Kelly Clarkson has revealed that she has recorded a new album and plans to release it some time in 2023. This will be her first major studio album in more than five years and her first since her split from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock in 2020.
“It’s coming out next year. And this is an important album,” she said. “I’m working on this in therapy: I have a hard time vocalizing what I’m feeling somethings, so music is helpful for me. It’s just been really healing. I recorded the record quite some time ago.”
The album, a follow-up to 2017’s Meaning of Life, follows the emotional journey she has lived through over the past two years. The emotions were so high, in fact, that following her separation from Blackstock, she wrote more than 20 songs in a week. Several of those tracks will be on the upcoming album, which doesn’t have a release date or official title. Even then, she wasn’t sure if she was going to release it because “you can be very angry in that state of mind [after a divorce].”
“So some of the songs, they definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there’s everything on the album,” she said. “It’s almost like the arc of a relationship, because the beginning is so beautiful and so sweet, and then it evolves. And sometimes it doesn’t evolve how you want.”
Clarkson hopes her tenth studio album can bring comfort to others who may be experiencing their own relationship drama.
“I’m through it now, but there is somebody else who is in it, and that’s a hard place to be, especially if you feel alone,” she said. “It’s a hard thing to describe, it’s a hard thing to go through publicly, it’s hard with kids. This record, I think I wrote this for a reason — not just for me, but maybe someone else can benefit from it.”
