Andrew Price AMERICAN-STATESMAN (Click for more Kelly Clarkson photos) Kelly Clarkson performs at the Frank Erwin Center on July 7, 2005.

After surviving the scathing Simon Cowell on "American Idol," all other critiques of Kelly Clarkson could easily be called irrelevant. Luckily, after Thursday's performance at the Erwin Center, Clarkson won't have to endure much criticism in Austin.

With a video of Clarkson's lips forming "Walk Away" on a high-definition screen, she rose on a platform to the level of the thrust stage surrounded by hoards of screaming teenage girls (plus a few guys). Supported by a band of six otherwise unknown musicians and a series of showy onstage lights and videos — including unsettling recorded images of her watchful eyes on each of the two high-definition screens — Clarkson started to remind me of every other narcissistic female pop star that has graced the Billboard charts since Tiffany.

But before I could roll my eyes, I remembered Clarkson's story.

She never used "The Mickey Mouse Club" as a stepping stone to stardom as did Britney and Christina. She wasn't pushed onstage by her father as were the Simpson sisters. And she certainly wasn't a Jackson.

A true Cinderella story underscored by rare music-industry democracy, Clarkson was voted to win a million-dollar recording contract with RCA by 25 million viewers on "Idol" after outshining the other 10,000 contestants. She promptly ditched her gig as a cocktail waitress in her hometown of Burleson and released two double-platinum albums.

There had to be a reason for such success.

Several of those reasons were on display at the Erwin Center on Thursday night. Clarkson is the among the most organic of the female pop stars: she doesn't have the curvy body of a Britney — and she dresses modestly. Warm and sincere in most of her songs (especially "Because of You"), Clarkson ranged from the soulful "The Trouble With Love" to the R&B formula, "What's Up Lonely" to the almost country, "Low." "Beautiful Disaster" showed what happens when you take away the band and unchain Kelly's pipes, which were strong enough to fill the Erwin's drum with a voice as passionately unthreatening as Mariah Carey's.

Yet it was obvious that Clarkson sang some her selections just to be heard, especially those she didn't write. Her covers of the Rascal Flatts' "I'm Movin' On" and Annie Lennox's "Why?" were more glitzy than commendable. Perhaps someone should tell her she's not competing on "Idol" anymore — she can now be herself.