Katharine McPhee: Katharine McPhee : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

If American Idol were a right-wing agenda, cornballs like Clay Aiken and Taylor Hicks would be Bush and Cheney, and Katharine McPhee would be an affable centrist: a little more square than you'd like, but not hopeless. You could imagine McPhee following Kelly Clarkson's lead and doing big-ass pop that makes both Middle America and big-city types happy. But McPhee's debut doesn't render her halfway interesting. The album's twenty-two songwriters mostly avoid schlock but can't come up with an alternative, which makes ballads like "Better Off Alone" and tepid, McPhunky dance pop such as "Do What You Do" just bland. The upbeat "Love Story" and the decent ballad "Everywhere I Go" mix pop and R&B and provide some relief, but most of Katharine McPhee is politics as usual.