so it goes

Let me get this out of the way first: I love Kelly Clarkson. Not in a standard, “yeah, her music’s pretty cool” kind of way, but in a “how is one person so singularly awesome?” kind of way. I hate how music snobs are so dismissive of her. It’s like, um, have you ever actually listened to her stuff? It’s not just music-by-numbers. It’s real.

But then an album like Stronger comes out, and it gets harder and harder to use this defence. 

I should say here that I loved My December, and that it’s actually one of my favourite albums ever. I know a lot of people didn’t like it, including KC fans, but I thought it was almost perfect. Music is at its best when its real, and My December is so, so real. It’s a shame that it didn’t do better.

When it was followed by All I Ever Wanted, I was disappointed. I remember listening to it for the first time and being a little bemused. But, but… where’s the Sobers, and the Don’t Waste Your Times? What’s going on? What’s with the incessant THIS IS POP DANCE DANCE DANCE!!! There are a few tracks on there that I’ve come to love, but as a whole I thought the album was an unhappy compromise on the part of Kelly and the record company, as a way to appease fans who just wanted Since U Been Gone rewritten and sung over and over again.

I had high hopes for Stronger. When I read enthusiastic preamble saying that it was like all the good bits of her previous albums put together, I got excited. Heart and hooks? Yes please! 

But no. It’s just THIS IS POP DANCE DANCE DANCE! LISTEN TO THE HOOK! HOOK! HOOK! ELECTRO POP THIS IS SO MODERN. 

These are the kinds of albums that make me wish record companies just didn’t exist, and artists just magically had the ability to make exactly the kind of album they wanted to without any industry interference. How amazing would that be?