Kelly Clarkson

With her fourth album, All I Ever Wanted, Clarkson demonstrates her eagerness to continue branching out, and to push her music in new and unexpected directions. Though she has sold over twenty million records around the world; landed eight singles in the Top Ten; and won Grammys, MTV Video Music Awards, American Music Awards, and even been nominated for a CMA Award, she maintains that she's far more interested in challenging herself than in repeating herself.

Clarkson's enthusiasm is instantly apparent, even infectious, as she races to talk about each of the new songs. "A lot of it has a soulful, '70s rock vibe," she says, "and then some is more club/dance stuff—'If I Can't Have You' is like the Killers-meets-the Eurythmics." But she also shows her softer, more emotional side with "If No One Will Listen" and her own composition, "Cry," which she says is "basically a country song with pop production, incredibly sad but still strong."

Clarkson points to the album's first single, the unforgettably titled "My Life Would Suck Without You" (produced by pop wizards Dr. Luke and Max Martin and written by the two with Claude Kelly) as an example of her need to personalize and connect with all of her material. "They write great catchy, sassy songs," she says. "But it became a very different song from how it started. We changed the point of view, and other things throughout, because we had to make it more Kelly Clarkson. And Luke and Max love that, because it's a challenge for them to make a song really work for me."

The album's defiant track "I Do Not Hook Up" comes courtesy of Katy Perry. "I've been a fan of hers since before 'I Kissed a Girl,'" says Clarkson. "And when I heard that song, it really felt like something I could have written myself."

She laughs as she describes "I Want You" and its surprising theme. "First, it's not a boy-bashing song, so that's already different for me," she says. "Plus, I wrote it, so that makes it even weirder!"

The range of All I Ever Wanted shouldn't come as a shock, though, considering the wild ride that Texas-born Kelly Clarkson has lived. She was, of course, catapulted into the spotlight in 2002 as the very first American Idol winner. ("Our show was so different from how it is now," she says. "Now there's all this pressure, all these comparisons, but we were just a bunch of kids that wanted to make music—it was almost like performing in bars for ten people, like I used to.") Her superstardom was secured with Breakaway in 2005. That album sold over ten million copies, spun off five Top Ten hits, and stayed on the charts for two full years.