Listeners, even those eager to project their own heartbreaks onto Clarkson’s unfolding dilemma, are nudged into the role of voyeur. The “you” on this album is a known entity. ![]() “chemistry” is less interested in such universality. The ex in question was vague and malleable a love-scarred listener could affix her own target to it. The effectiveness of that track, which appears on Clarkson’s second studio album, “Breakaway,” hinged on the fluidity of that “U.” Both heartbreak and the relief at having survived it were offered up as universal feelings. Perhaps the defining song of Clarkson’s career thus far, “Since U Been Gone,” is a breakup anthem, but a joyful one-an ode to the liberation found in an ex’s exit. That project-in-the-making, “chemistry,” is finally out, and it is a worthy entry in the annals of breakup albums, a musical gesture that teases, entices, and-for better or worse-provides the public a window into a relationship gone bad. Last year, she said that she’d been working on the record for two years, and that she’d done the Christmas songs because it had provided a joyful break from the difficult realities of her life. ![]() But in 2020, after filing for divorce from her husband of nearly seven years, Brandon Blackstock, Clarkson hinted at new music, claiming that she was writing the “most personal” album she’s ever made. Aside from an album of Christmas songs, in 2021, Clarkson hadn’t released an album of original music since her soul and R. & B.-inspired “Meaning of Life,” from 2017. In recent years, though, Clarkson, who is forty-one, has turned her attention to a daytime talk show, “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” which she hosts weekday mornings with Everywoman aplomb. ![]() In an alternate time line, where the spectre of “Idol” didn’t perpetually hover over Clarkson, she might have been talked about as one of the great rock singers of a generation. During live performances, Clarkson would get in the face of her guitar players as she belted high notes, swing her hair at a violent pace, push the volume past ten. To my mind, Clarkson was like a new evolution of Ann Wilson, the powerhouse front woman of the rock band Heart. At the peak of her popularity (and her vocal might), in the late two-thousands, she seemed most at home performing loud, vibrant rock songs that could nonetheless blend in among the comforts of pop radio. Kelly Clarkson’s voice was always wasted on saccharine ballads such as “A Moment Like This,” the début single that she released, in 2002, after winning the inaugural season of “American Idol.” In the two decades since, Clarkson has proved to be a chameleonic singer, capable of working her way around a wide range of musical genres and production styles.
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