A Look Behind Kelly’s 'Behind Hazel Eyes' DVD

Kelly Clarkson’s Behind Hazel Eyes DVD will become a must-have for Kelly fans. While the preview version I reviewed included only the parts about Kelly’s life discussed below, the full version will also have videos of "Behind These Hazel Eyes," "Beautiful Disaster," "Since U Been Gone," "Because of You," "Breakaway," and "Miss Independent." Those videos enough will be reason to buy it for most people.

But fans will be especially interested in seeing the Kelly they remember from the first American Idol, the small-town girl who even after two successful albums has remained very much like she was years ago.

As Kelly tells us in introducing the DVD, it is a “sneak peek” into her life – both personal and work. The cameras follow Kelly as she visits her old neighborhood and schools, goes bowling, goes camping with friends, and more.

At her old elementary school, Kelly rather goofily explains that she was often late for school and talks about a game they played when they had indoor recess. These kinds of moments cannot be faked – at heart, the music star is not far removed from the goofy kid she used to be.

Indeed, Kelly talks about her first time on-stage at her school, singing Prince’s “When Doves Cry” with some other girls and doing a dorky dance that she partially reenacts for us. Not many stars would put themselves into such a situation!

Kelly’s story also includes background information she tells viewers, such as the fact that her family didn’t have much money when they moved to Burleson, Texas, and she had to stop taking various music and dance lessons. But then for Christmas one year she got a keyboard and wrote her first song – she still has the keyboard.

From there, she moves on to bowling and camping with friends. Again, we get to see that behind this pop star there is a normal person who still enjoys just hanging out. In case you’re interested, Kelly wears a 7 ½ bowling shoe. And it’s a good thing she can sing, ‘cus she isn’t going to make it on the pro bowling tour.

With the personal stuff over, it’s time to get to work – which she talks about as she signs autographed photos. There is always something going on, and she loves it. For example, there is the premiere of Princess Bride 2, for which she did the “Breakaway” track.

Here we get to see how Kelly handles her fans. In fact, she thinks it’s funny that people want her autograph, noting, “You people have no idea how not cool I am.”

We also visit with Kelly as she was creating the Breakaway album. She tells us it was fun for her because she wrote a lot on it and was able to collaborate with other people. The most interesting part is when we see some of the recording of “Because of You,” which she wrote when she was 16 and had been talking with some friends about how their decisions were influenced by their parents.

Overall, there is about 40 minutes of story in the DVD, followed by a couple-minute slideshow/photo album that looks back at her family and early years, with “Miss Independent” as the background music. There is also about a minute and a half of bloopers from the making of this DVD and other videotaped scenes, and an eight-minute video diary from camping where Kelly is doing some of the videotaping and is in some of it. It’s an interesting look at her interacting with her friends, but the white box to “show” that it’s on video is a bit annoying for eight minutes. In addition, there is some behind the scenes footage from the “Breakaway” video. Finally, we have the videos mentioned at the top of this article.

As I noted earlier, this is a great DVD for Kelly’s fans, most of whom will probably buy it for the videos alone. But the behind-the-scenes moments confirm that Kelly is still the same person we voted for as the first American Idol.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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