Kelly Clarkson
Biography
An American pop-music superstar, Kelly Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 24, 1982. She grew in an ordinary family of a schoolteacher and engineer who decided to divorce when Kelly was a little girl. Clarkson began singing regularly when she became a member of the school choir. In 2000, she graduated from high school and determined to make a demo record, which prompted her to work at several places at a time. Yet it crashed her down when the record completed did not attach much attention from music production companies. It dawned on her that a music career had better chances in a bigger city. So, Kelly relocated to Hollywood. To make her living, she participated in TV shows Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and That 80’s, and had a minor part in Issues 101. After the disastrous fire in her apartment, Clarkson went back to the native city. She took up various activities embracing activities at theater, bars, amusement parks and appearing in a Red Bull commercial.
The breakthrough moment came down after Kelly Clarkson’s victory at the American Idol competition in 2002. That was the starting point for her music career. Kelly’s debut single A Moment Like This reached the fourth position in Top 40 and revealed the singer’s big ambitions as well as big talent. Kelly could have trodden the path of many young artists who rose to fame quickly with just one song and returned even quicker to oblivion. However, she managed to meet the right people who helped her overgrow such performers. One of them was Christina Aguilera who participated in the making of Miss Independent, a smashing single to hold on first in Top 40 for three weeks. In April 2003, Clarkson came up with her first album, Thankful. The record took less than a year to become double platinum in the USA and was also a good seller in Canada. Miss Independent earned Kelly a Grammy nomination. Clarkson spent the biggest part of 2004 away from the stage working on the material for the subsequent long player. It was released in November 2004 under the title Breakaway to feature a number of worldwide hits. The song Breakaway, penned by Avril Lavigne, climbed the highest point of the American Top 40. The following singles, Since U Been Gone, and Behind These Hazel Eyes, showed even better results remaining on the top for many weeks.
The overwhelming achievements of these compositions brought Kelly the ultimate title of the US female performer number one. After the release of the fourth single from this album, Because Of You, Breakaway became fivefold platinum in the USA and Canada. It was only the fourth record in the history of the music stats that managed to hold on in Billboard Top 20 for more than year. In February 2006, Kelly Clarkson received two Grammy nominations. Spring and summer of the same year were the busy seasons of the singer’s tours. Late in 2006, Kelly Clarkson returned to the studio to prepare the third album. This time, she took her first effort to write or co-write the largest portion of the songs. My December appeared a much darker, rock-oriented work. Although some of Kelly’s old supporters disliked the deviation from pop sound, the record sold more than two million albums. Critics praised her attempt to seek new ideas and solutions, too.
It was very interesting for the listeners to check out what her next album, All I Ever Wanted (2009), would be like. Well, Clarkson’s fourth album for the most part was a return to the sound of her 2005’s Breakaway. Kelly co-wrote six of its fourteen tracks. The album featured break up songs and power ballads. All I Ever Wanted kicked off with catchy and instantly memorable single My Life Would Suck Without You that topped the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the record for the largest leap to the position in chart history.
