I'm in my early 30s and am not much of a mainstream pop music person generally. I find it canned and cliche for the most part. I love Kelly Clarkson's music, though. I'd been thinking of buying this CD for a while and am very glad I finally did. It has been in heavy rotation for about a month and I'm pretty impressed. Some of the criticisms I'd read about it being a little heavier and a little darker were actually things I thought I would like and that proved to be true. Lots of loss and betrayal and longing and grappling, which is what I'm up to these days in my personal life. So many of the emotions and lyrics on this CD resonate with me on a very specific and personal level. Some might say the whole CD is an expansion of "Beautiful Disaster," which is a tremendously powerful and bitter sweet song, very emotional and walking the line where pleasure meets pain. Kelly Clarkson is a passionate singer with tremendous talent. This CD is not exactly a walk in the park on a sunny day, but it comes across authentic to me as far as being a little deeper and brooding and capturing a lot of struggle and difficult emotions. There are only two songs on this CD I don't like. "Yeah" just seems like a mess. It could be sexy but somehow it just doesn't come together quite right. Maybe it'll grow on me. It just kind of seems like fluff in my opinion. I don't like "One Minute" either. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the CD and just seems kind of random to me. It reminds me of that Madonna song "Ray of Light" for some reason soundwise. Those songs keep this from being a five star CD, in my opinion, though other songs certainly make up for them. I don't like "How I Feel" as much as some others. It reminds me of Pat Benatar's voice and music. That's not a bad thing. I think Pat Benetar is incredible. The song is just a little too pop singleish for me, though I can't argue with her jaded sentiments. I could take or leave the hidden track "Chivas," as well. Stand out favorites for me are "Sober," "Maybe," "Be Still," and "Irvine." "Maybe" is my favorite. It is very emotional and the words connect with a lot of my own feelings right now. It seems really honest, passionate, and vulnerable. It is like a cry from the soul of desperate hope. That sounds like a snip of bad adolescent poetry, but I said it. The song really does seem like that. "Judas" is closely linked with some of my feelings, as is "Don't Waste My Time." All that mixed up emotional stuff around, "You hurt me so much but I still love and want you and don't know what to do with all these feelings" stuff. "Be Still" is very radio friendly, I think, and kind of tender and seductive and relaxing. The song kind of seduces you and sucks you in and is the only tranquil and happy song on the CD. It doesn't fit well for that reason but it really is pretty and would be a good"making love' song, I think. "Sober" was the first song to get my attention. Deep lyrics with sincere emotion. I don't know if Kelly Clarkson has actually had a substance abuse issue, but she sings the song like someone who really knows what that struggle can be like. "Irvine" seems very personal and I appreciate the honest and spiritual aspects of the song, though it is melancholy. Moments such as that song, as well as "Haunted," make me think Amy Lee. I make that comparison favorably. I love Amy Lee. I love "Never Again" in that Alanis Morisette "You Oughta Know" angry kind of way. I saw her perform it on American Idol and thought two things. One was, "Wow, that girl can sing." The other was, "Wow, that girl is angry." I didn't watch American Idol the first season and didn't pay much attention to Kelly Clarkson until "Break Away" came out. I still play that CD quite a bit and think it is extremely good. On both of these CDs, Kelly Clarkson's vocal ability is very well showcased, as is her ability to show raw emotion and still sing well. She is just one of those people who could sing almost anything, I think. She possesses tremendous talent as a vocalist and I respect that a lot. She always seems to be saying, "I'm kind of a mess" on this CD, and there was some of that on "Break Away," such as with "Because of You." Kelly Clarkson just seems more serious and cynical than your average teeny bopper pop star. She's a little more troubled, I think, and willing to express some hard feelings and experiences. That is very real. I appreciate the authenticity and believe her to have substance as well as talent. This is a CD very much worth owning.

"My December" is Kelly's best album to-date. Her albums just keep getting better and better and I think they will just keep getting better as the years go. She will definitely be around for years and years to come, and we can surely expect great things from her. Not that we expect anything less.

It is great that Kelly decided to stick up for herself and make the kind of record that she wanted to make, the kind of record that is her. Every song on this record was written by Kelly and that just shows how incredibly talented she really is. It is a huge relief that Kelly's album was finally released because with all the fuss over it, it seemed that the album would not be out at all.

I bought this album the day it came out and I have listened to it non-stop and I never get tired of it. The songs on this album are very emotional, and show a much more mature rock side of Kelly. There is a lot of power, edge, and rawness in the songs, and some of the lyrics have that haunting quality to them as well. A lot of people will be able to relate to her songs.

Kelly's songs and lyrics are very inspiring in my opinion as they have inspired me to write some great lyrics of my own.

Kelly's songs get you hooked and when you listen to them you feel like you are listening to something personal, like this album was made just for you. It's that way with "Breakaway" and it's that way with "My December" too.

If you haven't listened to this album yet, then you must have been living under a rock. So get out there and give it a listen. And once you do, you'll want to get your hands on it yourself.

This is my first serious exposure to Kelly's music. I've heard her hits on the radio, and liked most of them, but I was never drawn to her enough to buy a CD until an unusual string of events led me to this one. I'm glad, because what I heard from the previous albums didn't come close to this. We all know she has a good voice - that's why she is where she is today - but it's what she can do with it that counts. For one thing, she's the first singer I've heard in a long time to actually ROCK in the classic rock tradition, like Pat Benatar and Ann Wilson of Heart. At the same time, her musicians, on the "harder" tracks, are doing modern (as in Linkin Park), sometimes grunge-like rock, with some decorative sounds thrown in by production, and Kelly's voice fits it like a glove. Examples: "Never Again", "One Minute", "Hole" and "How I Feel". Of course, there's more on this CD than hard rock, but even the ballad "Sober" is more like a power ballad than a pop ballad. Her lyrics show a strength associated with rock icons. In some songs, she lets her hurt show but also confronts and accuses the cad that is hurting her. Compare this to Pat's "Stop Using Sex As a Weapon", Heart's "Barracuda", and "You Oughta Know" by Alanis. For a complete change of pace, in "Be Still" Kelly is gentle and assuring, fair and reasonable. The soft music reflects this quiet confidence. Then there's "Maybe", which begins quietly with "I'm strong, but I break...", but develops into another song of hope and power. "Yeah" is a very interesting track in which she uses both high-pitched urgings and softer whispers to make her lover see things her way. Same for "Can I Have a Kiss". These 2 songs have something else in common: both stress the details of physicality, touching, kissing. The final track "Irvine" showcases Kelly's voice in a very intimate way, a moving song very much like a folk cabaret song, with acoustic guitar and subtle production. It also has a quality of cosmic pathos, as she wearily ponders, "Are you there, are you watching me...will you stay, stay till the darkness leaves...Can you feel how cold I am, do you cry as I do?" She sounds as "Torn" as Natalie Imbruglia was. More than any other, this track shows how Kelly has matured in her writing and in her performance. It is followed by a "hidden" track, similar in style but not as spiritual (not even close!). Taken as a whole, this CD is a rainbow of artistic statement, and I'm happy to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Kelly Clarkson has arrived!"

I tried to listen to this album but I can't stand it. Is she going mad?
wHAT KIND OF MUSIC IS THIS? Like a d.. in heat and bark. It's so annoying and incoherent!

At one point until last week, Amazon had over 350 reviews listed with a 4 star average. What happened? The album is great. Original, edgy, different from the vanilla junk that's out there today. The only thing that stopped sales on this album from being outstanding was the inexplicable refusal by the label to help promote the album.