The Countdown Begins: Kelly's Album Has a Release Date!

Ok, I'm freaking out a little bit. Kelly Clarkson's new album "My December" finally has a release date -- July 24. As in, 77 days. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the countdown has begun.

I gotta say, these last couple of weeks have been a bit rough being a Kelly fan. When I first heard "Never Again," I kinda forced myself to like it. Then, all of this buzz about Kelly being forced to go back into the studio because her record label didn't like the new direction she was going with her music. I'm not gonna lie, I got a little nervous.

But the then the tide began to change. First off, I started liking "Never Again." Like really, truly liking it. Then the video came out, and it was fierce. Then she debuted on the Hot 100 at #8. And it seemed RCA was coming around to the idea that it was okay to let Kelly be an artist and not just their vehicle for Breakaway 2.0. I was even able to do my own very small part in dispelling at least part of the widely spread gossip (read Is The 'Kelly Clarkson Album Scrapped' Rumor Just That -- A Rumor?)

And now...a release date. An amazing, revealing, spine-chilling article in the Los Angeles Times. And the...the press release. Read it below. And get psyched. 77 days and counting.

KELLY CLARKSON’S MY DECEMBER HITS ON JULY 24, 2007
Grammy Winner’s Third Album Already Yields Top 10 Hit Single, “Never Again,”
LOS ANGELES, May 7, 2007—

RCA Records recording artist Kelly Clarkson is back and raring to rock. My December, her third album, the follow-up to 2004’s Breakaway, which sold 6 million in the U.S. and 10 million worldwide, will be released on July 24.The first single from the album, “Never Again,” has already climbed into the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 following in the footsteps of such #1 hits as “Since U Been Gone,” “Breakaway,” “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” “Because of You” and “Walk Away.”

Produced by Grammy winner David Kahne [The Strokes, Bangles, Sugar Ray, Sublime, Paul McCartney], My December is Clarkson’s most personal album yet, all of which she’s either written or co-written. The Los Angeles Times Ann Powers calls My December “a 21st century idea of hard rock, incorporating loops and other studio effects to find a middle ground between the raw and the cooked.”

L.A. punk legend and bassist Mike Watt, currently playing with Iggy and the Stooges, appears on three songs, while Clarkson’s other touring band members, Jason Halbert and Jimmy Messer, also contributed.

Whether it’s the funky new wave of “One Minute,” the startlingly confessional “Sober,” the meditative, soulful Christine McVie-style strains of “Be Still,” the bluesy Joplinesque twang of the cheeky, kiss-off song, “Chivas,” the blues hard-rock of “Hole” or the full-throttle Pat Benatar howl of “Haunting,” My December shows another side of Kelly Clarkson, who told the L.A. Times: “I’ll always come out with a different record each time.”The Times’

Powers raved: “Clarkson has the moxie to rock without worrying about what anybody else thinks… Her gift is finding the source of vitality in absolute mainstream, people-pleasing pop, which by its nature breaks stylistic rules in favor of magpie mash-ups, bold appropriations and happy accidents.”