"I think Idol is based more maybe on vocals, so I shined more there," she explained. "I’m not really concerned with the huge production thing, because I don’t want any of it to distract me. Most people who come to see me, come to hear me sing. It’s not like they’re coming to see what I’m wearing or to see the big entertainment, variety thing."
When she was asked what sort of skills an X Factor winner needed, Kelly said, "You think of someone like a Beyonce, that can sing, act and dance. It’s more of an entertainer as well as a singer."
This radio-friendly powerhouse checks price tags. Clarkson recently renovated her Texas home (she also has a condo in Nashville), splurging on a few key items: heated bathroom floors, mini-chandeliers, a pricey bright yellow leather Anthropologie couch.
"But who spends that much on a couch, really?" she chides herself.
A few minutes later, Clarkson settles onto a different couch in her record label's offices, immediately popping off those heels. In a meta moment, Clarkson glances up, noticing she's sitting directly under a glossy poster of herself.
"Celebrity is weird," she says, shaking her head before politely telling her publicist she's not needed.
Clarkson's got this. Aside from her no-holds-barred candor, Clarkson has stealthily avoided the pitfalls of fame. No arrests. No 36-hour Vegas marriages. No drug overdoses.
"I have no controversy," she says. "You don't see me in rehab, or you don't see me coming out with my hey-haw showing. There's not much to report. So when anything little is reported, it's like 'Oh, my God, she wasn't wearing makeup!'"
By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
Kelly Clarkson doesn't play the fame game. "I'm not held to anything," the singer says.
As far as celebrity standards go, "I'm not held to anything," she says. "And I don't wear makeup when I don't want to wear makeup."
Stronger, her fifth studio album (out Monday), may speak to a new chapter of professional harmony for Clarkson, who did damage control in 2007 after clashing with Clive Davis over the direction of her disappointing release My December.
Ask her if the business is getting any easier, and she shrugs.
"I really fought hard on that first album (2003's Thankful), and I've fought the same on every single one of them," says Clarkson. But, she says, "this album, because I've been doing it for 10 years, people know me better as an artist. After four albums, they get it at this point. Like, 'OK, she doesn't want to just make Since U Been Gone, she doesn't just want to make Because of You or Already Gone. I like doing a lot of different things. And I'm always going to want to do that."
RCA Music Group president and COO Tom Corson describes her relationship with the label as having "never been at a better place. We've had a great give-and-take on this album."
It has been a long ride. In 2002, when Survivor was still setting the standard in reality television, 22 million people tuned in to watch a 20-year-old Clarkson win the first American Idol title.
Clarkson performed at the iHeartRadio Music Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena last month in Las Vegas.
Big hits followed: Her first album, Thankful, went double-platinum, and her follow-up, Breakaway, sold more than 6 million copies.
"She helped create a category," says Sean Ross of radio industry website Radio-Info.com and weekly newsletter Ross on Radio. "It's not that long ago that people thought that Top 40 radio would never be what it once was. And there were people who thought that pop music would never be as important as other genres again. And certainly Since U Been Gone did a lot to change that."
The hits and the misses
Clarkson has claimed seven Top 10 singles on Billboard's Hot 100, changed managers twice, experienced critical and commercial disappointment with the rock-fueled My December and a rebound with 2009's pop album All I Ever Wanted (which delivered No. 1 hit My Life Would Suck Without You).
"I don't have regrets," Clarkson says. "But if I were to tell myself or write myself a letter, it would be: Really make sure you're surrounding yourself with good people. Because I love music, but I am way more about: We have one life and I want to have good character, I want to be around people with good character who have good motives."
It's part of the reason why Clarkson picked up the telephone after fans cried foul when Already Gone, an aching, sweeping ballad from her last album, sounded eerily similar to Beyoncé's Halo.
"Sonically, it's my best sounding album," Clarkson says. "A lot of people in pop will compress the hell out of your vocals. People get a formula because a lot of times in pop, that's the sound, and so they just stick that formula on every vocalist. But there are vocalists like Adele or Pink or me or Christina (Aguilera), there are vocalists that don't want that."
Industry insiders say Clarkson's first single from Stronger is still heating up. Mr. Know It All, which has sold 328,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan, is "not a smash hit, but it's a solid record," says Silvio Pietroluongo, director of charts for Billboard. "Top 40 is really at a moment now where it's really favoring tempo-driven records. This is a good pop record, but it doesn't have the dance beats or the electronic feel that some of the other big hits of the format have right now."
With the dance-driven What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)— a favorite of Clarkson's — waiting for release as her next single, Ross says, it's not unusual for labels to initially hold back with a bigger hit. "The way labels operate now, the first single does not necessarily need to be a home run," he says. "What it needs to do is put the word out that 'Hey, Kelly's back.'"
A time for reflection
So what hasn't killed Clarkson but made her stronger?
"My 20s. I think my career, honestly," she says. "There have been times when I've literally been like, 'Not worth the sacrifice, time away from family, time away from friends.' Obviously it's really hard to date when I'm on four different continents in a week. Even if I do meet a great guy, I ain't ever gonna see him. There's only so much you can do with Skype!"
To that end, Clarkson says she's never been in love. "I've never experienced certain things, and I think that's because I have this side of me that is shut off. Because I haven't found anybody yet to open to that I feel like, 'OK, you're worth breaking down that wall for.' I've never found that."
She's still looking, but marriage is something she's reserving for her late 30s. "Because statistically, if you wait that long, you're not going to get divorced," she says.
And she has other big things planned. "I think at some point in my 30s, I don't know if I want to do a revival show or something, like bring back Funny Girl, or start a completely-from-scratch musical." But "that's something I really want to do. I love Broadway."
At the close of what she calls "the searching decade," the wiser pop star keeps it real.
"You know what makes me feel old? My nephew that's like 9 right now. He was just born (when this started)," she says with a laugh. "That's old."
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