Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this
Some people search forever..."
- Kelly Clarkson, "A Moment Like This"
Ms Scary is proud to announce that she used to be a veteran contestant of many a local Talentime until she was barred from participating. To this day, Ms Scary blames her lacklustre Talentime record on two mitigating factors - one: Ms Scary's vocal "prowess" was simply way ahead of its time and two: no talent judge in Singapore appreciates a singing technique resembling Bjork screaming at an unfortunate journalist.
Given Ms Scary's penchant for singing competitions and her understandable obsession with American Idol I and II, it is no wonder that she was excited about the debut album of 21 year old Texan Kelly Clarkson - the winner of Fox TV's first ratings-grabbing American Idol competition.
Overlooking the fact that Ms Clarkson looks like a cross between Lisa Marie Presley and Christina Aguilera and actually dares to don what resembles a crochet accident contributed by her grandmother on her hideous album cover, the ever magnanimous Ms Scary decides to purchase Thankful based strictly on the album's impressive pedigree.
Produced by legendary music mogul Clive Davis, Kelly Clarkson's Thankful debuted at the prestigious No. 1 spot on the US Billboard album chart and is loaded with compositions by songwriters-to-the-stars such as Diane Warren, Desmond Child (Ricky Martin), Jorgen Elofsson (Britney Spears) and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds.
After giving Thankful a spin, Ms Scary is convinced that Kelly Clarkson graduated top of the class from the Whitney-Mariah-Celine School of Singing which goes by the motto: "Why Sing When You Can Scream?" Filled with mediocre assembly-line pop fluff, nondescript R & B tracks and power ballads characterized by Whitney-level pyrotechnics, Thankful is a classic example of radio-friendly but over-produced American pop (read: bland and utterly forgettable).
The first single from Thankful, "Miss Independent", is co-written by Ms Clarkson and drrty diva Christina Aguilera. Sounding uncannily like Christina-lite a la "Fighter", this romper stomper of a track is one of the few outstanding songs on the album (ear-splitting chorus notwithstanding) although Ms Scary thinks that Ms Clarkson still has a long way to go before she earns her street cred.
The remaining tracks on Thankful include "The Trouble With Love Is", a Mariah Carey reject, "Some Kind of Miracle", a Diane Warren-penned ballad where Ms Clarkson attempts (unsuccessfully) to out-shriek Celine and "Anytime", an octave spanning power ballad guaranteed to bring out the lighter-waving concert goer in anyone.
Despite the dismal selection of songs, the fact that Kelly Clarkson has a voice is indisputable. However, Ms Clarkson should craft her own musical identity post American Idol, find her own voice without being derivative and stop performing like she's still trying to impress Paula, Randy and Simon.
The only upside is that Thankful features Ms Clarkson's double-sided debut single "A Moment Like This" and "Before Your Love" as bonus tracks. Breaking Billboard's "leap to number one" record by blazing from No. 52 to No. 1 in one week, "A Moment Like This" is guaranteed to be everyone's favourite wedding march for 2003 and the song de rigeur for every beauty queen's winning walk-and-wave segment from the local pageant to Ms Universe.
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