Kelly Clarkson’s album seems to be in real trouble. First were the rumors of feuding with her record label exec Clive Davis, then she fired her manager, and now she’s canceling the tour. Her website reads:

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to getting out there to perform for y’all. In the craziness of the music business, performing is what I look forward to doing the most, so it really is disappointing for me to have to tell you that I won’t be coming out to tour this summer. The fact is that touring is just too much too soon. But I promise you that we’re going to get back out there as soon as is humanly possible to give you a show that will be even better.Thanks for all of your love and continued support.”

That’s PR speak for no one will go to hear me sing. Here’s the lesson that should be learned, Clive Davis might be a hard ass but he’s usually right and his track record speaks for itself. Kelly Clarkson’s My December is not the first album that Clive Davis has rejected.

Here’s more notable examples of Clive Davis laying his foot down.

In early 2001 Usher was going to release an album called All About U. If you don’t remember it that’s because when Clive Davis heard the first single “Pop Ya Collar” and the other tracks on the album and quickly pulled the pulled the plug. He lined up some heavy-hitting producers and told Usher to go back in the studio. Eventually Usher went on to create monster hits “U Remind Me”, “U Got It Bad”, and a plethora of other tunes that eventually became 8701. It ended up selling 4 million albums and the rest is history. Check the UK Pop Ya Collar Video.

In 2002, Monica was planning on releasing an album titled All Eyez On Me, with the title track as the first single. Clive Davis didn’t like the direction of the album and after a cold reception of the first single asked Monica to head back to studio and recommended Missy Elliott as a collaborating partner. In 2003, All Eyez On Me eventually became After The Storm which spawned singles such as “So Gone” and “Knock Knock”. Overall the album was a critical success and one of noted as one of the best R&B albums released that year. Here’s the video for “All Eyez On Me” that was quickly pulled from television.

All in all, I think Kelly Clarkson is really talented but I think her last album was a gimmick. She tried to “rock-out” like P!NK and Avril when she’s better suited to be belting pop/r&B ballads. She got lucky and Breakaway was a huge success but ultimately people need to do what they are great at as opposed to catering to the sound-of-the-moment. But then again, this might be what she really love to do. In any event I wish she would go back to this…

Kelly Clarkson – Some Kind Of Miracle