Kelly Clarkson

If you take a look at the Mediabase charts this morning you’ll make an alarming discovery; ‘Never Again’, Kelly Clarkson’s venomous introductory single from third album My December, is on an impressive turnaround.

When ‘Never Again’ hit the airwaves on April 23rd it exploded like an atomic bomb. It cleared past every song in its path all with a bullet close to 2000.* It reached #21 on pop airplay and then…something strange happened. The numbers took a tumble. A big tumble. Radio didn’t even put the song on life support, it just pulled the plug. Soon Kelly was dropping into the 30s with a -600. What caused this? Was reaction to the song from listeners negative? Was radio reacting to the unfavorable press between Kelly and label boss Clive Davis? Did Davis himself help impair the songs performance? (See previous story Was ‘Never Again’ a case of label sabotage?)

Nobody knew what exactly was happening but one thing was for sure: Kelly Clarkson, the pop goddess who single-handedly reinvigorated the Top 40 format with ‘Since U Been Gone’ and ‘Because of You’, had faltered with her radio support. Or did she?

Back to today and ‘Never Again’ sits at #36 with a bullet of -64. “Turnaround?!” you ask. “That’s a negative bullet!!” they scream. Yes folks, a two digit negative bullet that rebounded from the high -600s. This is a song that has hung around in the 30s for a month instead of dropping off into recurrentville.**

Z100, the most influential Top 40/CHR Pop station in the country, has upped ‘Never Again’ by 30 spins. Philadelphia’s pop station, +45 spins. Viewing the most recent call-out data sees Kelly sitting at #6 on Rate The Music and #14 on Mediabase call-out. Both charts show a relatively low “Burn Rate”.*** How does a song that failed to make Top 20 on the radio pop charts land at #6 in call-out data? Clearly people want to hear the song.

Time will tell if this is just a fluke. Maybe the spins for ‘Never Again’ increased because the album was just released. Maybe radio PDs woke up to the call-out info. Maybe Kelly sent all the stations a nice check. Whatever the case may be ‘Never Again’ falls into the same category as Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirrty’; a song that radio woke up to too late to make it the hit it deserved to be.

* A bullet is the increase or decrease in radio plays from a week ago that day.
** A song goes “recurrent” when it drops below #40 on a chart after 20 weeks of release. It can no longer show on a main chart.
*** “Burn rate” is how “sick of” a song the listener is; basically if they change the channel when the song is played.