Idol Chatter & Voice Views

One of my favorite Idol contestants from season eight has released a holiday album that’s available for download.

Kristen McNamara, aka KMac, may not have made it past the Idol semifinals, but I still attribute that more to the show’s flawed format in season eight than to any shortage of vocal talent.

The same fate befell Ricky Braddy, Junot Joyner and others during a season in which semifinalists got all of 90 seconds to make their musical pitch to America.

Since the show, Kristen has moved from Nashville to L.A. And she just announced the completion of an eight-track holiday album called “Smile.”

From what I can tell, it appears to feature five original songs, plus two covers of “What Child Is This” (one a dance mix) and a cover of “Silent Night.”

In a message to fans, Kristen says she made the album using studio stuff she purchased after the passing of her uncle, who she says was like a father to her.

“I made it all, from the artwork to writing the songs,” Kristen writes. “Nobody else touched it, except for the old men who wrote ‘Silent Night’ and ‘What Child Is This’ back in the stone age. HA!”

One thing about Kristen. She has a good sense of humor.

For instance, the message on her MySpace page says: “Don’t judge my hair color. It’s all ’bout the music.”

When I interviewed Kristen earlier this year, we wound up talking about how certain Idol judges seemed more interested in judging her fashion sense or her hair color (blond with purple streaks on audition day) than her voice.

She admitted toning down her hair for the semifinals, but also said she was heading back to the hairdresser that day and thinking of putting the pink back in.

Looks like she did.

Meanwhile, if you want to hear samples of the songs on the holiday album, head to that MySpace page. Just beware of the fact that she has two music players on the homepage and, if you aren’t careful, you’ll wind up listening to two different holiday songs at the same time.