How I wish Kelly Clarkson's Stronger was better. I want to like it, no I want to love it, and I'm trying and there is a lot to admire but in the end, it isn't a great album.
Two things hurt and neither of them are the singing. Clarkson might over sing but she oversings to a purpose, a she distill one fucked up guy after another to the simple equation "One plus one equals dumb", she has every right to use those pipes to raw out her dissatisfaction.
And it isn't ambition.
Stronger is one of the most ambitious works of extended misandry you will ever hear: it is relentless in its pounding home of the problem with men am from power ballads to power rockers, it is a single-minded assault.
And it isn’t the man hating: if Stronger was a little better it could be an Aftermath or This Year's Model for the 21st century; it could be a serious deconstruction of make female relationships.
But it ain't.
And here we get closer to the problem: Stronger isn't smart enough; the lyric content is so prosaic it isn't funny. I don't necessarily expect "you'd know what a drag it is to see you" from Kelly but I expect more than "You say, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, but what you really mean is, You're not good enough, you're not good enough, you can't deliver so you turn it around." Oh dear. Even the song titles are so obvious they're boring. "The War Is Over", "Let Me Down" and "You Can't Win" to name three in a row.
The songs are not as bad as the lyric; there is a feisty anger to them, and they are anything but boring… well except for the Jason Aldean. But melodies could be sweeter and the songs catchier but they'll do. There are some real good tracks, "Don't be A Girl About", and the first single "Mr. Know It All" are both fabulous. But like I said… it needed to be better.
Grade: B