I don’t want to tempt fate, but if that’s not a number one, I’ll eat my sofa.

As the man responsible for such songs as Diana Vickers‘ “The Boy Who Murdered Love,” The Saturdays‘ “Chasing Lights,” and Will Young‘s “Anything is Possible,” as well as some of the upcoming material from Pixie Lott and JLS, pop songwriter and producer Chris Braide has seen his fair share of glory in the UK Top 40 recently.

Two weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of speaking with the busy producer from his studio in London (which is about to be packed away and carted stateside!)

I’m quite proud of this interview–we touched upon all sorts of artists and ended up having a really in-depth discussion about the very nature of pop itself.

Read on to hear all the gossip from behind Braide’s soundboard–loads of pop nerd chatter ahead!

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Photo credit: Matt Beard.

For seven years after her all-too-soon exit from American Idol’s second season in 2003, the promise of new music from Kimberly Caldwell cemented itself in the form of a permanent “Coming Soon!” on her official website. Though she would occasionally release snippets and full songs for fans on her MySpace, a definitive announcement was never made.

Over the past few years, Kimberly was quite busy in the studio, testing out sounds and covering songs with some of the industry’s most noteworthy musicians. “I’d been in the studio for years with Dianne Warren, the legendary songwriter—she’s unbelievable. She had kind of been mentoring me, you know, showing me the ropes and stuff in Hollywood.”

Still, nothing materialized as far as an album was concerned. According to Kim, it all came down to her comfort with the process of finding a recording label. “There were a lot of different producers and labels that I had started the initial process of working with,” Caldwell said of the period of time she spent recording after Idol, “and it just never felt right. It never sat right with me. I always kind of felt like I had to compromise who I was, and who I felt that I was as an artist.”

At the same time, Caldwell wasn’t even sure that she herself was prepared for a debut. “Even though I’ve been performing since I was 5 years old, I just didn’t have the right words to really believe in an album to put out at that time.”

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