Over 40 years after topping the Hot 100, ‘9 to 5’ – the eternal classic from Country Queen Dolly Parton – is getting a facelift thanks to GRAMMY and EMMY-winning media powerhouse Kelly Clarkson.
Delivered Friday (September 9), the song’s arrival comes ahead of the limited theater run of the upcoming documentary ‘Still Working 9 to 5’ which celebrates the lasting impact of the beloved film.
Before the doc clocks into theaters September 16, look inside to hear the updated take on its soundtrack’s title tune.
The new ‘9 to 5’ isn’t the only thing keeping Clarkson busy working.
Although she’s gearing up for the fourth season of her EMMY-winning daytime talk show, ‘The Kelly Clarkson Show,’ the 40-year-old recently revealed she’s recorded a new studio album slated for a 2023 release.
Her first traditional LP since 2017’s ‘Meaning of Life,’ Clarkson reveals the new project chronicles the emotional journey attached to her highly-publicized divorce.
“When my ex and I first separated, there were many emotions. It was hard,” Clarkson recently told ‘Variety.’ “My producer and I were laughing yesterday because I was like, ‘Remember that time we wrote, like, 25 songs in a week?’ A lot of those are the ones that are on the album. I literally wrote most of these almost two years ago. Then I told my label, ‘I can’t talk about this until I’ve gone through it,’ and it’s just taken some time to do that. That’s one of the reasons we’ve done a lot of Christmas stuff the past two years — because I was like, ‘Well, that’s happy!’”
Though she’s not even penciled in an official release date for the project yet, she’s already teasing its supporting tour.
“I hadn’t really been working hardcore on an album until I needed to. I was just very busy. There were so many jobs, and I’m a single mom — well, even with being married, it’s a lot, trying to fit kids’ schedules in and all that stuff. But then the whole divorce thing happened, and I needed to write it. And then I didn’t know if I was going to release it, because you can be very angry in that state of mind. So some of the songs, they definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there’s everything on the album,” she shared before later stating, “I definitely am going to do shows. We’re figuring that out. But when you write an album that’s so personal, it’s just therapeutic to be able to get up there.”
All-in-all, Kelly says the true inspiration for releasing this ‘divorce’ album is the encouragement from her diehard fans.
“The one reason that ended up making me go, ‘I should put this out’ is that most of the songs in my career that people will generally come up to me [about] are the ones that are stories inspired by my life that maybe they go through as well,” Clarkson says. “I’m through [the divorce] now, but there is somebody else who is in it, and that’s a hard place to be, especially if you feel alone. It’s a hard thing to describe, it’s a hard thing to go through publicly, it’s hard with kids. This record, I think I wrote this for a reason — not just for me, but maybe someone else can benefit from it.”
