Kelly Clarkson Announces New Album for 2023
Kelly Clarkson is making an exciting announcement.
On Wednesday (September 7), the 40-year-old performer confirmed to Variety that she had recorded a new album and planned on releasing it in 2023.
This will mark Kelly‘s first major studio album in over five years, with the last being 2017′s Meaning of Life.
Click inside to find out what Kelly said about the album…
“It’s coming out next year. And this is an important album,” she told the outlet. “I’m working on this in therapy: I have a hard time vocalizing what I’m feeling sometimes, so music is helpful for me. It’s just been really healing. I recorded the record quite some time ago.”
She went on to say that her new record was over two years in the making and was inspired by her divorce from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock, who she shares two kids with.
“When my ex and I first separated, there were many emotions. It was hard,” Kelly said. “My producer and I were laughing yesterday because I was like, ‘Remember that time we wrote, like, 25 songs in a week?’ A lot of those are the ones that are on the album. I literally wrote most of these almost two years ago. Then I told my label, ‘I can’t talk about this until I’ve gone through it,’ and it’s just taken some time to do that. That’s one of the reasons we’ve done a lot of Christmas stuff the past two years — because I was like, ‘Well, that’s happy!’”
She continued, “I hadn’t really been working hardcore on an album until I needed to. I was just very busy. There were so many jobs, and I’m a single mom — well, even with being married, it’s a lot, trying to fit kids’ schedules in and all that stuff. But then the whole divorce thing happened, and I needed to write it. And then I didn’t know if I was going to release it, because you can be very angry in that state of mind. So some of the songs, they definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there’s everything on the album. It’s almost like the arc of a relationship, because the beginning is so beautiful and so sweet, and then it evolves. And sometimes it doesn’t evolve how you want.”
Kelly also hinted that a tour may be in the works, though she’ll have to find a way to juggle her other projects like The Kelly Clarkson Show.
“I definitely am going to do shows. We’re figuring that out,” she noted. “But when you write an album that’s so personal, it’s just therapeutic to be able to get up there.”
“I know there are other guys and girls out there that have been through this kind of breakup who are going to need to scream at the top of their lungs — you can come and join me,” she added.
Kelly credited her fans for being the ones to help inspire her to release the new album.
“The one reason that ended up making me go, ‘I should put this out’ is that most of the songs in my career that people will generally come up to me [about] are the ones that are stories inspired by my life that maybe they go through as well,” she said. Kelly added of her divorce, “I’m through it now, but there is somebody else who is in it, and that’s a hard place to be, especially if you feel alone. It’s a hard thing to describe, it’s a hard thing to go through publicly, it’s hard with kids. This record, I think I wrote this for a reason — not just for me, but maybe someone else can benefit from it.”
Kelly recently opened up about her decision to skip this season of The Voice. Check it out.