Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Breakaway’ Turns 20: Tracks Ranked From Worst to Best

The inaugural American Idol winner took the world by storm with her blockbuster sophomore album.

Kelly Clarkson makes an appearance for the Toyota concert series on “The Today Show” on May 23, 2005 in New York City.

Peter Kramer/Getty Images

Despite topping the Billboard 200 with her debut album Thankful and hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her victory single “A Moment Like This,” there was no guarantee that Kelly Clarkson‘s Breakaway – her first release outside the immediate machine of American Idol — would be a success. This was 2004, after all, and uncharted territory for an Idol winner. Plus, with season three winner Fantasia Barrino dropping her first studio effort a week earlier, would the nation be switching its attention to the latest talent show victor instead?

Although it shifted 47,000 fewer copies in its first week than Thankful, Breakaway gradually proved that Clarkson’s staying power was as strong as her vocals. The album’s blend of soulful pop, soaring power ballads and emo-tinged rock remained a fixture of the Billboard 200’s upper reaches, spawning four consecutive Hot 100 top 10 hits, more than doubling its predecessor’s sales tally in the long run (Thankful sold 2.8 million in the U.S.; Breakaway sold 6.4 million, per Luminate) and picking up two Grammys in the process. By the end of its campaign, Clarkson, who’d also co-written half of its tracks, was arguably the most successful female solo artist in America.

The star was no doubt left feeling vindicated after fighting for creative control with music industry maestro Clive Davis during the recording process. The rest of her RCA label wasn’t much more supportive, either, according to Clarkson. “I just think it’s funny that all these middle-aged guys told me, ‘You don’t know how a pop song needs to sound.’ I’m a 23-year-old girl!” she later remarked.

It’s now been two decades since Clarkson proved once and for all that she was anything but a flash in the pan. Twenty years after her sophomore album’s release on Nov. 30, 2004, here’s a ranking of its 12 tracks, from least to most essential.

“Beautiful Disaster (Live)”

File under perfectly adequate but entirely unnecessary. A tale of a relationship dogged by substance abuse, Breakaway’s closer had appeared on its predecessor Thankful in more expansive MOR pop form. But disappointed that its overproduction – courtesy of ‘80s one-hit-wonder Matthew Wilder – had obscured its message, the singer opted for a redo, this time with only a piano for accompaniment. As ever, Clarkson’s vocal is flawless. But whisper it quietly: the original “Beautiful Disaster” is far more interesting. It’s a strange conclusion to an album which is otherwise only looking forward. Listen here.

“Hear Me”

There isn’t really a dud among Breakaway’s brand-new compositions. But “Hear Me” must take the wooden spoon thanks to a chorus which verges on the plodding. The album’s most Evanescence-esque track doesn’t come from the pen of the band’s contributors, David Hodges and Ben Moody, who did co-write two tracks on this album. Instead, it’s one of six numbers co-written by future American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. Clarkson, who described the song as a prayer to God to find her soulmate (remember Tinder wasn’t around in 2004), makes it her own, obviously. But it’s not exactly surprising that she’s barely performed it since the album’s multiple tours. Listen here.

“You Found Me”

One of Breakaway’s rare loved-up moments, “You Found Me” finds Clarkson waxing lyrical about the then-boyfriend who’s stood by her side through thick and thin (“Yeah, you broke through/All of my confusion/The ups and the downs/And you still didn’t leave”). Admittedly, its pivot from melancholic acoustics to powerhouse pop-rock (which echoes the ‘sprock’ that singer Anastacia topped the European charts with earlier that year) makes it sound like two different songs that have been cut together. But it’s a refreshing change in tone from all the relationship doom and gloom elsewhere. Listen here.

“I Hate Myself For Losing You”

“I Hate Myself For Losing You” is also something of an outlier for the fact that instead of venting her fury at a man who’s wronged her, Clarkson admits that this time around, she’s the guilty party. (“Staring at an empty room/I have myself to blame/ For the state I’m in today.”) The singer sounds genuinely remorseful and regretful about her self-sabotage on a track which recalls the poppier moments on Alanis Morissette’s juggernaut Jagged Little Pill. Clarkson committed so hard to its ‘one that got away’ theme that she was left in a state of depression for a week. Listen here.

“Addicted”

Clarkson named “Addicted” as one of the two favorite songs she’d ever recorded while on the promotional circuit for Breakaway, which explains why her 2006 tour was named in its honor. Fans who prefer the Idol winner at her shoutiest would no doubt have rated it just as highly. With an orchestral arrangement that sounds tailor made for a James Bond theme, an angst-ridden chorus and not-exactly-subtle metaphor (“It’s like you’re a drug,” goes the opening line just to completely eradicate any uncertainty), “Addicted” foreshadowed the harder-edged sound that dominated follow-up My December. Listen here.

“Where Is Your Heart”

“Where Is Your Heart” was co-penned with DioGuardi and Chantal Kreviazuk, the singer-songwriter who’s worked with Idol graduates David Cook, Jessica Mauboy and Carrie Underwood. It’s little surprise, therefore, that the heartfelt power ballad is the closest Breakaway gets to Clarkson’s talent show beginnings. Inspired by a brief (and seemingly unsatisfying) relationship (“Well, I don’t expect the world to move underneath me/But for God’s sake, could you try”), “Where Is Your Heart” gives the singer plenty of opportunities to display her impressive lung power. As you’d expect, she knocks it out of the park every single time. Listen here.

“Gone”

Still only 22 years old at the time of its recording, Clarkson freely admitted that she hadn’t experienced many of the emotions that Breakaway tackled, including the unbridled fury of “Gone.” Nevertheless, she still fully convinces as a woman scorned determined to give her good-for-nothing ex the ultimate kiss-off. “Your eyes they sparkled/That’s all changed into lies that drop like acid rain/You washed away the best of me” is just one of several zingers deployed with aplomb on a propulsive piece of pop-rock that could easily have been the album’s sixth single. Listen here.

“Walk Away”

Breakaway’s infectious fifth and final single (a No. 12 Hot 100 hit) sees Clarkson once again go on the warpath, this time toward an unreliable ex who appears to be stuck in arrested development (“You’ve got your mother and your brother/Every other undercover/Tellin’ you what to say”). The message of “Walk Away” may be decidedly spiky. But complemented by a feel-good video in which a host of everyday workers – including a hairstylist, cleaner and ketchup bottle-wielding waitress – feel compelled to sing and dance along in the middle of their shifts, its sound is refreshingly upbeat. Listen here.

“Breakaway”

Breakaway’s title track had been a leftover from Avril Lavigne’s Let Go before it was repurposed for the soundtrack of 2004’s ultimate cinematic spectacle, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. As proven time and again through her Kellyoke sessions, Clarkson can instantly make any song her own — and its theme of a small-town girl striving for her dream could have been specifically written for her regardless. The stopgap single subsequently hit No. 6 on the Hot 100, spent a staggering 21 weeks atop the Adult Contemporary chart and laid the foundations for the pop-rock reinvention ahead. Listen here.

“Behind These Hazel Eyes”

The emphatic angst-rock of “Behind These Hazel Eyes” was unfortunately overshadowed by the two career-defining singles its release was sandwiched between (despite its impressive No. 6 peak on the Hot 100). Yet it’s almost just as much a tour-de-force. Described by Clarkson as a song “about the dipstick who completely screwed up and now is unhappy and you’re happy” (rumor has it that Hodges’ ears should have been burning), the heartbreak anthem proved that Breakaway had plenty more tricks up its sleeve. Its emphatic middle-eight (“Swallow me then spit me out/For hating you, I blame myself”) is arguably the finest in Clarkson’s oeuvre. Listen here.

“Because of You”

Clarkson’s label snickered when she put forward “Because of You,” the poignant ballad she wrote in her mid-teens, for inclusion on her debut. Of course, she had the last laugh when, after some tinkering from her Evanescence collaborators, the track made the cut for Breakaway, subsequently becoming a No. 7 Hot 100 hit, MTV VMA winner and a four-week No. 1 on Pop Airplay. Directly addressing the father who abandoned her as a youngster, the somber piano-led number presented Clarkson at her most vulnerable (“My heart can’t possibly break/When it wasn’t even whole to start with” is a particularly gut-punching line) and proved she’s a gifted storyteller, too. Listen here.

“Since U Been Gone”

Of course, “Since U Been Gone” was always going to top this list. Inspired by Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” (“If they would just write a damn pop chorus on it!” was co-writer/co-producer Max Martin’s motivation, according to fellow co-writer/co-producer Dr. Luke), the monster hit brought rock’s quiet verse/loud chorus formula into pop, revolutionizing the chart landscape of the decade’s second half in the process. Remarkably, the star wasn’t initially convinced about the gleeful smackdown to an ex. But having since won a Grammy, spawned an iconic apartment-trashing video and giving Clarkson a No. 2 Hot 100 smash (50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” kept it out of the top spot), it’s now widely accepted as both her signature song and a genuine 21st century classic. Listen here.

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