Snap Judgment: Kelly Clarkson's My Life Would Suck Without You

Over at our sister blog, Pop and Hiss, LA Times chief music critic and Idoltracker regular Ann Powers weighs in on the Prodigal Daughter, Kelly Clarkson's new single, available at last to be heard by human ears.  She writes:

File this one under "predictable": Kelly Clarkson has returned from her Persephone-like journey across the pop-goth River Styx on the excellent but commercially disappointing album "My December" with a shiny, streamlined new cut meant to break the speed limit up the charts. Hear it for yourself on her YouTube page. 

There's no reason this song won't be huge. "My Life Would Suck Without You," co-written and produced by absolute hit makers Dr. Luke and Max Martin, zooms forward from its guitar-plucky intro toward a cymbal-crashing climax without ever slowing down. There's no time to question the empty calories delivered within those compressed, subtly Auto-Tuned vocals, which ride some sneakily accelerating high-fructose beats.

You will be singing this song by your third listen, and that third listen will be unavoidable, because without a bridge or even one blue note, it's perfectly suited to the formats that support 21st century pop -- especially YouTube parodies and singing toothbrushes.

But is Kelly in there, amid the syn-drums and keyboard bleeps? To paraphrase Bill Clinton, that depends on the meaning of "in."

Read it all right here.

Comments

[Aprile]

Love Kelly. Don't love the song. If anyone else were singing it, I probably woudn't like it at all.