American Idol alum Katherine McPhee has just released a new music video for her beautiful and haunting track "Say Goodbye," which will be included on the soundtrack of the upcoming faith film "I Am." The movie will be directed by John Ward, and has garnered a lot of hype in recent weeks. McPhee has such a beautiful voice that is full of raw emotion which can really be felt in this heart-felt song. It's actually a really beautiful video, but it's heartbreaking as well.McPhee has a cloudless voice and a warm, wide-eyed Alice in Wonderland quality that won her swarms of fans on American Idol's fifth season - if Simon Cowell had a ready antonym for "ghastly," there's little room for doubt about which contestant he would have applied it to. McPhee warmly laughs as she confesses she's been in "artistic hiding" for the last few years. "It took me a long time to figure out where I wanted to go and be as an artist," she says. "I needed time to learn who I was as a musician." Once she discovered the answer, however, her path was sure and swift. McPhee is an R&B-leaning pop disc that pulls the urgency and tenderness out of her voice and pins it smack in the center of each song. If there's a crisp, smartly maneuvered Christina Aguilera-meets-Beyoncé-and-Mariah sensibility at work in those songs, the ballads belong to McPhee alone.
"Say Goodbye" was the third single and one of six tracks co-written by McPhee lifted from her sophomore album "Unbroken," which was released in January. In an interview with AOL, she was asked how therapeutic she found the lyric-writing process to be. The American Idol runner-up replied: "It depends on the day and who I'm in the room with. A lot of times I was really stubborn going into some of the writing sessions because I didn't want to write that day or something. But at the end I was really excited about what we did, and obviously all of it doesn't make the record, but it's cool to hear the finished product and have that memory of what it takes to go from a blank piece of paper to a full song."
The devastating, string–laced ballad "Say Goodbye," received its premiere when McPhee appeared on CBS drama "CSI: New York." McPhee guest-starred as a singer and stalker victim turned murderer and sang a partial version of the song during the episode. Written about the pain that precedes an inevitable break up, "Say Goodbye," is "the slit your wrist song," McPhee says, "This record is definitely more personal to me." Listeners will discover a glorious side of McPhee's supple, clear voice, resonating with emotion and confidence, caresses each note on this collection of soon–to–be pop classics. Her vocals also display a new vulnerability and maturity that make unbroken compelling listening. And yet come through to the other side, as McPhee does, "Unbroken." McPhee is currently working on a Christmas album that will be released in time for the holidays.
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