Reportage of anything Adam Lambert-related is a lot like an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race: You can actually hear her highness’ voice echoing in your ears, “Start your engines! May the best woman win!” Lambert will do something infuriatingly asinine. Then he’ll wonder why everyone’s so quick to jump down his throat. It’s a study in comparisons of American Idol alumna.

Because for every Lambert, you have someone graceful like Kelly Clarkson–who, despite putting out album after album of solid pop gems–continues to stay humble in the face of the most intrusive media speculation. She shirks garish eyeliner and costumes, letting her music sing for itself.
But unlike her junior Idol peer, Clarkson doesn’t kick and scream whenever the media tries to rake her over coals. She’ll just find a smart way to say, “Oh, that’s nice, but I’ve already sold like 23 million albums worldwide so eff you very much.”

Lambert’s latest crisis: He took a little time out to tell off an audience member who was blabbing away on the phone. Yes, that’s totally poor form. But prefacing a performance with a bleat like “You’re not watching TV, honey–it’s a live show!” because one jerk hasn’t the courtesy to put away his Hello Kitty Samsung? Not poor form, sure, but still too petty for someone who wants to be the David Bowie of bubblegum pop. When pressed for comment by JustJared, he offers, “Oh, it’s all out there already. I don’t need to bring it up again. Every media outlet out there already picked it up!” It’s here that you could insert a pithy quip about beggars, choosers, and the Warholian concept of 15 minutes.

Clarkson, on the other hand, not only has the distinction of being the first American Idol winner, but also the most successful performer to emerge from the series. She’s also no stranger to industry politics. It’s brilliant then, that she hasn’t devolved into an easily-boxed-in caricature who relies on stunts and shock-and-awe gimmicks to try to move a few records. If anything, Clarkson’s proved that in the intervening years, she’s grown up. For example: There was her well-worded defense of Taylor Swift.

And yesterday, for reasons that confound the rest of us, outlets decided to pick on her for her weight. This has been an issue for sometime now, with one fan even tweeting her back in January. Her response, culled from this tweet and this one:

@kelly_clarkson i miss when u had washboard abs! like in the walk away music video, u looked amazing! u always showed ur bellybutton live
@jess123b Yeah ….I traded those in for a life

@kelly_clarkson i miss when u had a smokin body! uve never been overly thin, youve always had a booty. but u used to be very fit with a but!
@jess123b The amount of times you have tweeted about my body makes me think you might be watching me right now outside my window….here’s a tip, stop being weird dude Brilliant.

No unnecessary shots fired. In fact, there’s something inherently great about Clarkson sternly telling off a fan to “stop being weird.” More inspiring is that Clarkson rarely in bitchy form–whether fielding questions about her record label or more needling queries about her weight. In fact, she’s almost always chipper. And should she defect to classic diva behavior, we’d be willing to give her a free pass. After all, she gave the world a string of hits from “Since U Been Gone” to “Never Again.” So until he gets a “Since U Been Gone” of his own, it’s probably not the best idea for Lambert to get too mouthy with the press. JustJared may not be Rolling Stone, but man, that cover did him no favors, anyway. He’d be wise to take a cue from Clarkson’s humility. After all she managed to take Ryan Tedder’s embarrassing Beyoncé fiasco and turn it into a Top 20 single.

IT’S almost midday in Texas, and Kelly Clarkson has already been awake for six hours. “The jetlag has really set in,” she says.

“I got back at midnight from a cruise holiday with my family around Spain and North Africa, and by 6am I was wide awake again.

“There were a lot of 80-year-olds on the ship – we played bingo with them all.”

The singer, who plays Bournemouth International Centre on Monday (Feb 15), says: “I’ve had a few weeks off work, including Christmas and New Year, so I’m raring to go again.”

Even her down time has been busy, though. “At New Year, I was a bridesmaid for my friend. It was the first New Year recently that I wasn’t able to drink, as I was designated driver, so I had to make sure my friend enjoyed her day.”

Kelly, 27, claim she’s still the same down-to-earth girl she has always been, and still lives at the family home in Burleson, Texas.

Home life for her consists of looking after her two aquariums (she wanted to be a marine biologist, until she saw Jaws), running errands and “catching up with normal life”.

Read the rest of the article

I found some amazing pics of Kelly performing in Glasgow on February 11th. Added them to the gallery.

Links:
- February 11th 2010: Glasgow

US singer Kelly Clarkson has kicked off the first date on her UK tour.

The 27-year-old star, who shot to fame in 2002 after winning the first season of American Idol, began the UK leg of her All I Ever Wanted tour at Liverpool Arena last night.

Wearing a blue Rolling Stones T-shirt and jeans, Clarkson belted out a number of her hits to screaming fans. The Because Of You singer will be performing in London until 19 February, before heading off to tour the rest of Europe.

After Europe, she is due to tour South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia, before finishing in the Philippines.

Kelly was out and about in Dublin two days ago, so i added a few candids to the gallery.

Links:
- February 5th: Kelly in Dublin

Kelly took to her blog to write an open letter to Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta in response to what he said here.

Wow …..Dear Scott Borchetta,

I understand defending your artist obviously because I have done the same in the past for artists I like, including Taylor, so you might see why its upsetting to read you attacking American Idol  for producing simply vocalists that hit ‘the high notes’. Thank you for that ‘Captain Obvious’ sense of humor because you know what, we not only hit the high notes, you forgot to mention we generally hit the ‘right’ notes as well. Every artist has a bad performance or two and that is understandable, but throwing blame will not make the situation at hand any better. I have been criticized left and right for having shaky performances before (and they were shaky) and what my manager or label executives say to me and the public is “I’ll kick butt next time” or “every performance isn’t going to be perfect” ……I bring this up because you should take a lesson from these people and instead of lashing out at other artists (that in your ‘humble’ opinion lack true artistry), you should simply take a breath and realize that sometimes things won’t go according to plan or work out and that’s okay.

Sincerely,

One of those contestants from American Idol who only made it because of her high notes

Sources:
- Oh No They Didnt
- I am Kelly (Kelly’sBlog)
- Twitter

Kelly uploaded a twitpic at her Twitter of her and her friends backstage

First twitpic ….the girls and I hangin at rehearsals ….well, on a break

I uploaded the pic in the gallery, because it was too cute to let pass. If you aren’t following her yet, please do! Follow Kelly!

Links:
- Twitter Pics > Made by Kelly

Spending some time across the pond, Kelly Clarkson was spotted arriving at a Dublin, Ireland hotel earlier today (February 2). The “My Life Would Suck Without You” songstress looked cute and casual, sporting red hair and a makeup-less complexion.

It sounds like Kelly has been looking forward to touring the UK for quite some time, as she will finally get to see some sights this time around. She explained, “Manchester is one of my favorite places to play. For some reason those people there are really rad and go nuts. They are easily my best audience. This will be the first tour where I get some time off in between shows so I plan to check out the city properly.”

Links:
- Source
- February 2nd: arriving at her Dublin hotel

According to a trio of tweets Saturday, Kelly Clarkson hopes to have a new single in September and a new album at the end of 2010.

In the meantime, she says there should be one more single from All I Ever Wanted, and “we’re leaning towards a song that starts with an I and ends with a U.” That likely means the girl-groupy I Want You — one of my favorites, if you’ll recall from my track-by-track review back in March (That hint also, I suppose, could describe If I Can’t Have You).

What is your favorite? I Want You or If I Can’t Have You? Please let me know!