When I was younger, I made my father go see Kelly Clarkson's horrible movie "From Justin to Kelly," and I still feel as if I never really paid him back for it. Kelly Clarkson, however, made all bad memories of the movie go away with her subsequent albums "Breakaway," "My December" and "All I Ever Wanted." But now it's 2011, and one has to wonder who our first American Idol is trying to be. If her new album, "Stronger," is any indication, she's still pretty unsure about the answer to that question herself.
The first single, "Mr. Know It All," is okay, if you're fine with listening to Clarkson try out a Pink impression. But when the real Kelly returns on the second track, "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)," it's thunderous — one of her best tracks since the time when "Since You Been Gone" was being belted out of Volvos. It's far more interesting and engaging than the dry "Mr. Know It All." You can tangibly sense the genius touch of producer Greg Kurstin (Lily Allen, Sia).
Unfortunately, well-produced moments like this can come off as a little too slick. A lot of the album just sounds like songs that Clarkson, Avril Lavigne and Pink have been making for years and, frankly, it's a little boring at this point. "You Love Me" benefits from some fun vocal phrasing ("n-n-n-not enough"), but it had the potential to be more interesting than it actually was. "Einstein" not only reeks of lazy lyricism ("dumb plus dumb equals you" — really?), but it also has moments when it sounds weirdly like Destiny's Child's "Bug a Boo" and Pink's "Most Girls."
"Hello" gives off sass as soon as its swaggering, lazy guitar and clap-clap beat begins. But its chorus is quite bland and I'm not sure if it was even intended as a sassy song at all. I guess we've just become accustomed to expecting sass from Kelly by now. She basically goes big on every chorus so we will go big along with her. This isn't entirely her fault, though. The producers are also to blame.
A late-in-the-game highlight is "Let Me Down," which, though nothing new, has a chorus the listener can plunge into and really head-bang to. As a matter of fact, the whole album musically picks up near the end; "You Can't Win" is more interesting in its low-to-the-ground guitar verses (reminiscent of Ashlee Simpson's "Boyfriend") than it is in its chorus.
But ultimately, it's not hard to see what Clarkson was trying to do here. Ever since "My Life Would Suck Without You," her music has been becoming more polished and produced, erasing whatever bits of her country roots remained. It's not as though Clarkson was ever totally distinct from the sugarcoated, post-Britney pop stars that have flooded the charts for over a decade now. It's just that now she has become almost totally indistinguishable from them.