One of the things I love best about Kelly Clarkson’s Kellyoke covers is how wide a net she casts. I wouldn’t expect her to cover Radiohead, for example, but it turns out she’s done just that three times.
And the woman has exceptional taste, as those Radiohead covers are of my three favorite songs by the band: ‘Karma Police,’ ‘Exit Music,’ and ‘Fake Plastic Trees.’
Kelly Clarkson’s Kellyoke performances are often faithful to the style of the original, but once in awhile she pulls out a new arrangement of an old classic with wonderful results.
That’s what she did in April of 2022 when she turned ABBA’s disco anthem ‘Dancing Queen’ into a tender piano ballad, wringing raw emotion out of the upbeat tune.
In January of 2020, a few weeks before the country was shut down due to Covid-19, Kelly Clarkson performed The White Stripes’ anthem ‘Seven Nation Army’ while backed by the USC Trojan marching band.
Listening to these incredible vocals makes me marvel at how, right out of the gate, American Idol managed to identify and elevate one of the nation’s greatest singers. The show did its job splendidly.
I don’t watch Kelly Clarkson’s show, so I can’t say this with any authority, but I assume she doesn’t wade into geopolitics very often.
But on February 25, 2022, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, she chose as her Kellyoke song the English-language version of Nena’s ’99 Luftballons,’ an anti-war song written during an escalation of Cold War tension.
When watching clips of Miranda Lambert promoting her new album, I wound up catching a great appearance on Kelly Clarkson's show. She and Clarkson shared vocals on a number of songs, the fellow Texans knocking each one out of the park.
Then Twitter's algorithm kicked in, and I started seeing a ton of clips from Clarkson's "Kellyoke" series, the part of the show where she performs a cover — the common wisdom being that it's invariably better than the original.
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