Kelly Clarkson Reveals the Bitter Secret Behind Because of You Hits

JAKARTA - Kelly Clarkson recently opened the dark veil regarding the struggle at the beginning of her professional music career.

Even though he holds the status as the first winner of the American Idol talent search in the first season in 2002, the status apparently was a "double-edged sword".

Clarkson revealed how record label executives underestimated his ability to write songs just because he came from a talent show.

"I think the label is very against me - I won a talent show," Clarkson said in a recent interview with John Legend on the SiriusXM Hits 1 program.

One of the surprising facts he conveyed was the outright rejection of the song "Because of You" when he was working on his debut album, "Thankful", in 2003.

He said that the label's top executives at the time considered the song unworthy of being included in the playlist because it was considered to have a poor lyrical structure.

"They didn't know that I was a writer, and it was very difficult to get that recognition from them, so 'Because of You' was rejected for the first album," said the 43-year-old soloist.

"They said, 'This song has no rhyme. This is the worst song ever,' or whatever it was, and I just said, 'Well, it's not really about rhyme or technique,'" he added.

Further, Clarkson explained that the main motive of the executives is often purely about business rather than artistic value. According to him, the music industry sometimes focuses too much on financial gains rather than the emotional meaning of a work.

He even felt desperate when his artistic vision clashed with corporate interests, but he remained firm in his stance to release the very personal song.

But Clarkson's determination finally paid off. He managed to convince the label to include "Because of You" in his second album, "Breakaway", which was released in 2004.

The decision proved to be right because the song actually exploded in the global market and became one of his highest achievements on the world music charts.

"Because of You" even reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the US Pop Airplay chart, and has amassed more than 840 million plays on the Spotify platform to date.

"It was a surprise to me - no matter how much you feel the system is against you, the fans will still be there. They are the reason why you can continue to work, and not those (labels), because they will most likely be replaced. I even experienced a change of five different label heads in a matter of years. So, it's really about doing what you love and holding on to it firmly," he concluded.