"Since U Been Gone" — Kelly Clarkson
The breakup-scream anthem of the 2000s. Kelly Clarkson needed an identity beyond American Idol; Max Martin and Dr. Luke handed her a pop-rock chorus that demanded everything a voice could give, and every car ride since has been a rehearsal.
Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol in 2002, which came with a built-in problem: how does a show's winner become her own artist? The answer arrived on November 16, 2004 — "Since U Been Gone," the lead-off from her album Breakaway, written and produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke. The song had already made the rounds: Pink passed on it, and Hilary Duff's camp was interested but the high notes were out of reach. Clive Davis steered it to Clarkson, and the fit was total.
The track's guitar-driven pop-rock snarl was a deliberate break from Idol-ballad expectations, and the payoff chorus — that leap into "since u been GONE" — turned out to be engineered for solo car performance. It climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2006 ceremony.
More than any chart line, the song settled the question it was built to answer: Clarkson wasn't a game-show result anymore, she was a pop star with one of the great voices of her generation. And the song itself never really left — it remains the moment at every karaoke night when the whole room decides, together, to attempt the high part.
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