AMERICAN singer and songwriter Kelly Clarkson, best known for tracks like Because of You and Since U Been Gone revealed in an interview this week that she has recorded a new album, which she hopes to release and bring to fans in 2023.
The album will mark her first major studio album in more than five years since 2017’s Meaning of Life. In the time since, she has been running The Kelly Clarkson Show which is taping its fourth season, set to premiere on September 12. The show has taken over the lucrative time slot once held by Ellen DeGeneres.
In recent years, the singer released a holiday album, When Christmas Comes Around, a summer 2022 Kellyoke album and will release a new rendition of Dolly Parton’s hit song 9 to 5.
Clarkson revealed to Variety that the album is “coming out next year, and this is an important album. I am working on this in therapy: I have a hard time vocalising what I am feeling sometimes, so music is helpful for me. It has just been really healing. I recorded the record quite some time ago.”
The forthcoming album has been in making over the last two years and is inspired by her emotional jaunt she endured through her divorce with ex-husband, music manager Brandon Blackstock with whom she shares two young children.
“When my ex and I first separated, there were many emotions. It was hard,” Clarkson says. “My producer and I were laughing yesterday because I was like, ‘Remember that time we wrote, like, 25 songs in a week?’ A lot of those are the ones that are on the album.
"I literally wrote most of these almost two years ago. Then I told my label, ‘I can’t talk about this until I’ve gone through it,’ and it has just taken some time to do that. That is one of the reasons we have done a lot of Christmas stuff the past two years – because I was like, ‘Well, that’s happy!’”
She adds, “I had not really been working hardcore on an album until I needed to. I was just very busy. There were so many jobs, and I am a single mom – well, even with being married, it is a lot, trying to fit kids’ schedules in and all that stuff.
"But then the whole divorce thing happened, and I needed to write it. And then I did not know if I was going to release it, because you can be very angry in that state of mind. So, some of the songs definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there is everything on the album.
"It is almost like the arc of a relationship, because the beginning is so beautiful and so sweet, and then it evolves. And sometimes it does not evolve how you want.”
The upcoming album will be released by Clarkson’s label, Atlantic Records. She teases that she intends to return to stage but will have to work out a touring schedule given her responsibilities managing The Kelly Clarkson Show with The Voice, as well as being a mother of two.
“I definitely am going to do shows. We are figuring that out. But when you write an album that is so personal, it is just therapeutic to be able to get up there. I know there are other guys and girls out there that have been through this kind of breakup who are going to need to scream at the top of their lungs – you can come and join me,” Clarkson says. – The Vibes, September 9, 2022
