So, back in 2007 Kelly Clarkson released her controversial third album My December which caused a lot of problems between her and RCA. She could've gone the easy route and made Breakaway 2.0 and smashed again, but instead she stood her ground and released a very personal (and IMO brilliant album) but pretty much killed her momentum she acquired from Breakaway. The era was a disaster all around, although she definitely rebounded since every single album she released since then outsold it and had at least one smash single. That being said, had this era never happened, could she be doing better commercially than she is right now. (Although, her and her two Best Pop Vocal Album Grammys remain unbothered especially since she is the only artist to win it twice )

All I Ever Wanted could have been a huge SUCCESS and Kelly would be a successful artist.

My December was just a huge, huge, HUGE mistake. Beside the problems with RCA, I was such a stan back then and that album made me dislike her because it portrayed her as a whiny person who can't pull herself together because of men.
Kelly was actually my second fave and Britney was my first, but Britney was facing kind of the same situation with guys, but she managed to make such a great Album as Blackout.

I dropped Kelly as my fave and started stanning even harder for Britney.

My thread is flopping

My December teas

Basically.

I think she could have been a major pop girl had My December not been released.

It's always hard to guess what would have happened if something else hadn't happen. Kelly may have been one of the top pop girls and everything in her career would have been dictated by RCA and Kelly would have been a puppet. I honestly don't think this would have happened because Kelly has her own mind and sooner or later she would have rebelled against her label (which she also did with Breakaway when it was her idea to do more pop rock oriented sound, add heavy guitars to SUBG and include BOY etc...). Or My December might have been a hit (although it wouldn't have matched Breakaway success) and slowly Kelly would have faded with minimum album sales and zero succes with singles with the following albums (kinda what happened to Avril, Xtine...).

In my opinion, My December is Kelly's best album or at least Kelly best album since Breakaway. Neither AIEW nor Stronger came close. (Wrapped In Red is great but it's a Xmas album, so it's kinda pointless to compare it to MD.) Although MD era was Kelly's least successful one, she managed to recover, AIEW sold nearly 1M and had two big hits (MLWSWY and AG), Stronger sold 1m+, won a Grammy, had another 3 Grammy noms, had two big hits (Stronger, MKIA), her Greatest Hits album did very well and gave us one of her best songs ever (CMB) and currently she is sleighing with Wrapped In Red.

I think she is much happied after My December than she was before it and I think that she is much more respected than she would have been if she hadn't released it.