CREDIT hogs, social networking, hackers and define-the-relationship talks... all make this chart topper kick out, writes Cameron Adams.
You say in the sleeve notes of your new album Stronger that you're reluctantly becoming a businesswoman. How's that working out?
Being friends with and working with Reba (McEntire). She's a businesswoman and it's rubbed off on me. I hate it, but I have to do it. I really do hate it.
You also thank your (and Reba's) manager Narvel Blackstock for showing you the industry can be 'fun'. Was it not fun before?
Well I'm a perfectionist. I'm hard on myself. Narvel brought the fun back into it for me.
How so?
He'll say, 'Kelly, you're going to travel the world, why not experience it and not just work and focus on being perfect all the time?' In the past I'd sit in my hotel room out of fear, too scared to go out with the band and ruin my voice. He'd say, 'If you're a little raspy for the next performance, whatever. You're supposed to have fun. Don't be so serious. Go and do stuff so you have things you can talk about in interviews'. He's been really good for me.
You're quite honest for a pop star. Does that get you in trouble?
All the time. But that's OK. I'd rather be honest, I think that's what people like about me. I'm never malicious, but I say the obvious truth. That's important.
Thoughts on Twitter?
At first I didn't like the social-network stuff. There's already a lot of narcissism and ego going around in this industry, I didn't think we need to tell fans we just got a coffee. But I do like it if fans want to know something they can ask me directly, that's priceless.
It is actually you on there doing the updates?
It's me 99 per cent of the time. All the tool stuff I don't want to do, like, 'My album is in stores tomorrow', I make my management do. If it's pictures of my dogs, it's me!
You don't play the celebrity game. How do you deal with getting papped?
Ten years later, I don't really care. It happens so often, it'd be unexpected if it didn't happen. You get used to it. I think it's funny and ridiculous.
On the song You Can't Win you sing, 'If you're thin, poor little walking disease, if you're not they're all screaming obese ... '. People fixate on your weight.
Yeah. Which is funny because I don't really care. My size will change depending on if I want to work out or not. I never focus on it.
It also mentions the gay rumours that circulate about you.
Yeah. People say, 'If you're gay, why aren't you at a gay pride event?'; 'If you're not gay, why aren't you married? Why are you single?' You can't win. Things get thrown at you. So I thought, 'OK, I'm not going to try any more, I'll just do what I do'. It gets you down, I'm human, but now I don't think twice about that. You have to go through that stuff to get over it.
Is it getting harder to have hits these days?
I don't know. I don't really care. I'm surprised when I get a No.1. I know it's my (record) label's focus, but it's not my focus. Which is weird, I've had a lot of success. But once you put emphasis on that and try so hard for success, it really changes you. We've all heard artists where you think, 'Really, that's what you chose to put out?' and you know they're doing it to sell, or their people are doing it to sell. It takes away from the art.
You had a few clashes with your label on the previous album, such as when you didn't want to release Already Gone because it sounded like Beyonce's Halo - Ryan Tedder co-wrote both of them.
That was bothersome at its finest. I don't like getting the same tracks as other artists.
You retaliated by writing a song called Wash Rinse Repeat about how record companies milk a formula.
Ha. My label loved that. The head of the label then - it always changes - came up to me and said, 'I really dug your new song that got leaked'. I didn't leak it, someone hacked my computer and released 75 songs. That was fun.
You don't seem like an artist who insists on having their name credited on songs they may have contributed only a few words to.
That pisses me off. As a writer. And I've got a lot writer friends. There's songs I've tweaked perspective, but if my name is on a song I wrote the lyrics and melody. There's songs like What Doesn't Kill You or certain parts of Mr Know-It-All, if I didn't write it I usually make it my own, but I don't give myself a credit because the song is already there. I know a lot of artists say, 'If you want your song on my record, I get 50 per cent' and I'd like to kick them in the face. That's people's livelihoods. It's just so lame.
There's a song on the album called Don't Be A Girl About It, directed to a man.
I wrote it about a guy I was dating. I don't like when I'm dating a guy and every five minutes he wants to have a DTR - define-the-relationship talk. It drives me nuts.
People seem to fixate on your album sales more than you. Fair call?
Totally. Even after My December, we weren't planning on that to be Breakaway. That wasn't the goal. If you look at Madonna or Elton or Reba's careers, there's ups and downs. You need that. You need an artist record, then a fun and mainstream record, then one where you try something different.
Do you have a favourite cover of one of your songs?
Have people covered me?
There's some great covers of Since You Been Gone - you should YouTube them some time.
I sing the song enough. I don't need to hear it any more!
Source:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/qa-...-1226170983702
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