It’s taken her two records, but 2006 “American Idol” runner-up Katharine McPhee thinks she’s finally figured out who she wants to be.
“Unbroken,” McPhee’s second album since losing to Taylor Hicks in the fifth season, asks listeners to bear with her just a bit longer as she navigates life, love, art and — in at least one unfortunate case — a disagreement with her record producer. It’s also a 13-track lesson for the new crop of “Idol” contestants.
Her advice: “Know who you are as an artist,” the 25-year-old says. “I just really went on the show because I wanted to be an actress. I thought it would be a vehicle to make a name for myself.”
She did, selling almost 400,000 records, but then she parted ways with RCA, got picked up by Universal subsidiary Verve Forecast and promptly fell into a sophomore slump. “I had this incredible label and this incredible support, but I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do,” she says.
Rather than shrinking into a career of cover tunes at county car shows, she took a year and a half to record her next album. She left her LA hometown when paparazzi infested her longtime hangouts and headed for Nashville, where she took up with a circle of songwriter types, on the advice of Universal CEO Doug Morris.
McPhee wound up writing about 35 tunes herself (only six made the final cut), digging through years-old journals and piecing together her darkest, most personal subject matter to date. “It was definitely a journey, this record,” she says.
On the second song, “Had It All,” co-written by “Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi, she sings about leaving behind “blue skies, sunshine and butterflies” and asks, “Why did I believe that little voice that led me down the path to this bad choice?”
Six tracks later on “Say Goodbye,” she’s over it. “I don’t think I want to go back to where I used to be, like it was before.” On “How,” she decries the “too many pieces of my heart to put back together.” By the end of the CD, she’s “Unbroken” (the title track co-written by Paula Cole).
But the most revealing, personal cut is wedged in the middle. “Last Letter” is a kiss-off to a former suitor she met at the same timeshe met her would-be husband. “He was kind of a jerk,” she says.
So far, so good. “Idol” followers love juicy helpings of heartbreak and happy endings, and as a bonus, McPhee has emerged from the process with a new look, shedding her auburn locks for a bleach-blond bob that’s already been roundly dissed by nemesis Simon Cowell.
But it’s the regretful production by John Alagia (Jason Mraz, Dave Matthews, Liz Phair) that might challenge those that came to McPhee via “Idol.” He lets her voice warble at times and stray off key. On “Last Letter,” an effects-drenched studio band makes her dry vocal sound like a field recording.
“Me and the producer had some disagreements, so it ended up a bit funky,” she says. “I think on every record, there’s always something you want to go back and fix. That was the one song I’d go back and fix.”
Could this be the sound of a polished “Idol” product sounding . . . human? She always was one of Cowell’s black sheep.
“I don’t think she was a credible recording artist,” Cowell told “Extra” in 2009.
“Simon’s such a nice person, so I really care about what he has to say,” she tells The Post.
Is sarcasm in her repertoire, now, too? “Yeah,” she says.