[Album] Kelly Clarkson - Greatest Hits - Chapter One
KELLY CLARKSON - GREATEST HITS - CHAPTER ONE
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| Kelly's first GH - Chapter ONE |
First greatest hits for American popstar Kelly Clarkson. Celebrating her 10th anniversary since the victory of the very first edition of American Idol who brought her to the attention of millions of fans, she is now closing the first big chapter of her carrier with a Greatest Hits. Here's what we think.
The Background
Before going deeply into the contruction of this Greatest Hits, let's have a brief talk about the decision behind this release. As we all know quite well, Kelly's relationship with her label got quite controversial after the worldwide success of her sophomore album Breakway. All the drama surrounding her third album, My December, the poor choices for her follow-up All I Ever Wanted, then the Already Gone/Halo drama, the unstoppable leaks and then the peace after the storm with her latest studio album Stronger.
Things were getting all sorted out, apparently. Then this project came to surface.
Releasing a greatest hits after 5 studio albums is definitely more than understandable, what seems a bit strange is the timing for this release. She was still on her European tour promoting Stronger when the first single from the Greatest Hits was announced and released. Citing Kelly, this was totally a decision of the label saying “You gotta release a Greatest Hits right now.” and she said “whatever”, took a song she wrote with her musical director and agreed on this release. A part from sounding very rushed, this release sounds very much just as a “contract accomplishment” for her 6 albums deal with RCA. Wasn't the controversy over? Or is this just the highest point of it? What should we expect next? For now, let's take a look at it and then we will talk about it.
The Review
This collection comes quite clear: a collection of almost all the singles released since American Idol. The only single being cut off is her third single Low (but the video did the cut for the DVD tracklist, The Trouble With Love Is got the opposite treatment). None of the fake singles (Don't Waste Your Time, Sober) off My December made the tracklist.
The new material consists of 3 traks: first single Catch My Breath, country flavoured Don't Rush and pop anthem People Like Us.
Catch My Breath is a low tempo Teenage Dream-ish song with simple but nice lyrics and a soft music. Not anything particularly exciting, she definitely has something more in her bag than this one, but the lyrics quite fit the situation plus she probably did it on purpose to save better songs for better projects. She started promoting this directly on Stronger tour, making it quite a Greatest Hits tour, and made some appearances on TV. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this failed to top charts or conquering radios. Not only she is more than aware of this, but she seems not to care a single bit for this. This proves that something is left unsaid!
The country touch with Don't Rush is a nice surprise. After her very good duet with Jason Aldean, she is taking this path again with this duet with country star Vince Gill. Soft and tender melody, calm and controlled vocals for a very adult song. This is getting released for country radios and got a live preformance with Vince Gill but it is probably not going to top the performance on charts of Don't You Wanna Stay. For a non-teenage fan, this is a highlight of this.
She gets back to her pop stardom with new anthem People Like Us. Basically , it is a follow-up of the topcharting What Doesn't Kill You/Stronger. Good rhythm, lyrics are a bit “too much”, this is not a bad song, but isn't it too early to look for a next pop anthem when it's just few month after her latest one was a worldwide success? And to be completely honest, I'm getting quite fed up with her singing this kind of songs, a fan knows she has so much more to say. Next official single? Probably! Next success? Not sure of that, the audience is not so dumb.
The Bonus surprise
One thing that is really worth to mention is the bonus EP which is coming along with this release (in physical just for America, only digital for the rest of the world): The Smoakstack Session vol. 2. That is really good! Second collection of covers coming from the experience of her previous tour, this is a great thing to have. Amazing blues tunes, rockish flavours, outstanding vocals, she is giving her best in these covers. My personal favourite: Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved a Man, check this out, now!
The verdict
Nice collection, fans will like it but won't love the moment this is coming out. Too close to the latest studio album, not much of new material, we could all wait a bit longer for a proper and better concept for a greatest hits. The question is: is she completing the contract in order to finally move into some more selfcontrolled projects with a new label? When Stronger came out, it wasn't that sure, the label did great things with this album (even though the sells weren't extrordinary as they were expecting) but this decision put a question mark again. Is she done with RCA? Does she have a huge plan B in the pocket? Is she going to Country music for good? Everything seems unsure. The more creative control, the better for the quality of her music, she needs no Katy Perry or Beyoncé leftovers, no more drama, and probably she is 30 now, she also won't need teenage anthems anymore. What she needs is to maintain an international profile, she is not worldwide successful as she is used to be but she has got fans all over the world and that is for sure, fans that will be very disappointed if the decision of choosing a minor label will turn into not finding her albums in the stores or not having the chance to see her on tour, then she will have a big trouble to still be Kelly Clarkson. She has got too much talent to let this happen, she needs to close this chapter and open a better one. Best of luck, Kelly! Choose wisely and we are waiting for the rest of the story.
Buy it here: iTunes
[anybody else is feeling some similarity of this in the lately reviewed What You've Done to Me by Samantha Jade?]
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