Maybe we’ll try the “forever hold our peace” option some other day…

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[5.50]

Crystal Leww: Kelly Clarkson is doing country-inspired pop music? The knee-jerk reaction is to thank Taylor Swift, but there’s a better case for the continued dominance of Miranda Lambert in country and the popularity of the television show Nashville. Unfortunately for Kelly, she always sounded better angsty and so did country music. There is just an unfortunate discord between her urgent belting, which worked so well on “Since U Been Gone,” and the message to… settle down? Her tone doesn’t sound content and happy; it sounds frazzled and tense. Finally, I’m not sure that wedding bells have ever worked well in music…
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Katherine St Asaph: Kelly Clarkson’s acquitted herself well with country music thus far, even if it’s further and further from her strengths, but country sung shouty and strained isn’t the best look. It wouldn’t even be the best performance on Country Week.
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Anthony Easton: Clarkson embodies the sweet spot where AAA and country work towards a middle of angst. The first verse is a platonic ideal of country misery, but the bridge and chorus are almost entirely adult alt. The difference — in speed, in intensity — is a good measure of where one begins and one ends. Clipped vowels move on to places where she almost yells over the production — how she sings “bottle” is one end of the spectrum, how she signs “you” is the other — and in one track she demolishes what pundits have to say about both genres being basically the same. 
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Brad Shoup: Giddy and persuasive without coming off cartoony, she’s so swept I’m about to send in my damn RSVP.
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Al Shipley: I have a really pathetic level of investment in Kelly Clarkson’s life and career, and just want her to be happy and privately celebrated when I heard she was engaged. Plus I’ve always wanted her to lean more country, so obviously I was predisposed to enjoy this perhaps more than it deserves. But it’s still got some nice little twists in the vocal melody and is far less saccharine than I expected. 
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Alfred Soto: The saccharine rush of the banjo, bells, and electroglaze on the guitars edges so close to Shania Twain territory that I wondered why the title was missing an exclamation point, which is the problem. With “Don’t Rush” among the best singles of her career — an update of seventies AOR-country tropes — I was set for more goodies.
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