If you listen to the average indie kid then shows like the X Factor are killing music. The pop puppets that they produce are no better than the karaoke acts at a Butlin's talent show. Kelly Clarkson, along with Will Young and Girls Aloud, kicks a platinum record-sized hole in that argument.
All that pop reality TV does is draw back the curtain on the training and manipulation that takes place before an artist is released on the public. This has always been the case - it's just that these acts are forced to grow up in public. No amount of Pygmalion-styled direction can prolong a career beyond the first few singles if there is no real talent. A life of cruise ships and working men's clubs awaits those who somehow conned their way into the final stages of Pop Idol or the X Factor.
Kelly Clarkson was the winner of the very first series of American Idol and she has an advantage - she is undoubtedly talented. Firstly, there is her voice; here it's full of vulnerability, ache and wounded pride. It soars, it purrs. It carries a bruised sense of real emotion. Secondly, there is the co-credit on this single; the lyrics deal with an unnamed significant other who has twisted and damaged her psyche. When she sings; "I lose my way, and it's not too long before you point it out / I cannot cry, because I know that's weakness in your eyes," the pure hurt in her voice is heartbreaking. This is potent stuff, the piano arrangement reminiscent of Tori Amos in her most emotional naked state. A cut above Rik Waller, then.
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