The Queen of Idol Reclaims Her Throne

Last week, the premiere Idol Kelly Clarkson returned to the American Idol stage. What a perfect ending to American Idol with its final season; my heart was just racing with nostalgia. With Kelly's performance of “Piece by Piece”, off of her seventh album of the same name which was just nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys, Kelly reminded us not only why she won American Idol, but why she experienced so much success and longevity after winning, becoming the most global artist the show ever had. Keep in mind that winning isn't everything, and longevity plays a much stronger factor; just look at runner-up Adam Lambert, for instance. Kelly, though, has both. In regard to the performance, Kelly performed a reinvented version of the title track, stripping down the album version’s synth-pop background in favor of a minimalist piano background that puts further emphasis on Kelly's vocals and emotions, both of which there was ample. Kelly's voice, which has fluctuated recently due to pregnancies, was as powerful and convincing as ever. In this performance as well as in general, she embodies the full-lyric soprano, like an even more fuller- and heftier-voiced Demi Lovato. The song truly works better with the live, melancholy accompaniment rather than the synth-pop elements of the also Grammy-nominated “Heartbeat Song” because the lyrics are also very deep and emotional. Unlike “Piece by Piece”, however, “Heartbeat Song” doesn’t exactly have tear-inducing lyrics, so its pop production works. The album version reminded me of the radio remix of John Legend’s “All of Me”, which significantly detracts from the emotion and “specialness” of the other version. The original song is not supposed to sound like a remix, and it's likely because Kelly's label wanted something more marketable, and marketability doesn't usually go hand-in-hand with substance and execution. Quite moving are the lyrics of the song, which explain how Kelly's father eternally shunned her after her parents’ divorce and then came crawling back after she found success and wasn't worthless or hopeless. After being saved by her husband and stating that she “fell far from the tree”, Kelly doesn't want to let that negativity back into her life and vowed to, unlike him, “never leave her like you left me” and to love her daughter unconditionally, as will her husband. So moving, in fact, that, especially with the change in the production, it moved Kelly to tears during the performance. It shows how much the song and the story mean to her, and why she found it so important and fundamental as to name the entire album after it. Kelly's evident emotion and little breaks during the song from all the tears is the icing on the cake that makes this one of the most memorable Idol performance of all time, with vocals to match. It's right up there with Adam Lambert's performance of “Mad World”, for me. Kelly did an amazing job, and it seems like she's not done yet growing as an artist, so I'm very excited to hear more from her.