All I Ever Wanted
- Kelly Clarkson
- Band Name: Kelly Clarkson
- Record Label: Sony
- Release Date: Mar 10, 2009
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All I Ever Wanted is a masterful rapprochement with the mainstream, full of cheerfully ear-snagging tunes, inventive production, exhilarating vocals and enough inherent Kelly-ness to put aside fears that her label bosses implanted blond electrodes in her brain to make her behave.
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She just tries it all, co-writing six of All I Ever Wanted's 14 tracks-- and stumbles only rarely
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80On her third album, Clarkson finds a Third Way: She makes nice with the pop machine and takes back the mall while keeping her integrity and personality intact.
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80Clarkson's always had the best throaty yell in the business. But now she's becoming a masterful interpreter too.
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80No matter the stage of the romance, it's always DEFCON 1 in Clarkson-ville. And on All I Ever Wanted, out Tuesday, that melodrama translates into a delightfully incongruous good time.
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70All I Ever Wanted, which though always singable swings wildly from bruised to bubblegum, sounds like a team of hired hands writing hits to order. Still, the increased chorus count is welcome and will put a smile back on Clive Davis's face.
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This is a rare talent and while it's not perfect, largely due to those dreary Tedder tunes, much of All I Ever Wanted does justice to Clarkson's considerable skills.
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The most immediate parts of All I Ever Wanted read a bit like Kelly Clarkson karaoke: back are the Swedish writers and producers and their laser-guided arrangements, with dynamics that are particularly well suited to her voice, broad, nimble and gale-force strong.
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I had to make several return trips to the lyric sheet to clear up which songs were love letters and which were screw-yous. But this sort of tone-deaf emotional bludgeoning tends to work in her favor on monstrous power ballads.
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Clarkson's sense of grievance, inflated to gargantuan size by her huge voice, can be wearying over 14 songs, particularly when the music sags.
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Taken in isolation and out of the context of the album as a whole--say, on the radio--nearly all of these songs work well enough, despite the production choices that don't always play to Clarkson's strengths and which draw too much attention to themselves.
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60While not perfect, her fourth is full of upbeat (and pretty damn good) guitar-driven pop like 'I Do Not Hook Up' and the title track, as well as a few requisite (and equally decent) ballads that make use of her impressive range.
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60With no real stand out single, All I Ever Wanted will be a hit with Clarkson die-hards, but is unlikely to influence any Top 40 outsiders.
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The good songs are great, but the empty bluster on some of the others overshadows the spunky personality that made Clarkson a draw in the first place.
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60Though All I Ever Wanted is not a classic pop album by any means, it's most assuredly a fun one--flaws and all.
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Now she's working with pro songwriters full-time again, and the result is a likeable but ultimately hackneyed album that presents her as the über-everygirl.
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40As a product that needs to sell it fits the bill perfectly - there are at least five potential top ten singles here--but as an album, the whole thing feels precision tooled, vacuum-packed and strangely lifeless.
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