Kelly Clarkson... you're okay by me.

See there's a story here, Kelly Clarkson and I have never truly gotten along that well. In fact, a little while ago I would've probably said she was the female pop star who I liked the least, but ya know... times change, and people change, and something magical happened between me and Kelly Clarkson.

Fans of this blog, especially the ones that have stuck around for a while, probably know that I have an eclectic taste in music, usually exhalted and condemned by *cough* certain *cough* other writers here, but music is one of those things, where it shouldn't matter who or what you like, as long as it makes you happy. Music is a lot like love in that regard. Long story short, I like crappy music, I'll admit it, and I don't care because when I listen to it I feel better.

So how did it come to be that I hated Kelly Clarkson? Well, I always liked her on American Idol the first season, I even voted for her for the finale... but then she got all big and got all snotty and turned in to this big diva and when people do that kind of shit when they get famous it pisses me off... so I started to not like Kelly. Then, that Breakaway album came out and I really got so tired of constantly hearing every fucking song on that album everytime I turned on the radio or TV. It was soooo played out. THEN, I'm driving through Memphis right, rush hour traffic, and my roommate decides she wants to listen to some Kelly Clarkson... I had been making her listen to Rufus Wainwright or Bright Eyes I'm sure, so I thought it was fair to give her a turn... and what happens? I'm so disgusted by Kelly and this horrible cd that I got in a god damn wreck. I was bitching about how much it sucked and didn't even see some idiot with a trailer on his truck swerve in front of me and slam on the breaks. So that was it, I had had it with Kelly Clarkson. She was causing too much trouble.

Then a funny thing happened, she kinda fell of the radar, and I watched The 40 Year Old Virgin like 100 times and so her name kinda to me started to be funny. If I thought of Kelly Clarkson, I thought of Steve Carell screaming her name out and it would make me chuckle. Then I started seeing all these pictures of her and she's gotten kinda chubby and that made me laugh too. So Kelly started to work her way back in to my good graces. This week, my roommate got her hands on the new cd and wouldn't shut the fuck up about how awesome it was and how I needed to download and have a listen. So to shut her up, I decided I'd go ahead and give it a listen. I'll pretty much listen to anything anyone tells me to listen to, because I don't want to miss out on something I might like because I thought it sounded lame. Don't judge a book by it's cover sorta thing.

Here's the thing... this new cd is really good. It's kinda Katy Perry-ish. I can see a lot of singles coming off this cd and really probably being one of those summer soundtrack deals. She's not as dark and moody as her last couple albums and that's a good thing. I like the upbeat, up tempo songs. So anyways, I've gone on long enough about this as is, so just go download or buy or w/e this cd and then come back and sound off in the comments if you like it or not!