Review: Kelly Clarkson – Piece By Piece.

Kelly Clarkson is possibly the most successful person to ever win a reality show, with songs that have charted or rock and dance charts in the US, one of her biggest anthems being ‘Since U Been Gone’ which was covered by A Day To Remember, no less, however first single ‘Heartbeat Song’ is a damn good listen on her new record, a singer that generally has an excellent evolution to her sound.

This album is melodic and has some great sounds, not too over filled with hooks, there’s some great writing working with these things, tracks like ‘Someone’ has that vibe – Kelly Clarkson is good with ballad and it shows on tracks like this, where her vocals work perfectly well with the sound that’s created on this album. It’s more a pop/dance record, but with a slow groove mainly, and songs like ‘Take You High’ is one of those songs that might be a good remix in the right hands.

The title track, is the only song written by Clarkson on the record, with every other song written by other writers, and this album is written well, but I’m surprised by her lack of input, after so many records (I mean, the last One Direction album, Four was predominantly written by the band and you may not like them, but at least it’s their work). The production is great, but Greg Kurstin is known for that through working for people such as Lana Del Rey and Tegan and Sara, and I think this shows.

There’s some great songs on this record, and some good melodies, but I think there’s a lot more you can get from Clarkson than this record shows, Heartbeat Song was certainly the right choice of single, but can lead you to feel a little disappointed, if you expected strong vocal performances on this record. (And the casual slut shaming in I Had A Dream is a little disappointing).

6.5/10.