Kelly Clarkson – People Like Us

“It’s Clunky Product Placement In A Music Video Time!”

Tom: It’s Clunky Product Placement In A Music Video Time!

Tim: Three things re the product placement: I think that’s the first time I’ve seen multiple brands in one video, it seems I don’t mind product placement so much when it’s for brands I admire, and is there really much of a Venn diagram intersection between BMW sports car buyers and Kelly Clarkson video watchers?

Tom: And, sad to say, it’s another by-the-numbers Kelly Clarkson track. Or am I being uncharitable?

Tim: Presumably, you’re comparing it to…

Tom: It’s just that Stronger was such a hit that it’s hard not to compare everything after to it — particularly when they feel as similar as this one. Even the video seems very much based on something that’s gone before.

Tim: Hmm. To that, I’d say this: most pop stars have at least one career high, that they will inevitably struggle to repeat. For some artists, their fans will disagree on which exact one (Live While We’re Young. or Little Things? The Silence, or Bad Boys?); for Kelly Clarkson, though, pretty much everybody reckons that Stronger was amazing. Two options, then: tell the fans ‘that’s that, let’s go miles elsewhere now’, or try to repeat the success. Here, the latter.

Tom: There’s nothing particularly wrong with it: it’s just very familiar territory.

Tim: True, but unless it’s completely new territory, it’s always going to be.