Review Summary: The chemistry here is well intact
Kelly Clarkson is among the most important artists when it came to taste development in my formative years. She came in at just the right time in the pop-radio landscape of the early 2000s with
Thankful and, more notably,
Breakaway, being cornerstones of that really soulful, emotionally earnest pop-rocky style that was big at the time. She was a huge example as to why, while a lot of what American Idol did wasn’t exactly the greatest for the industry, that it at least began as a good way to find talented artists the exposure they deserved, as she won the first season in 2002 and then got a record deal with RCA that same year. Clarkson stood out for years, but then just kind of faded from the spotlight. After a while, it felt like she was slowly losing the elements that made her stand out; she still had the voice, but by around
Piece by Piece, which was unsurprisingly her last with RCA, the center stage really started being put more on the production, as it got more and more soulless. Once she left, she signed with Atlantic and embarked on somewhat of an artistic renaissance with
Meaning of Life taking on more of a stripped back pop-soul approach. If nothing else, it proved Clarkson still had the drive and soul to do this for years to come, no matter how much mainstream attention she’d get for it.
Chemistry very much continues in that direction, and it’s honestly the most inspired Clarkson album since the
Breakaway days. I went into this just looking for some semblance of that 2000s nostalgia, but what’s on display feels like sort of a
new Kelly Clarkson, but also very much reminiscent of the past. She described this album as sort of detailing the entire arc of a relationship, from beginning to end. The good, the bad, the ugly, every sort of emotion from falling in love, falling out of love, breaking up, everything of that sort.
"It's called “Chemistry” because I was trying to find a word that really described the whole thing 'cause I didn't want everybody to think that I was just coming out with some just like, 'I'm angry. I'm sad,' just one or two emotions." - Kelly Clarkson, to People Magazine.[1]
That description is very much apt when speaking of
Chemistry, as the first thing that comes to mind is this album is that it’s quite bipolar. Upbeat tracks like “Favorite Kind of High” counteract the cynicism found on songs like “I Hate Love”, and other songs like “High Road” and “Skip This Part” show other sides of relationship-centric content. Kelly’s voice is soulful as always, and she sounds genuinely inspired, like she’s giving it her all like she would the relationship the album is about. It is a love album at its core; the good, the bad, and the downright ugly in the topic isn’t the most original subject, but there’s a level of earnestness that comes with releases like this that make them work.
The production is quite well-done all around too; there’s some really lush soundscapes here reminiscent of the R&B-tinged direction she had around her debut
Thankful, but also some dancey pop tunes like the aforementioned “Favorite Kind of High”. The writing is slightly mixed in places, as tracks like “Me” or “Down to You” don’t particularly stand out, but the tracks that work absolutely work. “High Road” in particular is a highlight of Kelly’s oft-stellar vocal delivery, and the subtle electronics very much complement the soul-pop style she’s been building since
Meaning of Life. “Red Flag Collector” is the most rock-y she’s been since
Breakaway, and it’s quite the jam.
Kelly Clarkson bet on herself and left RCA in 2016, seemingly with intent to reclaim creative control over her direction as an artist. While
Meaning of Life was primarily a pop-soul album, this feels sort of like the summation of her entire career up to this point and a cementation of her legacy as one of the premier soul-pop artists of her generation. Fans looking for a dose of nostalgia from her glory days will definitely have a good time. The bipolar feeling of the album as a whole feels fitting considering the subject matter, and even though not every song hits, she does her damndest to make them work.
1: https://people.com/music/kelly-clarkson-details-new-album-chemistry-about-divorce/
