By Brian Ives
Kelly Clarkson is one of the few artists that can have her cake and eat it too. Specifically, she can make pop music for country fans or country music for pop fans.
She’s collaborated with a number of country’s biggest names in recent years—including Jason Aldean, Reba McEntire and Ronnie Dunn, just to name a few. But judging by the songwriters she worked with this time around, she has the pop charts squarely in her sights with her new album, Piece By Piece.
The first single, “Heartbeat Song,” reunites Clarkson with producer Greg Kurstin, who she’d worked with over the years, including on her classic “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You.)” But, per the single’s title, it’s not a heartbreak song—and Ms. Clarkson has certainly rocked a few of those over the years—but a song about getting through heartbreak.
The music video follows that theme focusing on a bunch of people on the wrong end of a breakup. We’ve all been there and we all know it’s devastating. You feel like you’ll never get over it, but then, hey, you bump into someone new. Whatever kills you makes you stronger, indeed.
The happily married new mom told Radio.com that “Heartbeat Song” was the “perfect first single; it really bridged a gap between my last album, Stronger and Piece By Piece. It’s a new chapter in my life, and I wanted to start out being positive and powerful.”
Her second single, “Invincible,” co-written by Sia, is a ballad with a powerful beat. Clarkson is clearly swinging for the fences here, and the lyrics seem to follow the theme of “Heartbeat Song”: “You know I was broke down, I had hit the ground/ I was crying out, I couldn’t make no sound/ No one hears the silent tears collecting/ You know I had lost hope, I was all alone/ Never been so long till you came along.”
Clarkson says that she respects Sia both as a singer and as a fan: “I love how Sia writes. It’s incredibly vulnerable, raw and emotional. I’ve been a fan of hers for a while. ‘Invincible’ is empowering. That’s a message that always attracts me, not only as a singer, but as a listener as well.”
Listen to the song below.
Piece By Piece is out March 3.
