Meet the new bitch, no relation to the old bitch.
[EDIT: New column's up today for a few other observations.]
I haven't read music criticism this outrageous since around this time last year, when Paris's album came out to generally staggeringly idiotic reviews. I spent a lot of time breaking down what (I thought) the haters and lovers alike were missing -- namely, an appropriate discussion of the music on the album -- and what, instead, they were saying about themselves, and about whatever political issues they were using Paris to represent. It was that level of social analysis that failed most miserably, since an actual discussion of how the music worked was, for the most part, a side issue.
Well, the reviews for My December might be even worse, because now the lovers/haters are putting themselves in the opposite position -- an ambiguously pro-mainstream, pro-Svengali, pro-record label position that essentially reverses two issues that Frank Kogan outlined in a previous comment thread:
(1) The idea that Ashlee Simpson had little or nothing to do with the creation of her album (underlying this is a vague feeling that people like her can't be creative talents, though this feeling is also vague about who falls into the category "people like her").
(2) The idea that the mainstream, or the mainstream music biz, or the mainstream something (this is a vague feeling too, which is how it stays out of the sight of the intellect) can't create music worth taking seriously.
A corollary to number two is that any time the mainstream does create something worth taking seriously, it was made by someone taking a stand against the biz, or the record company, or something mainstream.
Of course, there can be all sorts of subvariants, depending if someone is willing to take some mainstream people seriously but not others, and depending on what circumstances they approve of.
Many reviewers have reversed the principles to keep the underlying assumptions about class ("people like her") intact. Among the most egregious (and idiotic) assumptions:
(1) Kelly Clarkson is incapable of writing her own songs, as can be evidenced by the songs on My December. (See: "hookless," shoulda let someone else write them, wannabe authentic songwriter.)
This is preposterous. Let's sidestep an argument about the quality of the songs themselves, which I'll return to in a minute, and discuss Kelly's role in the authorship of her songs.
Max Martin and Dr. Luke are frequently invoked -- as "professional songwriters" -- to suggest that without them, Kelly is basically lost, aimless, unable to write a hook. This is idiotic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that she had co-author credits on most of her tunes with Martin/Gottwald et al. The fact is, aside from some one-off projects with varying success (Nick Carter, Linda Sundblad's first group Lambretta), Martin never refined the "Since U Been Gone" rock template until he worked with Kelly. The idea that he waltzed in and handed her "SUBG" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes" on a platter is silly, and it also doesn't account for the fact that he hasn't recreated the intensity of "Behind These Hazel Eyes" since he worked with Kelly. Also important to remember that Kelly was working with the "professionals" (i.e. was a professional herself) back in 2004 when she co-wrote a song for Lindsay's first album with John Shanks.
(Interesting side note: in an interview with Linda Sundblad, an idiotic Australian radio personality asked Linda about working with Max Martin, since it was basically assumed in the interview that Linda co-wrote or was otherwise involved in the production of Lambretta's "Bimbo." Then, turning on a dime, he asks sarcastically: "so this is the TALENT behind Kelly Clarkson?" To which Linda uncomfortably replies, probably rolling with it, "uh...yeah." So on a face-to-face basis, puppetmastery is off the table, but in an abstract sense it remains.)
Then there's the issue of the hooks themselves. I would point to "Haunted," not one of the best tracks by far, as a direct link to Breakaway's darker Clif Magness-influenced material: the stuff that actually sounds a bit like Evanescence, as opposed to the majority of the hard rock songs on My December ("Hole," "Judas," "Don't Waste Your Time," "Never Again") which don't really fit that description. (Kelefa Sanneh cites Evanescence as a major influence in his review -- funny that every reviewer I've read who makes the Evanescence links fails to mention that most of these songs are ABOUT a former member of Evanescence!)
Anyway, these hooks aren't that far removed from the Max/Luke hooks, and certainly aren't that far removed from their darkest hooks, from "Behind These Hazel Eyes." That one banks on a very high "hook note," with a slightly higher "money note": "Here I AM, once a-GAIN" is the hook note; "I'm TORN into PIECes" is the money note. But generally it's a punishing hook with very little relief in the (slightly) lower register. "Hole," "Haunted," "Judas," and "Never Again" all take this tendency to blast the higher register to its logical extreme, focusing on one high note in their choruses ("There's a HOLE!" and "I didn't KNOW!" and "WHEEEEERE are yooou"). The difference is that the quiet/loud post-grunge pop aesthetic is replaced for the most part with a flatter intensity -- she approximates the Pixies in "Chivas" (which is the "Where Is My Mind?" progression), but not the soft/loud aesthetic usually attributed (not sure how accurately) to them. (She also does "Exit Music for a Film" in "Irvine," which lots of reviewers have called the best -- or only good song!) But generally soft/loud isn't as clean, not so much of a pop science.
There are interesting uses of dynamics, though, like the fake-out to the lower register the first time Kelly sings "never again" in that track, and the uncharacteristically delicate phrasing of "awaaaay" in "Sober" (which soon thereafter has Kelly blasting out the highest note on the album, all the way up to a G-flat). I wish that "Maybe" made a better use of dynamics, as her live version suggested it might; as is, it's an excellent song that still doesn't quite live up to its potential, particularly in the shift from acoustic to electric -- the acoustic is too confident, too dirty, and the electric isn't big enough, loud enough, hard enough. Likewise, "Haunted" is too hard, too samey.
(2) Clive Davis/Sony was right; this thing will never sell.
This is an inexplicable viewpoint; it actually turns even the "rebel in the mainstream" trope on its head by suggesting that it would have been in Kelly's best interests to have gone with the pop hitz (meaning she'd sell that many more copies -- funny, we're talking about a scale of MILLIONS for Kelly, like she's letting someone down [who, the parent company?] by failing to outsell every other artist of the year). But this is an obviously stupid point to argue -- maybe if the Arcade Fire had put out an album of Disney covers instead of Neon Bible they'da made it to #1 on Billboard (c'mon, #2?? You can do better than that!). Reversion to the Kelly of Thankful would be a step down (inconsistent, not particularly emotionally resonant) and reversion to Breakaway would be copycatting -- besides which, I can't stress this enough, this album is simply NOT that far removed from Breakaway's darkest moments. And some of that album's moments -- including karaoke-staple "Because of You," which Sanneh mentions -- are far darker and more terrifying (if not as gritty-sounding) than anything on My December.
So in (1) and (2), we have the reverse of the usual anti-mainstream anti-"that sorta girl" knee-jerk response, used conveniently to fit an album that (apparently) lots of critics don't care for. But I wonder whether or not these reviews actually exhibit the most insidious remnants of anti-mainstream sentiment in a so-called "anti-rockist" (or whatever buzzword you you wanna paste in) music environment that, much more simply than any vaguely ideological term might suggest, doesn't examine its prejudices. WHY shouldn't Kelly write her own songs, especially when to make this argument you have to ignore her history of songwriting and to some extent misrepresent what kind of songwriting she was doing on her own album? (And, what's more, I'd argue that your ears might need some tuning because there are plenty of hooks on My December, though they are intense hooks -- but so are the hooks to "Because of You" and "Hear Me" and "Addicted" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes.") WHY should the record label or Clive Davis's opinion override Kelly's, and what would this override even sound like? (Kelly was shopped a track from Lindsay's second album, having written one for her first one, that she rejected on principle -- as she should have, since it was already on Lindsay's album).
And why should we take a mainstream artist to task for failing to sell in the bajillions -- especially when to do so we need to ignore her album, in all its muddy grandeur, for what it is? Second-best rock album of the year, I mean, a relatively modest distinction. This is an album entirely unworthy of the perplexing "controversy" being pinned to it, and its reviews thus far have generally made for the hands-down worst rock writing of the year, be it in favor of the album, against it, weirdly ambivalent toward it, or trying its hardest but failing to keep its bile in its throat.
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