By: Chris Azzopardi
Kelly Clarkson, Stronger
If Kelly Clarkson wasn’t making music, you have to wonder: Where would she take out her wronged-woman rage? It’s a scary thought, considering how much the reigning “American Idol” – it’s been nearly 10 years since she was crowned as the inaugural winner – uses power-pop beats as a punching bag for her vehement venting. Miss Independent meets “Mr. Know It All” on the first single, a scorching kiss-off that has her spewing lines like “you don’t know a thing ‘bout me” in glorious fury. It’s the kind of no-BS cut we’ve come to know from Clarkson, an expert at turning done-me-wrongs into club anthems. Look no further than the second song, and single, “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger),” just about the danciest, balls-to-the-wall song she’s recorded; “I Forgive You,” a could-be sequel to “Since U Been Gone,” follows similarly with wonky synths. Vocally, she rocks “The War is Over” and “Honestly,” her breathy tones building to a full belt; it’s a voice that can make even lowest-common-denominator lyrics, like on “Einstein,” rise about the material. But Clarkson’s music on her fifth album, though much less hooky than her last, All I Ever Wanted, has an advantage: It’s easy to feel her pain. She hurts, she gets angry, and she can’t please everyone. “You Can’t Win,” for all the outcasts, is how she addresses that problem, with a line that we can all relate to: “If you’re straight, why aren’t you married yet? If you’re gay, why aren’t you waving a flag?” It’s a win-win for everyone.
Grade: B
Miranda Lambert, Four the Record
Usually the one to set things ablaze, Miranda Lambert’s on fire this time ’round. Her best album, and easily atop the year’s finest, is everything the country outlaw’s done so extraordinarily well on the three before it – just better. Having already told the gender-rigid conservativeness of the country genre to shove it with her girl-power, whiskey-guzzling ways, she doesn’t waste time to do so again with a pro-everyone anthem that’s wonderfully endearing: “All Kinds of Kinds,” unfolding like a storybook, with a character that’s a cross-dressing congressman and a moral often unheard in country. “Some point the finger, let ignorance linger,” she sings, reminding people to look at themselves before passing judgment. If only for standing out among her play-it-safe contemporaries, being different is obviously something Lambert understands. Her vocals are smeared into fuzzed-out obscurity on country-blues “Fine Tune,” by far her most radical, and possibly sexiest, move. What might seem traditional, “Mama’s Broken Heart” turns out to be anything but – it’s an aggressive you-don’t-know-my-pain song, playing to her bad-girl persona. Lambert, though, has vengeance and vulnerability: she understands the narrator’s frustration of being unsure of herself on Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio,” another great cover of hers; the simplistic pain in “Over You” means more coming out of Lambert’s mouth; and the ethereal “Oklahoma Sky” mesmerizes. Vocal nuances, broken boundaries and supreme songwriting: there are all kinds of kinds, but only one Miranda Lambert.
Grade: A
*Reach Chris Azzopardi at chris@pridesource.com.
