Whereas ruminating on her practically 10-year marriage and up to date divorce for her new album, Kelly Clarkson turned to a pair of 2000s-era movies for example the distinction between idealistic younger love and oft-messy grownup relationships.
“I hate love, and The Pocket book lied,” she sings on the cheeky “I Hate Love,” the newest launch from her tenth studio album Chemistry, out June 23. “It’s Difficult is extra like what occurs, so you possibly can preserve Gosling and I’ll take Steve Martin.”
“I really feel like each exist,” Clarkson tells Billboard of the love tales from the 2004 Nicholas Sparks-based epic, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and the 2009 Nancy Meyers rom-com, starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin — which she calls one in every of her “favourite motion pictures.” “One is the start, when all the things is brilliant and glossy, and It’s Difficult is extra the truth,” says Clarkson, who pointed to the tug-of-war Streep’s character goes by with Baldwin’s philandering ex-husband (“She goes again, and she or he’s like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ ”) and Martin’s affable architect (“That is what you ought to be searching for and what you do deserve”).
Clarkson’s cinematic inspiration didn’t simply affect the tune’s lyrics: It additionally led to an sudden instrumental cameo. Whereas writing a lot of the brand new undertaking within the early days of the pandemic, Clarkson had been watching Martin play his banjo in livestream videos to maintain followers entertained throughout lockdown. She went to “I Hate Love” producer Jesse Shatkin with an thought: Let’s take this lyrical reference a step additional and add Martin’s banjo to the anti-love tune. “I used to be like, ‘I do know that sounds loopy,’ ” Clarkson remembers. “Jesse was like, ‘I believe it sounds rad.’ ”
Shatkin tells Billboard, “Inside one or two connections, Kelly can get in contact with anyone” — and she or he had Martin locked in with one e mail. “I usually don’t ask as a result of I get very nervous about bothering individuals,” Clarkson remembers, “however actually, inside hours, I acquired a solution: ‘Oh my God, he’d like to, when are you recording it?’ ” Shatkin ventured to Martin’s home to document his half and encountered a really skilled musician, versus the frequent Saturday Night time Stay visitor and movie star he’d grown up with (“He didn’t do any stand-up for us,” Shatkin laughs). “We in the end went in to do one thing that would have taken quarter-hour, and we spent a pair hours simply form of jamming on the tune,” Shatkin remembers. “He was actually, actually wonderful at banjo but additionally actually, actually cared about getting it proper.”
The consequence, as Clarkson describes it, is “a pop-punk tune with this actually rock’n’roll banjo half.” Shatkin remembers Clarkson’s group questioning aloud in the course of the making of the tune: “Might banjo be on the radio?” That is still to be seen — however maybe Martin may make his first return to the Billboard Hot 100 for the reason that Seventies, when his “King Tut” (billed to Steve Martin and The Toot Uncommons) was a prime 20 hit on the chart. “I simply love the thought of issues taking place organically,” Clarkson says of the circuitous route she took to collaborating with Martin. “So many issues needed to occur to ensure that that to happen.”
For her half, Clarkson nonetheless hasn’t met Martin, however she’s hoping she will lure him to her Emmy-winning The Kelly Clarkson Present now that their tune is out on the planet. “My superb second is him approaching my present after which us performing it — however I’ll take simply him approaching my present so we are able to discuss and hang around so I can, like, meet him.”
A version of this article will appear in the June 3, 2023, issue of Billboard.
