Kelly Clarkson

In the climb of "American Idol," Kelly topped the mountain. Kelly never holds back when she's performing and absolutely pours passion into her vocals, which is incredible. Kelly Clarkson can always pick out the adults who come to her concerts just to chaperone their kids. Signed to RCA Records, she was initially popularized as a pop musician with her commercially successful debut album Thankful (2003), but her reputation as a pop musician begun to ebb by the year's end. America Idol’s first sweetheart Kelly Clarkson took more creative control over her music and released Breakaway in 2004. While her other releases were full of American Idol pop, the latest record represented Clarkson as a rocker, Fans saw a different side of Clarkson on Breakaway, which is probably a good thing. It looked as if the Idol series’ released mediocre music on almost a weekly basis. Breakaway received a U.S. certification of quadruple platinum in November 2005. One full year after its release, it has not left the top-twenty of the U.S. Billboard 200.

The 20 year-old Texas native's vocal skills were exposed when she was in seventh grade, when Kelly Clarkson's school singing group teacher compelled Clarkson to join the choral group. After high school, Kelly Clarkson worked meticulously on her voice and moved to Hollywood in search of stardom. Though she got a TV extra role, but no other opportunities came her way. Upon returning to Burleson, Texas, she worked at a movie theater, marketed Red Bull energy drinks and worked as a cocktail waitress at a comedy club before becoming a participant in the American Idol contest. She was one hopeful among the 10,000 hopefuls. Clarkson made herself notable not only with her big, startlingly mature voice, but also with her sensible individuality. Over the course of the 13-week show, her consistently strong performances of songs like "Respect," "Natural Woman," "Stuff Like That There" and "Without You" earned Clarkson enough audience votes to hold one of the contest's two finalist positions. On September 4, 2002, Clarkson won the competition, earning 58% of the audience vote. Her first single, "A Moment Like This", was released in October 2002 and quickly became a number one hit in the U.S. and Canada, and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA. Despite of her pristine fame, Clarkson stayed in Texas rather than move to New York or Los Angeles. Kelly topped the Billboard 200 Albums chart for a week with her debut album Thankful - selling almost 300,000 copies in the US its first week of release. She belted out power ballads like hooky "Low." Her neo-gospel "Anytime" without flinching, showed some dirty street creed as she growled through "Miss Independent," a song she penned with Christina Aguilera. Clarkson's self-titled full-length album -- which was rumored to include a duet with the contest's runner-up, curly-haired heartthrob Justin Guarini -- was released in spring of 2003. She also starred with Justin Guarini in the film From Justin to Kelly.The film received weak reviews, and was named the worst films ever made.