In light of what they see as Clive Davis’s neglect toward the promotion of Kelly Clarkson’s My December, the Kelly Clarkson Express–a group that sounds like it should serve as a dual-purpose fan club for the first American Idol and trains–has put together a video for the song “How I Feel,” which its members think should be the next single. This is but one facet of the How I Feel Project, a campaign to get the song played on the radio, or maybe very quietly in the background of an MTV show. While strong fan support is essential when you’re a pop star being ignored by one of the world’s most powerful music bigwigs, that devotion can come with a price–and in this case, that price is a well-intentioned but sadly incompetent tribute video.
Videos consisting solely of live performance and publicity clips are on thin ice to begin with, as they basically have only editing to save them from total banality. And unfortunately, it seems that nobody at KC Express HQ read the Windows Media Maker help guide. There are a few meek dissolves toward the beginning of the video, but other than that the clip is an uninspired series of nondescript clips (Kelly posing for a photo shoot, doing a touchdown dance, etc.), most of which are inexplicably in black and white. Not even the classic tribute video sepia treatment! It’s disheartening, to say the least.
All that being said, this is not by any means an assault on the Kelly Clarkson Express, who obviously have their hearts in the right place, but simply lack the resources to edit together a decent video. The real culprit in this tragedy is Clive Davis and his refusal to promote a song with as much potential as “How I Feel.” While My December may not have been the hit machine that Davis was hoping for, he could have, at the very least, given this song a try on the radio. It’s not stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks pop gold like “Since U Been Gone”–so few things are, really–but it’s a better-than-decent song, and it’s got something that so many other songs of its ilk lack: lyrics.
Obviously, most pop songs have articulations that form words, but “How I Feel” is like a good old-fashioned song where the singer actually says something of personal importance to him or her. I like that grating Colbie Caillat song as much as the next sucker, but the lyrics–despite their ostensibly very personal nature–are still high-sheen and empty. Not that Kelly Clarkson is all of a sudden Joni Mitchell these days, but there’s certainly a heftier element to “How I Feel,” and that comes in part from its less conventional, more specific lyrics. It’s a solid pop song with just the slightest hint of integrity, and it’s a real shame that its marketing has been left to enthusiastic but ultimately powerless fan clubs.
Maybe the solution here is a call to the tribute-video community, who tend to be unfailingly strange, yet occasionally successful in their music video adventures. After all, look what they did for “Breakaway.”
My music-biz-writer friend and I were recently discussing the ‘07 Clarkson debacle and agreed that, while Clive was sadly right about the album needing a few songs-for-hire, he needlessly made the album’s failure a fait accompli by not even trying to half-heartedly promote its better songs. It’s like he couldn’t prove his point by letting the album sell only one-third of its predecessor, so he needed to make sure it only sold one-sixth.
Clarkson comes out of the whole thing looking a little naïve and overestimating her talents a bit; Davis comes off looking like a guy with industry smarts who’s also a total dick.
It’s beyond idiotic for them to rally around “saving” an album 8 months after its troubled release, and cry about there not being another single when even the 2nd single didn’t get a video. But then, fanclubs are nothing if not excuses for quixotic write-in campaigns, and “How I Feel” was always one of my favorite tracks on the album, so I can’t fault their song choice.
there was a second single?
check out these stats from ken barnes’ idol blog after the 2/6 soundscans came out:
“And Kelly’s ineligible-for-the-chart Breakaway was the best-selling off-chart Idol album at 3,600 copies, down from 3,700, for a total of 5.95 million. My December sold 1,800, down from 2,000, to total 749,000.”
[blogs.usatoday.com]
I just wish all these pop stars wanting to sustain in the music industry over periods of time would LEARN from mistakes like this….it’s not like KC is the first person who tried to capitalize on past successes to try and sell the public on a passion project, only to see numbers significantly less than before. Hell, she’s not even the first one this decade…(i.e. Mariah and ‘Glitter’, Xtina with ‘Back to Basics’ etc etc)
Again, it’s the age-old ‘Artistry vs. Commerce’ dilemma…you can’t always have it both ways, kids!!
@Maura Johnston: And yes, I believe they tried releasing ‘Sober’ (didn’t crack the top 50 on Billboard Hot 100) and I vaguely recall her trying to work a miserable track called ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’.
I didn’t understand the whole dilemma of KC vs. RCA…the first time most of us heard ‘Never Again’ I think we knew where this album was headed (i.e. the toilet). Was KC so stubborn that RCA couldn’t have done a bit of market research and shown her this simple fact??
Ehh, she’s on tour with Reba. It ain’t the end of the world.
I downloaded the album when it first came out, out of curiosity. And when I heard this song, my immediate reaction was: “Why the heck did they release Never Again as the first single? THIS shoulda been the first single!” Glad to see others agree. May the KCE prevail…
Kelly Clarkson’s album isn’t the only one that BMG has not promoted. Nearly all of their recent releases have gone unpromoted. A number of albums in the last few months of last year did not do nearly as well as they might have had BMG promoted them properly and that included not sending review copies to writers even after they had been promised.
The Album is not a FLOP as many are compelled to Call it.. It has gone Platium in the US as of December 07, (yes look it up if you wish on the RIAA website) Also the album world wide has sold 2 million plus. Many Artist dont hit gold, or near platinum. Yes Kelly Clarksons 3rd Album was not a commercially popular in the US but WE all know She can sing!! She has that voice of gold that many can not touch or come close to.. So Kelly will make another album, and Clive Davis will like it, love it, promote it.. You have to say that I am sure CLive and the Label are still Happy that even though they didnt back up Kelly Clarkson Album (the way the should have) the Album has done quite well…. And I love How I feel also so I hope they reconsider and make that a single, i mean come on Clive.. We all know Pinks album didnt hit smashing numbers until She released “U and Ur hand”.. which was months after the album was released!!! Any who.. Kelly Clarkson ROCKS!!!
Sincerely,
Chicago’s #1 Kelly Clarkson Fan
Philip Leodoro
http://www.myspace.com/krazygemini1980