Kelly Clarkson - Chemistry (Deluxe)

Drew

Drew

The songs on My December are half great, half garbage and its time to let the light in and acknowledge it. I Am Me is a better album than My December. A Little More Personal is a better album than My December. My December has about 6 great songs that needed to be reproduced.

I don't think Clive Davis should have called Kelly a shitty writer because she isn't one. I do think Kelly should have grabbed that 5 million dollar check and sprinted to the nearest studio to record Black Hole.
 
popjunkie

popjunkie

He/Him
Drew said:
I do think Kelly should have grabbed that 5 million dollar check and sprinted to the nearest studio to record Black Hole.
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If it meant Clive would’ve paid for it to be mastered properly then I would’ve been all for it.

I think lyrically My December hits harder even when the songs aren’t as strong. Some of the melodies on My December are lacking but the album still hits on even an emotional level.

None of these songs are even making me feel for what she went through. I feel more for her when she talks in interviews but this just isn’t connecting. And I don’t need her to give personal details of what happened but even in a universal way I can’t relate so far.
 
RainOnFire

RainOnFire

Staff member
My December is firmly secure in my Top 3 and I genuinely think the songs are good. I can also acknowledge that the mastering is terrible in places, and songs like One Minute would've benefited greatly from cleaner and crisper production. And I fully believe that Kelly is the kind of person who would've listened and compromised on production choices if people (namely Clive) tried to meet her halfway, rather than publicly belittling her.

I don't think she even needed to take up Clive's offer to record 5 singles because Never Again, Sober, One Minute, Don't Waste Your Time, and Can I Have a Kiss all sound like good singles to me that needed some sprucing up. And once again, if she had people at the label in her corner, then I'm sure she would've agreed to revamped single edits or something to help the project succeed.

The whole thing still feels like a battle that nobody won. Yes, Kelly got her version of the album out, but she was clearly burned by the entire process afterward. And RCA didn't get their way, so they just killed it the day it was released instead of trying to work with the material they had and to get Kelly involved. I know it's a business at the end of the day and I'm probably looking at things too naïvely, but I just feel like options were available and no one took them.
 
HairBodyFace

HairBodyFace

I do love My December because I think it achieves its goal of being a thorough emotional outlet for whatever she was going through. Sober is still probably my favorite song she's ever done. The mixing is definitely pretty flat though, and that's the main issue.

RainOnFire said:
And I fully believe that Kelly is the kind of person who would've listened and compromised on production choices if people (namely Clive) tried to meet her halfway, rather than publicly belittling her.


The whole thing still feels like a battle that nobody won. Yes, Kelly got her version of the album out, but she was clearly burned by the entire process afterward. And RCA didn't get their way, so they just killed the project the day it was released instead of trying to work with the material they had and to get Kelly involved. I know it's a business at the end of the day and I'm probably looking at things too naïvely, but I just feel like options were available and no one took them.
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Exactly. In one of the interviews Kelly did around 2017, she mentioned how what bothered her the most was that nobody wanted to meet her halfway and try and make her vision flourish. Nobody went "hey, we see what you're trying to do here, let's make this great". They didn't try to make it work, they just wanted to force something totally different on her.
 
Raichu

Raichu

I guess I just don't hear mixing/mastering that much. It probably has to do with me listening to a lot of music that sounds purposefully rough.
 
Raichu

Raichu

Drew said:
Don't Waste Your Time and Haunted are Breakaway worthy hits. But they needed a polish, big time.
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When I get my phone back (I left it in somebody's car I_CANNOT_USE_REAL_WORDS_PROPERLY_), I'm going to listen to these songs with this perspective in mind. It may be enlightening.
HairBodyFace said:
I don't think it needed to be totally super pristinely polished or anything, I think the overall vibe works, it's just that it sounds so flat. There's barely any dynamic room, parts that should pack a punch don't, etc.
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Fair!
 
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Raichu

Raichu

I need to listen to that whole album again. I remember really loving the vibe and thinking it stood out amongst other pop music at the time.

This album might still be good (though she's definitely not showing it in the best light), but I was hoping more for Meaning Of Life quality. I don't think it's a fantastic album, but it's an undeniably good one. And the title track is one of the greatest things she's ever done IMO. It's classy as fuck and the chorus leaves no crumbs.
 
Raichu

Raichu

The pre-chorus of I Hate Love, with that electronic, almost 4AEM-like production bubbling in the background, is the single best moment across all of the songs so far. It really does slap and I hope for more of that on the full album.
 
VicePresidentJocasta

VicePresidentJocasta

Why are these songs all so... silly? Unless the rest of this album is radically different from what I've heard so far, I think I'm going to hate it. Mine and Me were cute for album tracks, but I was expecting everything that came after to be better. I liked them both enough, but they were puzzling as leads, and ultimately a bit forgettable.

Favorite Kind of High made zero sense in the context of the other songs – I said it before, it sounds like a song from a kids movie soundtrack. And unfortunately, so does everything that has come since.

I guess I projected too many of my own hopes onto this record, but this is the exact opposite of what I'd hoped/imagined the album would sound like. Obviously Kelly should make whatever music she wants, but collectively these songs are pretty shitty. At best they're boring, middle-of-the-road, and forgettable.
 
Drew

Drew

I don't like I Hate Love or Red Flag Collector. Favorite Kind of High mostly grown me as a cute album track. I Hate Love is just silly. It's a boring concept and it's one of very few occasions in her career where I honestly don't like her vocal on it either.

Red Flag Collector would be better if it just went hard as a pop/rock track, but they decided to produce it like a kitschy track to appeal to kids. I still have hopes of the album being good. I think Atlantic is garbage. I do not trust them (or Kelly, quite frankly) to pick the best songs to pique interest in the album. And I am holding on to some hope that from the comments of fans who attended the birthday concert, none of these released songs were really getting name dropped much as favorites (although Red Flag did get more attention than I Hate Love).
 
HairBodyFace

HairBodyFace

I do like all of these songs and have faith that the album will be solid (Kelly keeps saying it's an album that there wasn't an obvious "single" on), so I'm not as disappointed as some of you....but yeah, the one area I am a little let down on is the production on some of these. I really wish she would have worked with a different producer. It's just a little dull and not as daring or exciting as it could be in spots. Red Flag Collector is a great example, I love the ideas and different elements thrown in there, but I feel like they could have really gone there more than they did.
 
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