Album Review: Kelly Clarkson reacts with 'chemistry'

The non-divorce, divorce album showcases Clarkson at her most resilient.

After two decades in the music industry, Kelly Clarkson has mastered resilience. She’s evolved from contest winner to judge, incorporated pop, rock, country, R&B, and holiday music into her repertoire, and even folded daytime talk show host into her resume. Some of her biggest hits hinge on resilience too, namely “Since U Been Gone” and “Stronger.” It’s no wonder that, in the face of a never-ending divorce, she trudges ahead with chemistry, a record that overflows with the resilient attitude that cemented her as a true American Idol. 

It’s a risky move to open a record with a song called “skip this part,” which bemoans the moment. It says, in no uncertain terms, that chemistry isn’t an easy record, but it also makes the record that much more captivating from the jump. The two-plus years it took to make attest to that. However, chemistry is both rewarding and progressive. She weaves together elements of country, rock, soul, and gospel into a pop landscape that at once feels both quintessentially Kelly and also adventurous and risky in all the right ways. 

The fatigue of heartbreak comes to a head on “high road,” a topical sibling to the closer to her last non-holiday record, 2017’s Meaning Of Life “Go High.” There, she built on the budding Michelle Obama quote of the moment (“when they go low, we go high”). Though she described the fatigue then, she sang “I’ll never give up.” Here, resilience battles with fatigue. “I’m getting tired of trying to do my best, when I don’t feel it,” she laments over the driving rock-adjacent production. It’s a driving reminder of the cost of the high road, doing the right thing, and indirectly serves as a call for self-care.

On the album’s latest single, “rock hudson,” she draws on the life and times of the eponymous film legend to reflect on her dissolved marriage. “It was real, but it wasn’t,” she admits of the relationship she and her ex built. “No I won’t dance anymore, no I won’t put on a show” she defiantly sings as she welcomes crucifixion in exchange for liberation from the tangled web that became their marriage. “What good’s a promise, if you’re never really honest,” she questions searingly. Most damning is the repeated and resilient “by the way, piece by piece, I found out my hero’s me,” a very direct reference to her 2015 hit “Piece by Piece,” which she wrote in part about his supposed unconditional love. It’s one of the biggest and best “ohhhh shit” lyrical moments she threads into the album. 

It’s not all sad or sad-adjacent songs though. On “my favorite kind of high,” effervescent pop princess Carly Rae Jepsen contributes her songwriting talents to help Kelly illustrate the intoxicating and addicting effects of love. “I wanna feel high,” she sings as she shoots to the top of her vocal register, yearning for that love. Jepsen isn’t the only notable name in the credits, either. Nick Jonas lends his talents to the equally catchy, but more rock oriented “red flag collector.” She issues takedown after takedown of her ex as she testifies to learning the hard way about love. “Sure, you can have the towels,” she folds, effortlessly. It conveys a sense of not only acceptance, but progress and moving on. She doesn’t give a fuck anymore. 

There’s no doubting or disputing the vocal powerhouse that Clarkson is, and this album once again reinforces that. She’s one of the most formidable vocalists of her generation. In the lead-up to chemistry’s release she even staged  impromptu, flash mob-style acapella performances which showcase her tremendous voice. Her ear is keen, and her vocal sensibilities infuse a youth spent listening to Aretha, Mariah, and Whitney into dizzying vocal acrobatics that are never over the top, but also never skimp on the power. She has soul coursing through her, a rarity in the river of the feeble voices that overflow from the top of the charts. 

All that talent, however, is frustratingly and carelessly processed through poorly masked tuners across the record. It’s most notable on what’s supposed to be the sonically intimate and vulnerable opening to “me.” Instead, her voice warbles with technological goop. It’s a crucial moment on a song that oozes with gospel soul, a genre that is reserved for the best of the best vocally. It feels like a slap in the face of every vocal great she follows to toy with her glorious instrument in such a careless fashion. Make no mistake, these effects are not uncommon in today’s music world, but they’re usually more professionally and subtly applied. They don’t ruin the album, but they’re annoying at their most prominent. 

The vocal tuning may not be her doing, but elsewhere Clarkson takes a more hands-on approach to the album. She contributes more as a songwriter on chemistry than she has on any album since 2007’s My December. She also doesn’t include any vocal guests, though two big names do assist her at the album’s closing. Steve Martin reminds us that he’s a banjo aficionado on the cheeky “i hate love” The legendary Sheila E. lends her iconic percussive talents to the closing “that’s right,” where Clarkson issues some final, multi-layered swipes at her ex, including orders him to keep his tame white horse away from her wild mustangs. It feels like the perfect punctuation to this record: after persevering through a difficult divorce and continuing to transcend musical genres, Kelly Clarkson isn’t interested in anything that confines her.

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