Kelly Clarkson is a pop singer and also songwriter. She was born on Burleson, Texas in April 24, 1982 with childname Kelly Brianne Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson graduated from Burleson High School in 2000, where she sang in the school choir. After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a music career.
Supporting herself with numerous odd jobs, Clarkson made a few television appearances and eventually landed a job working as a female vocalist with songwriter Gerry Goffin. Unfortunately, she was experienced bad luck discouraged her and she returned to Texas shortly thereafter. In 2002, a friend told her about a new talent search show on Fox called American Idol, and Clarkson became one of 10,000 contestants.
After grueling rounds of televised eliminations, and critical evaluations by judges Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, Kelly Clarkson prevailed against Justin Guarini to become the first winner of the hit contest on September 4, 2002. Her official prize was a million-dollar RCA record contract; the unofficial prize a considerable amount of fame and notoriety.
In months later, her first single, "A Moment Like This," went from No. 52 to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. In 2003, she made her feature film debut in the forgettable From Justin to Kelly Clarkson. Fortunately, her first album fared much better than her movie. Thankful was a hit based in part because of the smash single, "Miss Independent." And Clarkson went on to establish herself as a leading rock performer with her second album, Breakaway (2004). The album spawned several big hits, including Since U Been Gone, Breakaway, Behind These Hazel Eyes, and Walk Away. It also earned Kelly Clarkson 2 Grammy Awards in 2005; which one for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Since U Been Gone and for Best Pop Vocal Album an award she shared with producer Clive Davis and engineer/mixer Serban Ghenea.
After selling millions of records, Kelly Clarkson was under a lot of pressure to keep the hits coming. But she wanted to try something different. Kelly Clarkson did not use professional songwriters as she had in the past and filled the record with songs that she co-wrote. She says. "Mostly I learned about how people can twist things—I've never met one artist that agreed with their label about every single thing, but people made such a big deal out of it. The label saw that I wanted to push the envelope, they let me make the record I wanted to make, and now I can make another one."
So when it came time to choose songs for All I Ever Wanted, Clarkson knew what she was looking for. "Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I'm a lyrics girl," she says. "I like the more melodic, formula stuff because I grew up loving pop music, but most of the time I'm totally about the lyrics and the message of the song.
"I could always sing all of these styles," she continues, "but I think only now am I getting more comfortable with the people I work with, and people are getting more comfortable with me, getting to know me and what I like."
She says that working with producers Sam Watters and Louis Biancaniello on "Whyyouwannabringmedown," which she describes as having "kind of a punk-British Invasion sound," was the album's turning point. "I sang that song through I don't know how many times, just because I was having so much fun," she says. "It was new and it was fresh and it didn't sound like anything on the radio. And after that, I went to my manager and said that I wanted to make a really fun, feisty album, and just wanted to go all the way with every song."
Clarkson penned about half of the album, but it's hard to pin down her work as representing any single style. "My writing is all over the place," she says. "I do love writing sad, depressing songs—that's definitely fun for me. But I'm very much a writer of whatever I'm going through, what I see in my life. And I'm 26, so I change every day!"
Mostly, she's excited to get back on the road and take the songs of All I Ever Wanted onto the stage. "Even when I'm recording, I'm always thinking about how I'm going to do a song live, what I'll be able to bring to it. I make records for touring—it's my favorite part of what I do."
Through the highs and lows, the triumphs and controversies, Kelly Clarkson has retained, even strengthened, her love for all styles of music. With All I Ever Wanted, she's able to fully reveal how far that love extends. "This time, I wanted to show the extremes of what I can do," she says. "That's what keeps me interested, and keeps the audience interested.
"I never want to make just one sound," says Kelly Clarkson. "The worst thing to me is when all the songs on an album sound the same. If you have that choice, why wouldn't you want to bring out all the different sides and colors of your personality?"
Around this time, Clarkson experienced some career difficulties. She fired her management and canceled a planned concert tour for the summer of 2007. My December was released in late June of that year and initially had strong sales, but still the cloud from the Clarkson-Davis conflict hung over the project. She later expressed regret about the dispute, saying that it had been blown way out of proportion. Clarkson also said that Davis has been a key advisor and . . . an important force in my success. . . He has also given me respect by releasing my new album when he was not obligated to do so.
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