My December

by

Kelly Clarkson

Edit

I was never a Kelly Clarkson fan until this week. I didn't watch her on American Idol. I bought her first CD because I liked the single "A Moment Like This," but wound up disliking the rest of the CD. Sure, I found all those Top 10 hits from Breakaway catchy, but they were just so sugary. There was no real emotion in them; it was blatantly obvious that they existed solely to become hits and sell CDs. After a while, "Since U Been Gone," "Breakaway," "Behind These Hazel Eyes," and "Because of You" melted into one big, mindless pop song trying to cash in on the emo craze and simultaneously retain pop radio appeal. And while they did get stuck in my head, I refused to listen to them because they seemed so obviously manufactured.

Not so with this disc. I downloaded it when it leaked on the Internet, just to see if it was any better than Breakaway. At that time, I hadn't heard about the controversy surrounding the album, so I wasn't biased in Kelly's favor; if anything, I had exceedingly low expectations for the album. Instead, I fell in love with it at first listen.

These songs are overtly different. They're not trying to be bouncy summer radio sing-alongs. They're not trying to reel you in with catchy hooks and keep you satisfied with lightweight melodies and inconsequential lyrics. These songs are heartfelt and, at times, downright hardcore. The lyrics aren't world-changing, but they ring true, and their titles are blessedly devoid of cutesy intentional misspellings. My December may not be steak, but it's certainly more filling than Breakaway-esque cotton candy.

In fact, when I first listened to the album, it reminded me of nothing so much as Origin-era Evanescence: pre-Fallen, pre-fame, pre-studio gloss. Those songs were much less polished, and would never have survived on contemporary radio, but they were more raw, more real, and they possessed an emotional incandescence that was never matched by any of Evanescence's later material. One could conjure a mental image of the band actually writing, channeling, experiencing them. So it is with this disc.

After falling for this album, I watched Kelly's CMT special with Reba McEntire, and for the first time, I realized how immensely talented Kelly truly is. I never would have noticed had I not listened to this disc. I can now say that I am a true Kelly Clarkson fan, and I will be buying this CD on my next trip to Wal-Mart. There are very few artists whose albums I deem worthy of buying after sampling them online, but I believe that Kelly has earned my money and my support with this album, and I hope that it does extremely well for her.

Kelly Clarkson far outshines her pop contemporaries on this cd. Mainly because she can actually, you know . . . sing.

A lot of the songs sound like "Since U Been Gone," both in subject matter of the lyrics and the full-throated, booming chorus. What caught me by suprise, though, were the softer songs on the album. They reveal the quality and subtlety of her voice.

Seeing as how she got her start on American Idol, I did not think Kelly was much more than a media creation. I grouped her in with Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears. After listening to My December I can see that Kelly Clarkson is in a whole other league.

Kelly Clarkson is one of the few good things to come from American Idol. And while I was not completely blown away by My December, it is good enough to make me wonder about the possible directions her music may take her.