I can breathe for the first time - I'm so moving on

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

08/01/06 : Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson

I am aware of Ms Clarkson but have never listened to an album of hers - I'm expecting to find it pleasant enough, if not the sort of thing I'd generally go for.

Hmmm - you know what, it's not bad at all.  I don't quite know what this kinda stuff is called - maybe something like "female power pop/rock"?  It's not the sort of thing I'd seek out, but I have to admit that the odd track does sneak up on me and catch me unawares - it's often desperately uncool stuff like Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl", Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe" and, obviously, prime slices of Britney.  And Kelly's "Since U Been Gone" is another such example - it's just a great track, which I did know but I'd completely forgotten about.  And there are quite a few other tracks on this album with a nicely hooky chorus, so the whole thing passed by surprisingly enjoyably (and I am a sucker for a nice female voice).  I'm trying to think of a UK equivalent - Jessie J is the closest I can come up with, but there has be a better example out there (which will no doubt come to me just after I post this).

We're all the way down at #8 on her 25th week of a 66 week run - wow, she did better than I'd remembered!  She peaked at #3 in her 24th week and she also managed another two random weeks in '09.  The top five this week are The Strokes (a new entry, but seriously?), James Blunt, Kaiser Chiefs, Eminem and Hard-fi and that's it for new entries in the entire chart - it's almost as if The Strokes picked this week to maximise their chances for success.  I'm also going to mention the Robbie Williams best-of (#7) that I shunned in the vain attempt to avoid him (and you'll find out exactly how vain an attempt it was, errr, tomorrow - sigh).

WIkipedia has more than you'd expect on the album (410 milliPeppers), but it was a VERY big thing over there in the good old U S of A.  Most of the entry is about how before this album, Kelly was viewed as "good, considering, you know, American Idol" but Breakaway changed her into "well, just good really".  The critics viewed it very favourably, but commercially it just flew - it's sold over 12 million copies worldwide.  Surprisingly, it "only" got to #3 in the US (it only got to #1 in Ireland and The Netherlands), but it spent 61 weeks in the top twenty - not a bad effort at all!  And I'm still surprised at how well it did here - #8 in the year end list.

"Customers also listened to" Leona Lewis, Natasha Bedingfield, Ella Henderson and Emeli Sande - all of which seem like suggestions for UK Kelly equivalents and I'd say that Ella Henderson is probably the closest of the bunch, but she's not quite shown the global reach of our Kelly.  Who I found surprisingly enjoyable - no, I won't be rushing back to it but I did add "Since U Been Gone" to my general playlist, so I shouldn't forget about it again.

01/01/06 - A pleasingly unhateful album
15/01/06 - A very bad album indeed