Getty Image / Noam Galai
Kate Hudson can sing. I didn’t know this until her recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show but I’m not at all surprised that the actress who played Penny Lane in Almost Famous and who appeared on the film’s poster has the voice of a rock star.
Hudson’s debut album, ‘Glorious,’ will be released on May 17th but she has already released multiple songs from the forthcoming album including ‘Gonna Find Out’ which she sang during her live appearance with Howard Stern. Kate Hudson also busted out covers of ‘Vasoline’ by Stone Temple Pilots and ‘Voices Carry’ by ‘Til Tuesday which I’m not ashamed are the songs that drew me in before listening to ‘Gonna Find Out’ which turned out to be really good.
According to a recent feature in Rolling Stone, industry execs have been clamoring to get her to record an album for years. Really, ever since she became an overnight star following Almost Famous there has been someone in Hollywood trying to get Kate Hudson to record a new album but it has taken 25 years since that movie was filmed for it all to come together.
Kate Hudson Sings New Song ‘Gonna Find Out’ From Her Album ‘Glorious’
The arrangement works. I’d be interested to hear this track with just her, the drummer, and guitarist as well. The backup vocals are excellent but at times they’re driving the song more than her lead vocals and I’d be curious to hear what it would sound like totally stripped down. There are distinct early-to-mid 90s vibes to this song, saxophone and all, which will certainly work with her existing audience which skews millennial-to-order.
And the 90s vibes continue with her cover of ‘Vasoline’ by Stone Temple Pilots which hit the radio in 1994:
‘Voices Carry’ by ‘Til Tuesday goes back even further to 1985. There’s obviously a retro trend going on here. She has a beautiful voice and it would be a shame to hide it behind modern auto-tune but she is only 45-years-old, it’s not as if Kate’s ‘glory days’ were the 80s but her musical influences certainly seem diverse.
In the Rolling Stone profile, Kate revealed she wrote about 30 songs for the album with Linda Perry who was the lead writer for the band 4 Non Blondes. They were strangers when they met in the studio but banged out those 30 songs over the course of about 3 weeks.
Apparently their chemistry was instant. Kate said “the process felt like channeling, and ‘glorious’ just was a word that came out. It was like we were in each other’s heads. It was awesome.”
I, for one, very much look forward to seeing where Kate Hudson’s musical career goes. There’s something poetic about the quintessential ‘groupie’ character from Almost Famous turning out to be a real-life rock star of her own.