sourALBUMS: Kelly Clarkson - All I Ever Wanted

If P!nk, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and The Fray all had a bastard child together, this album would be it. Unfortunately, we lose a lot of Kelly’s originality in this because so many of the songs made us feel like we’ve heard them before. We know Kelly is a pop star, but there’s no reason for her to have to make herself sound like every other song off of your Top 40 radio station.

Furthermore, we found ourselves straining to hear Kelly’s beautiful voice over the unnecessary guitars and drums. Seriously, Kelly, you don’t need a loud band to back you up – your voice is so perfect without it! We couldn’t believe to it took sitting through 13 tracks to finally reach “If No One Will Listen”, which is the only song that seems to remind us that Kelly is actually known for singing, not yelling over your next door neighbor’s garage band. Kelly’s vocals also seemed to get lost within the scarily bad lyrics. “Ready” left us ‘ready’ to fire the lyricist by the end of the song. “Save You” is, without question, the worst song off the album up to the point that we couldn’t listen to the entire thing or we would have destroyed the stereo.

Despite the album’s downfalls, there is still a thin sliver of a silver lining. Kelly’s attitude is still that of the hopeless romantic, reminding us of the Kelly we fell in love with at the first listen of “Breakaway”. In some songs, the guitarist was generous enough to actually let us hear Kelly’s voice, especially on tracks like the piquant “All I Ever Wanted”, the effective ballad “Already Gone”, and the moving “If No One Will Listen”. In retrospect, some songs were catchy, even amazing, but most of the songs left us scratching our heads, wondering why Kelly Clarkson is trying so hard to fit in when she already does.

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Corey's Rating:
- I wanted so badly to love this album, but only a choice few of the tracks really delivered the Kelly I wanted to hear.

Marielle's Rating:
- There’s no reason to go out and buy this album when you can listen to practically the same songs right now if you turn on your radio.