Kelly Clarkson - All I Ever Wanted

When I first heard My Life Would Suck Without You, it's like I was brought back to 2004/2005 when Since You've Been Gone was the biggest thing since anything and I suddenly got excited about Kelly Clarkson again. The lead-up to my first listen of the album was filled with listening to the two songs that had leaked, her number one single and the much disputed track, The Day We Fell Apart. I was expecting nothing less than brilliance.

What did I get? A confused, generic and just plain mediocre album. The songs have no cohesion, one minute she's pop/rock, the next she's bubblegum pop and what makes it worse is that I've heard this all before, all the songs sound like some other hit song from 2003-2006.

Don't Let Me Stop You sounds like an Everlife or Superchic[k] song they'd put in a Disney movie and Already Gone reminds me of a more modern, lighter Paula Cole song. The start of If I Can't Have You reminds me of Natalie Bassingthwaighte's Catch Me If You Can while Save You sounds like a Snow Patrol/The Fray song. Ready sounds like a Kelly-ized Sara Bareilles song and I Want You reminds me of a Mandy Moore Wild Hope-era song

The songs themselves as just songs are gorgeous, the melodies and the instrumentals are brilliant but this is supposed to be an album, not just a bunch of random songs thrown together haphazardly.

To sum it all up, nothing, no matter how hard Kelly Clarkson and her production team tries will ever match the glory of Breakaway, nothing. Breakaway was in a league of it's own, it defined a generation and All I Ever Wanted will forever be the album that tried so desperately to revive Breakaway's glory.

SO, to sum up the album:
Best Track: I Do Not Hook Up
Better Tracks: Save You, Don't Let Me Stop You
Least Favorite Track: If No One Will Listen
THE RATING: 3.5/5, for being confused and mediocre