Can Kelly Bounce Back from Her Latest Setback?

Kelly Clarkson has scrapped her planned summer concert series, saying, "[T]ouring is just too much too soon" - this in the wake of well-chronicled clashes with her label and manager, and the so-so debut of "Never Again," the first single from her new album. The reason for the bail-out is the American Idol's failure to fill the arenas she was booked into. "Ticket sales have not been what we anticipated," LiveNation's CEO says in a statement. "We came to the realization that we had bit off more than we could chew." The wholesale axing of the tour (rather than a scaling-back of venues) stunned the music biz. "To cancel the entire thing is a lot surprising," Billboard analyst Keith Caulfield tells TVGuide.com. "But considering the chain of events that have been happening for Kelly, at the same time it's like, 'Oh, here's another thing that's happened to her.' Things haven't been working out very well for this project from the get-go." The disappointing tour interest stems in part from Clarkson's choice for her first single. "['Never Again'] really doesn't do very well in Top 40 radio," Caulfield notes. "It's fine to have 'screw you' songs, but perhaps it was too angry. There isn't a dash of hip-hop in it. It was an 'interesting' choice." Can Clarkson bounce back from this rash of setbacks? Caulfield is more likely to wager on the Idol's resurgeance versus, say, Britney's. "I've heard that Kelly's new album is 'good' - though it's darker and more rock [than her previous CD] - so her next single could be an enormous success. This could be just a bump in the road." POLL: What do you think of "Never Again"? Vote here.