What it is shorty

I'll be the first to admit that I am a Kelly Clarkson fan. I was a little late getting into the game, I'm not one of those who followed her career all the way from American Idol, but got into her music after the second album. I think most people got into her music after the second album, which went multi-platinum, and made her an international superstar. Now she has a third album out that has much controversy around it. Apparently she got into a bit of a tiff with her label head (Clive Davis) over the marketability of the album. I thought that it was up to the label to sell it, and the artist to record what they wanted. I don't understand how some people get jobs as A&Rs or CEOs in the music industry because it all seems like it is a matter of taste or opinion. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff that the major labels thought would sell that didn't and vice versa.
I can't understand why Kelly Clarkson got so much heat for the album that she put out. The album is still a pop album, it isn't like she put out a death metal album or anything. It has songs that can be played on the radio, and it does have the slower ballady type of stuff. The songs sound like any pop stuff that you can hear today, nothing that is too different. The sequencing on the album is a bit odd, it goes from upbeat to ballad too often. But overall I think it is a good album, nothing that will ostracize her from the pop world.
The main point of contention that her label will have with the album is that it didn't sell like the previous one. The album has barely went gold (500,000 copies) in about 5 weeks since its release while the previous one sold over 6 million copies in the US. But I would figure when you sell millions of records for the company, they should be able to give you some kind of freedom or input into your next album. They used to do that back in the day, Led Zeppelin III had cutouts and whacky artwork because they sold so much with the first two albums. Shit, they even got their own imprint on Atlantic (Swan Song Records) because they sold so much.
My main point is that they shouldn't hate on Kelly. I think it is a good thing when an artist who is perceived as a puppet tries to do their own thing. She is done being the singer that the American Idol people want her to be, and I applaud her. If anything the whole thing has kept her name in the news, I saw something on MSN today about whether or not her career is over because of the whole new album deal, and it doesn't appear to be. Everyone has hard times and what not in their career, but if they do what they want then that is good for them.