BY GEORGE DENKMAYER
Kelly Clarkson has long since established herself as one of the top commercial artists of all time. With a whopping 25 million album sales worldwide, almost everyone has listened to her songs at some point.. whether they admit this or not. She is simply a breath of fresh air and one of the best voices in pop music today.
After 13 years since her meteoric rise to fame as the winner of American Idol Season 1, and her subsequent album Thankful, Clarkson has proved to be more than capable of rolling with the changes. But, even though everything she has touched has turned to gold – and platinum – is her music still good?.
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Personally, I preferred her music when she was younger. She sang the kind of songs that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Even if they were a bit cheesy. Now, sometimes I think it is hard to tell whether it’s a Jessie J song, an Adele song, a Katy Perry song or Kelly Clarkson song.
But at the end of the day, youtube’s already awash with teenage girls – and boys who sing like teenage girls – doing covers of songs from Piece by Piece. Millions more are at home, singing into their hairbrushes and dancing in front of mirrors. Remixes of songs in various club appropriate genres appeared pretty much instantly. The unarguable fact is that she is very well loved. Her recent cover of Tracey’s Chapman’s soulful ‘give me one reason demonstrated her excellent class beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Her ultra-mainstream, created-for-her-audience, wide commercial appeal style album is both good’and groundbreaking. Guaranteed, if you listen to any of these songs a few times you’ll end up humming a melody or singing along in the car at some point. The heavenly quality that accompanies her stellar voice allied to quality lyrics puts her in a class of her own. Take a look for example to her best song on the album ‘take me high’. Her abstract reference of herself as the embodiment of wings attached to the hearts of her listening fans like angels falling from the sky is simply lyrics from another world. Her other track ‘dance with me’ is one you can dance to all night long. You can see why she blows your mind away. She has the kind of voice that can make anything sound great. And this is what makes her special. It is what she is all about. That is exactly why she is famous. It is why she gets paid the big bucks.
With this as her last contractually obliged pop album, and a country album already in the works, the Kelly Clarkson train keeps on chugging. No doubt we’ll be hearing more inspirational messages sung by her in the not so distant future.
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