Kelly Clarkson extends her musical reach with the genre-tweaking release of her seventh studio album, “Piece By Piece,” which bows at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week.
With a bolder sound, she acquiesces to the “youthening” lure of electronic dance music (EDM) (“Take You High”) and garnishes her “experiments” with a beguiling blend of pop, rock and New Wave (“Dance With Me,” “Invincible”). While it doesn’t always work, it gives her new musical wings with which to fly.
CLARKSON. Right mix of prodigious singing and musical innovation.
It’s hard to ignore the first American Idol’s robust vocals and emotive ability, even when she’s given underwhelming tunes to render (“Tightrope”). So, you can imagine how her numbers soar when she finds the right mix of prodigious singing and musical innovation—and we’re not just talking about hitbound dance-floor charmers like “Heartbeat Song” or the luscious midtempo track, “Someone.”
Top picks: You’ll be drawn to the propulsive hooks of the Sia-penned “Let Your Tears Fall” and Clarkson’s alluring cover of Tokio Hotel’s “Run Run Run,” sung with soulful relish with the prolific John Legend. The track is this season’s “Say Something.” —Eat your hearts out, Christina Aguilera and A Great Big World!
‘Dark Sky Paradise’
Impressively, Legend is also part of last week’s No. 1 album, Big Sean’s “Dark Sky Paradise”—a fascinating fusion of hook-heavy hip-hop and ravishing R&B.
It is notable for the heady and sometimes ominous atmosphere it creates, made more appealing by the exciting comer’s unforced collaborations with his brilliant but testy mentor, Kanye West (“All Your Fault”), Lil Wayne (“Deep”), Drake (“Blessings”), Chris Brown (“Play No Games”), his current squeeze, Ariana Grande (“Research,” in the album’s deluxe edition), and Legend and West (“One Man Can Change The World”).
Sumptuously noirish and moody, Sean’s third studio album reverberates with relevant themes, provocative lyrics and percolating riffs you can groove to: “Paradise” and “Win Some, Lose Some” benefit from the performer’s boundless energy and sexy swagger, while Drake and Kanye join Sean as he takes stock of his alternating years of musical bane and boon.
Some of the hip-hop hotshot’s most caustic moments can be heard in “Research” and the hard-to-ignore carrier single, “I Don’t F* With You,” whose revealing last verse is about his nasty split with his former fiancée, Naya Rivera of “Glee,” who married actor Ryan Dorsey not long after she broke up with Big Sean! Ouch.