Kelly Clarkson still had a lot to prove even after the win American Idol in 2002.
In a new interview with SiriusXM Hits 1 together with colleague The voice coach John Legend, Kelly said music executives assumed she couldn’t write songs the way she came from American Idol.
The Grammy winner said: “I think the label was very against it – I won a talent show. They didn’t know I was a writer, and it was very difficult to get that part validated through them, so ‘Because of You’ was rejected as a first album,” Kelly continued, referring to her debut album. Satisfying.
“They said, ‘It doesn’t rhyme. It’s the worst song ever,’ like whatever, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s not really what it’s about,'” she added.
Kelly would have approved even if the song had been released as an “album track” rather than a single.
“It’s just something that’s meaningful to me,” she said. “And I think what really bothered me was that I discovered that early on about the industry, that a lot of people just don’t care. They don’t care about the art of it. They just want to make money, right?”
The song was eventually released on her 2004 album Escape after she fought for it.
“But then the fans blew up and it was my biggest number one in the world,” she recalls.
“I think that was the surprise, as much as you feel like the machine is against you, your fans will be there and they will be the reason why you can continue doing it and not the person, they will probably be replaced,” the superstar added.
She added: “I had five different label heads in a few years. You know what I mean?”
Adding the big lesson, Kelly added, “They’re probably not going to be there, you know? So it’s really about doing what you love and really sticking to that strongly and I think I was surprised because I just didn’t see that coming.”
Because of you hit No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the US Pop Airplay chart. It has 840 million streams on Spotify and remains one of Kelly Clarkson’s best-performing songs.
