Kelly Clarkson News

The original American Idol, Kelly Clarkson, kicked off her tour this weekend. USA Today was there to go behind the scenes of this crowd-pleasing event...

• The event: The official opener of Kelly Clarkson's fall tour, in support of her underperforming third album My December (which has sold 673,000 copies, compared with 5.86 million for its predecessor, Breakaway). Clarkson had canceled her planned summer arena tour back in June over disappointing ticket sales and after parting ways with her management. This time, she's performing in smaller, more intimate venues.

• The crowd: A diverse mix: teenyboppers, parents and their kids, plus Gen Y types … and Clarkson's recent duet partner, Reba McEntire.

• Stage setting: Very simple, with five screens that change color. Overall, the show had an intimate, direct feel.

•The kickoff: Intro music: AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long. First we saw a girl in a red dress on maroon steps, sitting down. The Gothic tableau mimicked the My December album cover. Then Clarkson appeared in a black tank and black pants singing One Minute to Love from the current album.

• The music: Mix of previous hits —Behind These Hazel Eyes, Miss Independent, Breakaway— and tracks from the current album: Sober, Don't Waste Your Time, Chivas, Be Still. She also covered Patty Griffin's Up on the Mountain, which she sang on the Idol Gives Back TV special.

• Audience reaction: They weren't responding nearly as enthusiastically to many of the December songs. But they were generally adoring of Clarkson.

• Onstage quotable: Introducing recent download hit Never Again, Clarkson said she gets made fun of because it's another song about a bad boyfriend. "I have to go through all the losers to get to the good one," she said.

• Memorable moment: Mega-hit Because of You, performed with the backing of just one keyboard — and the crowd singing along with every word. Clarkson's voice is highly impressive.

• Show closer: Since You've Been Gone stirred crowd frenzy and abruptly closed a shortish show.

Check out the video for the latest song from Kelly Clarkson, "Don't Waste Your Time."

What do you think? 

American Idol is more than just a little bit country.

Three past finalists were nominated for Country Music Awards last week, with Carrie Underwood leading the way.

The season four champion was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year, as well as Single of the Year and Music Video of the Year for "Before He Cheats." Moreover, "Before He Cheats" is up for Song of the Year.

This is the second year in a row Underwood has received multiple CMA nominations. Last year, "Jesus Take the Wheel" was nominated for Music Video of the Year and Single of the Year, but failed to win either award. This talent did take home Female Vocalist of the Year honors as well as the Horizon Award, given to up-and-coming country stars.

Kellie Pickler, meanwhile, will have a chance to be the second former Idol finalist in a row to win the Horizon Award, as the fifth-season fifth-place finisher was nominated for it this year.

Lastly, Kely Clarkson was also nominated for a 2007 CMA. Her duet of "Because of You" with friend Reba McIntyre was nominated for Musical Event of the Year.

Kelly Clarkson admitted to eating a marijuana cookie in Amsterdam the other day... but not smoking the drug.

Below, she jokes around during an appearance Monday on MuchOnDemand in Toronto.

USA Today played a fun game with its readers: the American Idol section of the newspaper asked people to write it about what order they would now place season one contestants in.

Six years later, the results are telling (actual results from the whoa re in parenthesis)...

1. Kelly Clarkson (1st): Kelly didn't win in a landslide, but the result was clear. She has done the franchise proud and we don't know that anyone else in this crop could have come close to equaling her subsequent achievements.

2. Tamyra Gray (4th): Clearly the feeling is that Tamyra got robbed by the original voters. She was far and away the No. 2 vote-getter in this poll, a lot closer to Kelly than to the No. 3 finisher. Maybe she did make the right decision in gravitating toward acting and songwriting, but it would have been nice to have seen what she could have done as a singer with a big push.

3. Justin Guarini (2nd): Justin's fast fade from the public eye is reflected in his loss of standing retrospectively. He was the clear No. 3 choice, but was way behind Tamyra in the voting, and only a couple of people cared enough to vote him No. 1.

4. Christina Christian (6th): Substantial support for Christina. It'll be interesting to see where other African-American singers like Kimberley Locke, Trenyce, Jennifer Hudson, La Toya London, Nadia Turner, Vonzell Solomon and others wind up in the revisionist vote.

5. RJ Helton (5th): A bit of a surprise, not that he equaled his actual finish but that he beat real-life third-place finisher Nikki McKibbin to do it (by the slimmest margin between any two finalists).

6. Nikki McKibbin (3rd): Biggest gap between actual finish and revised vote, and well-deserved if you ask us. Always thought Nikki was overrated, and her claim as a "rock chick" quite dubious; Gina Glocksen could probably sing rings around her.

7. Ryan Starr (7th): Fairly substantial gap between Nikki and Ryan, who struck us as substantially more bogus than Nikki, although she was arguably better than her piano-climbing male namesake on Rockstar: Supernova. She was kind of the Haley Scarnato of her day (in terms of teenage boy appeal), but less wholesome.

8. E. Jay Day (9th): E Jay carves out a small triumph by getting voted a notch higher than his actual finish.

9. A.J. Gil (8th): The boy-band-esque A.J. was the victim of E. Jay's success, falling to ninth in the revisionist standings. No great loss.

10. Jim Verraros (10th): And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be for eternity (or until the next poll comes around). Coming out didn't gain Jim a lot of retroactive support, it appears.

Kelly Clarkson tried to fight the man. But it appears as though the man has won.

Sources say that Clarkson has agreed to make a pop album for release in 2008, with songs selected by her former nemesis Clive Davis and his team.

Clarkson's acquiescence comes at the end of a long melodrama concerning her current, turgid album "My December," which features a lot of ragged self-penned songs by Clarkson about a relationship gone sour.

Davis didn't like the album, considering it was the follow up to Clarkson's multimillion selling "Breakaway." However, he released it, and the original American Idol responded by dissing him and then apologizing earlier this week.

In the meantime, "My December" is sort of free-floating away now. It will probably sell a respectable 850,000 copies in the U.S.

After a few weeks of bashing label head Clive Davis, Kelly Clarkson released the following statement on her website earlier today:

"A lot has been made in the press about my relationship with Clive. Much of this has been blown way out of proportion and taken out of context.

"I'm well aware that Clive is one of the great record men of all time. He has been a key advisor and has been an important force in my success to date. He has also given me respect by releasing my new album when he was not obligated to do so.

"I really regret how everything has turned out and I apologize to those whom I have done disservice," she adds. "I would never intentionally hurt anyone. I love music, and I love the people I am blessed to work with. I am happy that my team is behind me and I look forward to the future."

With her album, My December, not doing well on the charts, it's not shocking Clarkson would come out with such a statement. We hope her figures improve.

The following interview with Kelly Clarkson is taken from the latest issue of Reader’s Digest:

On making her albums:
“There’ve been a lot of cooks in the kitchen on all three of my albums. Everybody wants a success, so that’s great. On the other hand, the kitchen gets real crowded.”

On the RCA Records haters:
“They hated Miss Independent on my first album. It was No. 1 for six weeks, then they got behind it. They hated Breakaway. The song I wrote that they hated the most was Because of You. I fought and fought for it, it became successful and they finally got behind it. I’m not complaining, I’ll just say no until I get my way, and I did.”

On rumors that Clive Davis didn’t like her new album, My December:
“I just want people to hear it, instead of 100-year old executives making decisions on what’s good for pop radio. It’s people my age who listen to it. My gut hasn’t been wrong yet, so why wouldn’t I continue to follow it?”

On American Idol:
“I did my own hair and makeup for the first half of the shows. What you saw us wearing was our stuff from home. We’d be in a magazine under the heading ‘What Was She Thinking?’ I was like, I’m thinking I ain’t got no money.”

On money:
“I have saved and saved, and I don’t have to work another day. When I won Idol and started working with a business manager, she asked, ‘What do you want?’ I was like, I don’t ever want to have to make a decision because I need money. So we accomplished that two years ago, and I’m set.”

Kelly Clarkson gives a very candid and funny interview in the August 2007 issue of Blender. Here are some highlights from it...

On what she does in her free time: “You know, I never go out. If I’m in L.A., I’m usually at my house playing Guitar Hero.”

On her lying music label, BMG: “Everyone keeps saying how hard this record because be because of all the crap surrounding it, but that last one was really hard to make. I literally got told to my face that it wouldn’t sell more than 600,000 copies. And I got lied to. One reason I don’t like working with people at the label is that they like. They told me, ‘We really want you to got Sweden. These people really want to write with you.’

So I flew to Sweden with lyrics I’d written to this track I’d been send, ‘Since U Been Gone.’ I get there, and the writers are like, ‘Oh, we already have lyrics. We just want you to sing it.’ It was really awkward. It was mean. That’s why there’s no relationship with them. Because I don’t like to be lied to.

On ex-boyfriend David Hodges, former Evanescence keyboardist: “I didn’t even really like the guy. I’m more mad at myself for being so blind. Why would I pick someone like him to date? What’s wrong with me? … It’s fine in the end. Maybe I ahd to go through that and learn more about myself. Maybe that’s why I don’t date much, either.”

On how many boys she’s made out with: “Four? No, wait. Oh my God, five! I have major trust issues. [laughs] I just don’t make out with people. That’s a waste of my kisses and time. And it’s so personal. It’s like, my face. Plus, I’m afraid of mouth herpes.”

On her face-to-face meeting with music exec Clive Davis: “It was nice. It was just the two of us, and his dog. I was like, I don’t know you very well, and I am not a bulls******. I get you don’t like the album. You’re 80; you’re not supposed to like my album. I said, ‘Clive, I’m going to make tons of albums. It doesn’t have to be mainstream every time. Then he kept bringing up people he’s worked with. ‘You’re a Whitney! You’re a Mariah!’ ‘First of all, Mariah writes a lot of her stuff. Secondly, I dont’ want a career like either of those singers.

That’s why it’s hard for us to make an album. You don’t know me! You don’t know what I like, and you don’t know what my fans like.”

Take that, Clive Davis!

While the head of RCA was not a fan of Kelly Clarkson's new CD, "My December", fans of the original American Idol appear to feel differently.

"My December" debuted at No. 2 on The Billboard 200 weekly album sales chart, according Nielsen Soundscan figures for the week ending July 2.  Clarkson's third album - the first in which she either wrote or co-wrote every song - sold 291,000 copies in its first week of release.

Clarkson's album trailed only "Hannah Montana 2 (Soundtrack)/Meet Miley Cyrus," two-disc 20-set set that combines Cyrus' debut album with music from the Disney Channel TV show that the 14-year-old stars in.  Cyrus -- the daughter of country singer, Hannah Montana co-star and fourth-season Dancing with the Stars participant Billy Ray Cyrus -- sold 326,000 copies in her album's first week of release.

"My December's" debut week sales surpassed those of "Breakaway," Clarkson's Grammy-winning 2004 second album that has since sold over 10 million copies.  "Breakaway," which was released during the more competitive holiday season sales period, debuted at No. 3 and sold 250,000 copies in its first week of release in November 2004.

Although it beat "Breakaway's" debut, "My December" fell just short of setting a debut week album sales record for Clarkson.  "Thankful," the original Idol winner's debut album, debuted at No. 1 and sold 297,000 copies during its first week of release in April 2003.