Kelly Clarkson is a Grammy Award-winning American pop rock singer and songwriter. Kelly made her debut under RCA Records after she won the highly publicized first season of the television series American Idol in 2002. She was originally marketed as a pop musician with her debut album Thankful (2003). With the release of her multi-platinum second album Breakaway (2004), Kelly moved to a more pop rock-oriented style of music. Kelly's third album, entitled My December, was released on June 26, 2007. It went Platinum in many countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia, she has sold over 18.6 million albums as of March 2008.
Kelly Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas and grew up in the small town of Burleson, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth. She is the third and youngest child of Jeanne Ann Rose, a first grade teacher who is of Welsh and Greek descent, and Stephen Michael Kelly, a former engineer. Kelly's siblings include her brother Jason, and her sister Alyssa.
Kelly attended Pauline G Hughes Middle School and Burleson High School. She originally wanted to become a marine biologist. In seventh grade, a teacher overheard her singing in a hallway and asked her to audition for the school choir. Kelly told the teacher that she had never received professional vocal training. In high school, Kelly performed in musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Brigadoon. It was whilst at school that Kelly first decided to pursue singing. She sang at her high school talent show, after which a gentleman shared some inspiring words with her: "God has given you this gift. You've got to sing. You're destined to sing." Kelly did continue to sing and soon started classical training, since her family didn't have much money and she hoped that music would offer college scholarships.
Kelly worked numerous odd jobs during and after high school, until she moved to Los Angeles. She also worked for Papa John's, Subway, Starbucks, and sold vacuums door to door (her latter experience which she described with a well-intended pun: "It sucked.").
Upon high school graduation, Kelly was offered full scholarships to the University of Texas, University of North Texas, and Berklee, but decided against college because she had "already written so much music and wanted to try on [her] own. And [she] figured you're never too old to go to college."
Kelly won the first season competition of American Idol on September 4, 2002, earning 58% of the audience vote over Justin Guarini. She performed the ballad "A Moment Like This", the song written for the winner of American Idol, which would subsequently appear on her debut album Thankful and covered by the UK X-Factor winner Leona Lewis in 2006. The song's music video was filmed at Pantages Theater in Hollywood, and incorporated short scenes of Clarkson performing on Idol. When released as a single in October 2002, it set a then record on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart when it rose from number fifty-two to number one. This achievement was largely due to the impact from Idol as the CD single managed to sell 236,000 copies in its first week of sales in the U.S.; it spent five weeks at number one in Canada.
Soon after winning American Idol, Kelly starred with Idol runner-up Justin Guarini in the movie From Justin to Kelly. The film was poorly received by critics and grossed only $5 million at the North American box office, less than half its reported budget.
In December 2003, a competition titled World Idol was held in London, UK, gathering the winners of the first seasons of Idol from across the globe. Kelly was contractually obligated to participate, and placed second behind Norwegian Idol Kurt Nilsen. She performed Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman". Because she left immediately after the competition, she was chided by some in the media for what they saw as poor sportsmanship. Clarkson later explained to fans that she was suffering from an illness.
Following the successful release of "A Moment Like This", Kellys's full-length debut album Thankful was released in North America by RCA Records on April 15, 2003. It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. Eventually, the album was certified double platinum by the RIAA for sales of two million copies on December 8, 2003 and platinum by the CRIA for sales of 100,000 copies on February 10, 2004. Reviews for the album were generally favorable.
"Miss Independent" became a success when released as the second single from Thankful. It reached the top ten of the U.S. and Canadian singles charts, and earned Clarkson a 2004 Grammy Award nomination for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance". When the single was released in the United Kingdom and Australia, it reached the top ten of the charts; however, Thankful received less attention. It peaked at number forty-one on the UK albums chart and at number thirty-three on the Australian albums chart. Further singles released outside North America would appear even less successful.
"Low", the third single from Thankful, reached number two in Canada, but it was unable to make the Top 40 of the U.S. chart. The final single, "The Trouble with Love Is", was not released in Canada, and it peaked at #101 on the U.S. Charts. Clarkson attributed the underperformance of both releases to poor management and relieved her manager Simon Fuller, who she felt was not completely focused on her career.
As of 2008, Thankful has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.
Breakaway (2nd album)
Kelly appeared on numerous television programs during the promotional tour for Breakaway, some of which included Saturday Night Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show and The View; she performed the first two singles "Breakaway" and "Since U Been Gone" on Saturday Night Live, which became her first major telecast appearance in order to support the album. "Breakaway", co-written by Avril Lavigne, served as the original song for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) and achieved considerable success across the world; it became Clarkson's third top-ten single in the U.S. and fourth top-ten single in Canada. It reached number ten in Australia, and number 22 in the UK.
The song's contemporary pop-rock ambiance was one of the several tracks including a stronger rock-influenced sound that had not been heard on Thankful. The second single "Since U Been Gone", which was 'produced' by Max Martin, became the most successful release from the album. Its music video presented Clarkson singing to an underground audience with a full band; cutscenes of Clarkson destroying a former boyfriend's apartment were incorporated. The song's strong rock ambiance allowed it to reach number two in the U.S. and the top five across the world. It also earned Clarkson her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance"; she won a second award for "Best Pop Vocal Album".
The third and fourth single releases, "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Because of You", also followed with chart success. The video for "Behind These Hazel Eyes" broke the record for days at #1 for a female artist with 33 out of 50 days #1 on TRL. "Because Of You" became Clarkson's biggest worldwide hit, her first to reach the number one position on the world chart show, where it held for two consecutive weeks in 2006. The video for "Because of You" won the 2006 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, her second consecutive win in that category (The first being from "Since U Been Gone"). The fifth single from Breakaway, "Walk Away", was a top 10 hit in the U.S. and a top five hit in Canada. Breakaway spent 103 weeks on the Billboard 200. It fell out of the Billboard 200 in late November and was moved to Billboard's Pop Catalog. Breakaway was the tenth best selling album of 2006 in the US, adding nearly 2 million additional sales to the 2005 and 2004 sales. As a testament to Clarkson's continuing popularity, she was the most-played artist of 2006 on American radio, despite releasing only one single in the entire year, "Walk Away". On December 23, 2006, American Top 40 radio show host Ryan Seacrest announced during a countdown of 2006's most popular songs that Clarkson had had a song in the American Top 40 for 111 weeks, making her "the most successful female artist in AT40 history". She was also the most radio broadcasted artist of 2006 in Australia and "Because Of You" was the third most broadcast song of the same year, despite being released in 2005.[30]
In the summer of 2006, Clarkson lent Ford Motor Co. a song titled "Go", written by Clarkson and Rhett Lawrence ("Miss Independent"). The song is being used in the company's new advertising campaign, "Bold Moves".
As of 2008, Breakaway has sold over 12 million copies worldwide.
My December (3rd album)
While on tour in Europe in 2006, Clarkson began writing and composing songs for her third album, My December. During the Addicted Tour, Clarkson debuted two of her songs: "Maybe" and "Yeah". Recording commenced on the album in the summer of 2006. The first single from My December was "Never Again", which made its radio debut on April 13, 2007. The song was released on iTunes on April 20, 2007, but was taken down and replaced with a notice that said that the song was not available until April 23, 2007. The single peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #8 and on the Pop 100 at #5. Following "Never Again", Clarkson released "Sober" as her next single from My December on June 6, 2007. The singles were promoted with appearances on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Clarkson also returned to American Idol on the May 23 2007 season six finale for the first time since its third season, performing "Never Again" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry during a Beatles medley.
The song "Chivas" is a hidden track which can be found after the song "Irvine." Clarkson wrote the song on bar napkins before going to a concert by Los Angeles based cover band Metal Skool where she was famously seen drinking a bottle of Chivas Regal in a popular YouTube video when she was brought on stage to sing with the band.
Clarkson parted with her management, The Firm, on June 11, 2007, after the controversy surrounding My December.
Clarkson would then sign with Starstruck Entertainment, run by Narvel Blackstock - the husband of Reba McEntire - on July 2, 2007. On June 14, 2007, Live Nation announced that Clarkson's summer tour — her first nationwide arena tour—has been cancelled due to underwhelming ticket sales, to be rescheduled after the release of the My December album at smaller, more intimate concert environments.
Clarkson reinstated plans to tour the US during 2007 - with a much smaller tour than the one she cancelled in June. Clarkson began her My December Tour on October 10 in Verona, New York in venues significantly smaller than those previously booked.
My December was officially released in the U.S. on June 26, 2007. Despite the controversy surrounding My December, the album debuted at #2 in the U.S. with 291,000 albums sold. This is a slightly higher debut than Clarkson's previous album, Breakaway, which debuted at #3.
On July 7, 2007, Clarkson performed on the American leg of Live Earth. Her five-set performance list included: "Walk Away", "How I Feel", "Never Again", "Sober", and "Since U Been Gone". In a July edition of USA Weekend Magazine, Clarkson reported that she tried a marijuana cookie while in Amsterdam. "It is legal there," she said, saying that she's never done "anything illegal here [in the U.S.]".
Clarkson was the celebrity coach for Canadian Idol during its Top 5 week of the fifth season, aired on the CTV network on August 20th, and she performed on the results show the next night. She was also awarded a Platinum Certification for shipments of more than 100,000 copies of My December in Canada. Clarkson also performed at the 2007 NFL opening kickoff where she sang the national anthem and performed songs from My December including "Never Again", "Maybe" and "Don't Waste Your Time". Clarkson also performed in the halftime show for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets game on Thanksgiving day.
My December was certified both gold (500,000 copies shipped) and platinum (1,000,000 copies shipped) on December 12, 2007 by the RIAA.
Building on her country music status, Clarkson and Reba McEntire recorded an hour-long CMT Crossroads special at Nashville's famed Ryman Auditorium on February 22, 2007. It aired on CMT and MHD on June 24, 2007. Previously, Clarkson was a performer on CMT's Giants: Reba McEntire. where she sang McEntire's hit song "Why Haven't I Heard From You", introduced Dolly Parton, and later also sang Reba's hit "Does He Love You" with Martina McBride. Clarkson also appeared on an episode of McEntire's sitcom Reba, that aired on January 14, 2007.
At the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 16, 2007, Clarkson and McEntire sang a duet of Clarkson's own 2005 single, "Because of You", which also became the lead single from McEntire's album of all-star duets. The music video for this version of the song later debuted on June 20, 2007. This collaboration with McEntire earned Clarkson a CMA Award nomination for "Musical Event of the Year" in 2007 and a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Country Collaboration With Vocal" in 2008.
Clarkson was a surprise guest at the 2007 CMA Music Festival in Nashville on June 7, 2007, where she performed "Does He Love You" and "Because of You" with Reba McEntire during the internationally-renowned annual event. The performance of "Because of You" was taped and aired as part of the "CMA Music Festival: Country's Night To Rock" television special that aired on ABC on July 23, 2007.
On January 17, 2008 , Clarkson embarked on the 2 Worlds, 2 Voices Tour 2008, a co-headlining tour with Reba McEntire.