Kelly Clarkson - My December - Review by Steven

Her Record company says the songs off the disk aren't "single material". Her latest summer tour has just been shelved, and to top it all off; her first single off this album has not been as good as expected.

If you don’t know what I'm talking about by now, I’m talking about the first American Idol winner: Kelly Clarkson, and her new album "My December".

The album kicks off with the killer-breakup song, "Never Again". The song hasn't done too well on radio, and now that I’ve heard the album, I see it wasn't the best choice for the first single.

The disk then moves on to the song "One Minute". The song is a mix of rock and pop that is wrapped tightly in a bow and held together with its strong lyrics. Before you know it, out of nowhere comes the song with killer-electric guitar riffs and edgy vocals that goes by the name of "Hole". Not exactly radio friendly, but not exactly (if released) a terrible flop.

The disk then does a complete 180, and goes into its first ballad, "Sober".With the simply beautiful guitar leading the song through its run, and the clear, simple lyrics, it makes a nice song. BUT A TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR A SECOND SINGLE! I don’t understand why, after the not-so-great performance of "Never Again", why they would release another non-radio friendly song!? Record labels confuse the heck out of me.

Then moving on to the song "Don’t waste your time" sets the mid tempo sound once again for the album.

After that, the extremely awesome song "Judas" is about someone's betrayal against Miss. Clarkson.Then the songs shift to a very different sound for Clarkson, when the song "Haunted" begins to play. It's lyrically beautiful, and completely haunting, to say the least. With the instrumentals on the song achieving a new sound for Clarkson, this song will be destined to become one of your favorites of the album.

Then the album throws us a few beautiful ballads that resurrect Clarkson's "Thankful" days.The ballads ( "Be Still" and "Maybe") will most likely be played at every summer North American wedding this summer and many summer's to come.

The songs shift back into that mid tempo sound, that we've come to love again for the song "How I Feel". The song almost reflects a tad of a country sound combined with that pop-rock sound that we've come to love. The song is about how it feels to have everyone else around you in a relationship, when you’re alone.

The next song up to bat is one that the album could do without. While the vocals are great it seems this song was just put on the album to be a filler, not to mention its extremely short.

The disk begins to slow down with the song "Can I Have a Kiss", which is simple and pure, not to mention pure ear candy.

To end the album Kelly offers up a brand new sound for a song called "Irvine".She claims she wrote the song when she was in the lowest part of her life. The song reflects sadness without a doubt, and the vocals are a refreshing change against today’s pop world.

Just when you think the album is done, your ears begin to hear a hidden track. The song's called "Chivas" (pronounce, Shiv-a's) and is sung to a nice acoustic guitar. The best way to describe this song, is just to recite a line of lyric that’s in the song. "So much for true love, Id rather take the Chiva's instead". which is really the line that sums-up the entire theme of the album.

Although Clarkson may not have found her true love, you’ll fall in love with the songs on "My December" without a doubt. Not to mention she wrote every song on the album. "My December" gets 4.5/5 stars, for its lyrics, and because it presents something a lot of our ears haven’t heard in a while… real music.