The Woman I Am

After two albums that were as bland as Simon Cowell's wardrobe, Kellie Pickler turned around her career by following the bad-girl path of fellow reality-show alumna Miranda Lambert, which continues on The Woman I Am. On the ebullient breakup song "Ring for Sale," Pickler gets revenge on a cheating fiance by selling her ring. (Lambert would probably shank the jerk.) She also continues to wring vibrant drama from her crazy family; having already sung about the mother who abandoned her and her jailbird father, Pickler cowrote "Selma Drye," country's first great great-grandmother song, about a feisty ancestor who "kept a .38 Special and a can of snuff" in her kitchen apron.