am based in the Yaaaaay Area, but I would got to this in a heartbeat. I'm actually happy to hear Paula doing something again, that girl can bust a move or two, her singing, ummm - not bad . . . I love Paula, she just cracks me up and is a beautiful airhead.
Randy always did appreciate Kat, more than the others I think.
I'm really DYING to hear this track!
Elliott has one of the best male voices in AI history, and should blend exquisitely with Kat.
This great news that will help Katharine get going this year
THE FOLLOWING WAS POSTED BY KEN AT IDOLFORUMS. HE WAS RESPONDING TO A POST FROM A NON-FAN FORUM STATING THAT IF YOU CAN'T SELL KATHARINE MCPHEE YOU'RE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS. I DIDN'T THINK I COULD IMPROVE ON IT A BIT SO HERE IT IS.
Kat is very adult-like, and she has a 40-plus year-old mate. I don't think teens ever really took to her. Even for those who liked Idol, i think it's corny to admit you like idol and that's where you get your music from unless you are a Southerner following a country artist. Plus Kat represented this "rich" LA girl who many saw as snobby, and I think a lot of people in this country didn't like that image (the one that many projected on to kat whether it was deserved or not). Over It was a song for a young market, yet I don't think Kat appealed to that demographic. If she was 4 or 5 years younger the story would have been different. Most female pop stars gain their audience when the singers themselves are in their teens. I can't think of any who didn't. 23 is kind of old for a pop star who is just trying to break into that market and gain an audience. Apparently Idol doesn't count as a first record. That said her debut album wasn't necessarily pop or for a younger audience but that is what the only single that they pushed said the record was. That's what Over It represented. Still, it was the safest song for them to choose, so I can understand why they chose it. Pop music doesn't attract the strongest loyalty to the artist though, it's more about the song. You download the song, not the album. The song is catchy. I mean.... we could barely tell that "Over It" was actually sung by Kat so how are we to expect it to create any sort of loyalty to Kat the singer? So it didn't drive album sales. From out of the gate I felt Kat should try to capture the "starbucks crowd". To me Kat can be considered cool.. by an audience, which i don't think she is now. To me, she can be considered cool and hip by appealing to people at least her age, and coming off as this gorgeous woman with amazing talent whose record and music is mature and adult enough for adults to like it. The music has to make young adult woman almost want to be like Kat and for men to have a high level of respect for her artistry and music, which will make her come off as extremely sexy. The record she put out was too immature for those folks, especially when Over It is representing it, and i don't think she fits the pop star image. And she's definitely vanilla, which unfortunately is a problem in today's market place when you are trying to hook young people. The album cover was edgy but the music was not. And Kat was not... look at her in her tv appearances with her body language. There was soooooo much incongruency going on during her debut album era. The person she is doesn't fit the Look-at-Me-I-Am-So-Great-You-Wish-You-Could-Be-Like-Me formula that artists use to hook the young market. That's why hip-hop does so well, it's guys rapping about how great they are, and people who are forming their self-image in high school wanting to attach themselves to that. Plus the beats are hot. Kat needs mature songs that an older audience will like. Get the yuppies, and a lot of people will follow. Young people will discover and appreciate her (just as they do with Norah or Joss) as will the 40-plus demographic. Kat's image as an artist should be aiming for beautiful, classy, talented, smart and as having something to say. The lyrics shouldn't be so simplistic. Make people have to think a bit about what a song means. Kat has a chance to appeal to everybody... just as john mayer does. People want to like Kat. They want to give Kat a chance. People pay attention to what Kat does. She almost has an competitive advantage in that regard. However, there have not been a lot of positive moments since she left idol and she won't be able to capitalize on that so easily if she doesn't get something to hang her hat on soon, whether it be the movie or the album. Of course, maybe I am just trying to make Kat into something I want her to be, and something she's not. Maybe she has no interest in trying to be all Starbucks or to say something in her music. She wanted the young and fun thing before, and maybe that's who she is. I think she is that in a lot of ways, she is young and she is a lot of fun even if she doesn't party or is ready to settle down. But it's going to be hard for her to succeed like that if they don't take a different approach. It should be easy to sell Kat but they have to figure out what went wrong the first time around and definitely get it right the second time around. They have to try to sell something to people that they want.
Fantastic post Ken wherever you are!
And thanks for bringing it here, Groucho.
I hope she finds the right place to kick some butt with her singing. I think she's best at the the female John Mayer kind of stuff too, but I want her to be 100% happy with whatever it is she chooses....I want feel the Kat zone.
WOW!!! GREAT SONG! It is so catchy and I think it will blow the top off the charts! Is is confirmed that this is THE song?
The record she put out was too immature for those folks, especially when Over It is representing it, and i don't think she fits the pop star image. And she's definitely vanilla, which unfortunately is a problem in today's market place when you are trying to hook young people. The album cover was edgy but the music was not. And Kat was not... look at her in her tv appearances with her body language. There was soooooo much incongruency going on during her debut album era. The person she is doesn't fit the Look-at-Me-I-Am-So-Great-You-Wish-You-Could-Be-Like-Me formula that artists use to hook the young market. That's why hip-hop does so well, it's guys rapping about how great they are, and people who are forming their self-image in high school wanting to attach themselves to that. Plus the beats are hot.
I agree with majority of it and it's a great point of view that I've been waiting to see from someone, but there is one thing that caught me that isn't intirely true.
Well, first hip-hop or r&b. Whichever people prefer to call it.. Most the guys are singing that type of genre do sing more about themselves, but that's just the male artist and not every last one of them. The female artist in R&B are different.
Anyways! It's pretty much like this, change is a very risky and hard move to make in the music industry. It is hard to get used to in life itself, and it was very shocking. I know I'm only 20 years old, but I love the album and I'm happy she chose the genres because it really did bring out the spunky younger side of her that we haven't been able to see.
But Ken you were right on the money with alot of that!
Now back on topic, I can't wait to hear the song it's going to be awesome with Kat and Elliott singing. He really has been one of the best vocalist on AI as far as male.
I will follow Groucho's lead and post something from IDF by nat90620 that i think is very worthy of reading: Kat + urban = thumbdown.gif I don't like either song, to be honest. OW is just pure schmaltz and DWYD is 'white suburban chick trying to sound like a hood sista' - ugh. Terrible choice of a song to put into that album. I think she needs to go a little more acoustic in her sound and have less of the overproduction that plagued her first album. Songs that sound a little more rock than R&B but that are sung in a very soulful style (i.e. music that sounds like soft rock but isn't really).... mostly upbeat songs about something OTHER than relationships (think Sheryl Crow/Natasha Beddingfield/Natalie Imbruglia), a couple of well-written, very soulful ballads along the vein of BOA or Mary Jane (as opposed to OW or Home, which are Celine-ish and would never sell)... and one or two very powerful, statement-making songs that get released as singles... something with strong vocals that women can identify with and latch onto. Something that screams "I arrived:" Bitch - Meredith Brooks Rehab - Amy Winehouse You Oughta Know - Alanis Morisette All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow Unwritten - Natasha Beddingfield Torn - Natalie Imbruglia Thank You - Dido She needs one of THOSE songs... i.e. something that makes a statement. Only something that doesn't sound like any of those, but sounds like KAT. Soulful vocals with instruments that let her actually SING instead and don't compete with her or make her try to do the impossible (like the layering in Open Toes that made it impossible to sing live).
Well, first hip-hop or r&b. Whichever people prefer to call it.. Most the guys are singing that type of genre do sing more about themselves, but that's just the male artist and not every last one of them. The female artist in R&B are different
that's true. but i do think of hip-hop as different then r&b.
^Thanks Ken!
nat makes some very good points.
I do too, but a lot of people put it together now, if you listen to older songs you can see a bigger difference in the genres than you do now.
And I agree with your other post too Ken! I want to hear more of an accoustic soulful version of her voice actually. She really does have such a gorgeous voice and on albums they change it around a lot. They need to try to go with her natural voice as much as possible, she doesn't need all these machines to fix anything with her voice. It's all right there naturally!
I'm just adding some thoughts here, taken from something I said in an email, just as they occurred to me this morning.
"Thinking back, the one thing that seems obvious is that K. is like a kid with too much stimulation in her environment--there's so much music out there, and her musical sensors just twitch and grab it all and she likes so much of it, she reminds me of me in college, first being introduced to a whole world full of authors with different styles, different points of view, different temperaments, all these wonderful things to read, and since I've always liked to write, I'd want to write something in the style of the last person I read and enjoyed. Whether I could or not. And even if I could, it would be derivative, and not an "instant classic" because I'm just a person who likes to write, and is maybe better at it than the average guy on the street, but still, I'm not Shakespeare or e.e. cummings or W.H. Auden or John Donne or Hemingway or any of those guys who get taught in lit classes. I was like that at her age, and it seems perfectly understandable. It's just that if she wants to run with the big dogs, and okay shoot me because I'm agreeing with Clive, but she has to find her own sound and style. She can't imitate them to be one of them, not and be on the first tier.
"But I think she's done that this past year, actually. To me, she seems quite in her element, happy, sounding wonderful, doing stuff everyone is ape&%$ about, when she's doing the acoustic versions of her own songs and the covers we've heard--songs she sometimes practically rewrote that time around, singing them with soul and feeling and pouring her heart into. To me, she found her sound. She wasn't imitating anyone else. She didn't sound like a Paula Cole wannabe or an Alanis wannabe, she sounded like a Katharine McPhee original. That's what I want the world to hear."
I may have said this before. Well, I just said it again.
Like when she did "Say It Right." It sounded just like it!!