You’re Going Crazy, Running on Empty

It hasn’t been a good month for Kelly Clarkson. First it was leaked that the president of her label, Clive Davis, hated her new album, My December, so much he wanted to her to scrape most of it and reportedly wanted to replace some of the song with ones that already appeared on Lindsay Lohan’s album, an album that bombed in its own right. Then during her dispute with her label, Clarkson dumped her management team. All the while her first single from the album, Never Again, failed to make a dent at radio thanks in part because there was a universal yawn from the general public even after she tucked her tail between her legs to perform the song on American Karaoke after publicly distancing herself from the show pretty much since the forgettable karaoke movie she stared in. But on the bright side Clarkson successfully convinced her label to push up the release date of the album about a month so her fans would know the songs before embarking on her tour. Granted that victory ended up being a little shallow considering her tour of arenas recently got canceled due to poor sales.

Upon hearing My December it is hard not to answer the question to who was right, Clarkson or Davis and Clive is the clear winner in that there are no marketable songs on the album although it still is much better than Lohan’s. Whereas Never Again was virtually ignored, there really isn’t much better here. Sober, with its slow crawling acoustic groove, really is the only song here worth the price of admission. But it still doesn’t even rank in the pantheon that hosts Kelly ten best songs thanks to her ruining ending with her incisive need to try to turn the song into to a power balled.

It is not coincidental that the best songs on the album are the slower songs like Sober, Be Still and the album closer Irvine because when she tries to rock out on the rest of the album the result range from Never Again where she fails to Judas where she fails miserably to Yeah which is laughable because it sounds like she is actually trying to recreate a Sly and the Family Stone song. Almost as laughable is the Euro-trash One Minute. And it may have been a good idea to have the hidden track Shivas, where it sounds as if she is trying to channel Leadbelly, stay hidden. By the end of the album you may want to take her advise to, “don’t waste you’re time on me.”

But what really brings down Never Again isn’t the music rather its lyrics, which much like the whole album was co-written by Clarkson. Since U Been Gone was a quirky kiss off of a failed relationship that could get anyone to sing along to in the car. Never Again is just a spiteful jagged little pill that not many people would want to swallow with Clarkson coming off as a vengeful ageing starling whose husband/boyfriend just upgraded to a younger model by wishing “the ring you gave to her turns her finger green.” She much not watch My Name Is Earl otherwise should would have though of the karma effects of the line, “it must suck to see my face everywhere.” But it may don on her when the dude is happy to see her face when she is reduced to bunking up with the Dude You’re Getting a Dell guy while Fred Durst leers on for the 2012 edition of The Surreal Life. Well of course that is only if she gets an invite considering Sanjiya may be the producers first pick to be their token reality star that season.

Song to Download - Sober

My December gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.