Yahoo News Katherine McPhee Says She “Had Little Tastes Of Success” After ‘American Idol’: “I Didn’t Find A Place In The Recording Industry”
Katherine McPhee was the runner-up of American Idol Season 5 losing to Taylor Hicks back in 2006. Now the singer and actor is opening up about not finding a place in the music industry and her struggles after participating in the reality show.
McPhee returned to music with her husband David Foster for a holiday album after having “retired” from the music industry. It’s been five years since she last released a studio album and in a recent interview talked about her career after Idol.
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“Listen, if you’re a new artist, an unknown artist, and you sell half a million records on your first album, it’s a huge success,” McPhee told Yahoo in an interview. “But of course when you’re coming off of a platform like Idol, the expectation was a million and above. I remember feeling a lot of pressure and being disappointed. I kind of also knew, though, that I wasn’t getting the right lift-off. I don’t feel sorry for myself or anything like that. It’s just kind of how I see it. I’m very practical about it.”
McPhee has found success in the acting world by starring in the Broadway musical Waitress and on television with Smash and Scorpion.
“I didn’t want to take an indefinite break from singing; I just didn’t really find a place in the recording industry,” she added. “I’ve made a lot of albums. I made my first album, which was actually critically really well-received … and I had a lot of celebrity attention post-American Idol. But I never really got that major hit. I had little tastes of success, this, that, and the other, and I had a great touring situation where I was going out and performing live. And so that was great, and I loved it.”
Another thing McPhee noted for not recording new music is her being a perfectionist.
“People send me songs and I’m like, ‘Nope, that’s not going to be good enough!’ I don’t want to do a good song; I want to do a great song. And sometimes those are really hard to come by,” she explained.
McPhee said that she could be “a late bloomer and put out an album” when she’s 40 and have a huge hit that could define her career.
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