"Kellyoke" is the Best Thing to Happen to Daytime TV in Years

Daytime television is one of the most competitive arenas in all of TV. Particularly daytime talk shows, where it always seems like a good idea to hand a famous person a microphone and an hour of airtime to chat, monologue, make crafts, and bake with celebrity chefs. But the graveyard of failed talk shows reminds us again and again that having talent and a winning personality isn't enough. This is a medium that has chewed up and spit out the likes of Megan Mullally, Bonnie Hunt, Tony Danza, Katie Couric, Bethenny Frankel, RuPaul, and Queen Latifah (twice!). Yet, as the continued success of The Wendy Williams Show continues to teach us: there is no way to predict success in daytime talk. Sometimes it really does just take some unexplainable bit of magic.

Which brings us to The Kelly Clarkson Show, a concept so perfect that you have to wonder why it took this long to happen. Clarkson is one of the most likable personalities in the music business, she's always a great talk show guest, a beloved coach on The Voice, and her TV presence has some serious receipts behind it, given that she accrued enough votes to win the first season of American Idol. On paper at least, she's the perfect choice.

Then again, we're talking about an imperfect medium here, where success can be frustratingly elusive. Here's where the team behind The Kelly Clarkson Show landed on the genius idea that has already helped the show make its mark on a culture that had absolutely no idea it existed yet. Each show, Clarkson takes two minutes to cover a different song from the pop catalog. Whether it's Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" or Sia's "Chandelier," it gets the Kelly Clarkson treatment, which is formidable. It's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser segment, with her audience of mom-dancers clapping off beat and eating up everything Kelly is serving. It's a perfect segment for a few reasons, one of which is that it's an extension of Clarkson's live concerts, where she's built a reputation for covering a wide variety of songs — a new one every night. In a way, it almost feels like a callback to the American Idol days, where song choice was often half the battle. Kelly's choices are canny and often thrilling. Like the time she took on Britney Spears' "Til the World Ends" and laid down the best version of the song that's ever been done:

And here's where the real genius of Kellyoke comes, because the day she performed that Britney cover, the video was up on YouTube and circulating around Twitter almost immediately. It's ready-made viral content that is both incredibly easy — seriously, people LOVE pop covers — while also being refreshingly not cheap or cloying, as other talk shows' attempts at going viral (ahem, Ellen scaring people and giving money to cute white teens) can often be. And there's a new one EVERY DAY.

So which Kellyoke covers have been have been our favorites in the scant few weeks The Kelly Clarkson Show has existed? So glad you asked!

"Jealous" (Nick Jonas)

"Walking on Broken Glass" (Annie Lennox)

"Juice" (Lizzo)

"Think" (Aretha Franklin)

"If It Makes You Happy" (Sheryl Crow)

This is Kelly Clarkson in her element, doing what she does best, and riding that incredible talent to what she certainly hopes is talk-show success. Whether or not she succeeds, I think we can at least all agree that Kellyoke is an incredibly clever start.

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.