Blue Christmas? Kelly Clarkson teased another breakup-inspired holiday anthem amid her divorce from Brandon Blackstock.
In anticipation of her upcoming album, When Christmas Comes Around, the 39-year-old singer shared a snippet of a new song called “Merry Christmas Baby.”
“So I thought I’d give y’all a sneak peek of songs off this record leading up to its release,” she wrote via Twitter on Sunday, October 3 — 12 days before her second Christmas album drops on October 15.
So I thought I'd give y'all a sneak peek of songs off this record leading up to its release. 🎶 Here's the first one! This one's called "Merry Christmas Baby" and it kicks off the album 🎄 #WhenChristmasComesAround https://t.co/Vz3Y331GgP pic.twitter.com/cBmKiAgcBx
— Kelly Clarkson (@kellyclarkson) October 3, 2021
In a 24-second clip of the horn-laden track that kicks off the album, The Kelly Clarkson Show host is heard singing, “A dose of your kind of lovin’/ I’ll let my absence show you what I got you for Christmas/ Is losing me/ Merry Christmas baby.”
Last month, the Voice coach released “Christmas Isn’t Canceled (Just You),” which came more than one year after her June 2020 split from Blackstock, 44, with whom she shares kids, River Rose, 7, and Remy, 5. Despite being in the middle of messy divorce proceedings, she told fans that When Christmas Comes Around is not intended to be a divorce record.
Instead, her ninth studio album is her way of “bring[ing] forth a sense of reality to the fact that we are probably all in very different places emotionally ‘when Christmas comes around,’” she said in a September 23 press release. “Some of us consumed with a new love, some of us reminded of loss, some filled with optimism for the coming new year, others elated for some much deserved time away from the chaos our work lives can sometimes bring us.”
The “Stronger” singer told Entertainment Tonight on September 25 that her second holiday release, which is a follow-up to 2013’s Wrapped in Red, is a “different Christmas album, it kind of feels more like an album that you release at normal and then there’s Christmas sprinkled on it, but anyway, I love it.”
She added: “There’s a lot of songs on there that aren’t necessarily your, like, ‘Let’s play and get in a jolly mood’ kind of vibe Christmas.”
The upcoming LP includes covers of classic carols, including “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Last Christmas,” as well as a duet with fellow Voice coach Ariana Grande on “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me.” Country singer Brett Eldredge joins Clarkson on the bonus track, “Under the Mistletoe,” which the duo originally released in December 2020.
