What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, Kelly Clarkson sang on her massive worldwide hit. But she didn’t write that line. Greg Kurstin did. He’s the 46 year old L.A. based songwriter who’s been having hits for the last few years with Clarkson, Katy Perry, Lily Allen, and Pink. He produced, engineered, and mixed my all time favorite Pink song, “Try.” This guy knows what he’s doing.

And now Greg Kurstin is Adele’s collaborator. For better or worse he wrote “Hello,” the endless sob story of a single that’s propelled her back to number 1 since Friday morning. “Hello” is everywhere, and we have Greg Kurstin to thank for it. Adele met with a lot of songwriters last year looking for “collaborators”– people she could share ideas with who actually write songs. They have another song on the album as well.

Adele’s other collaborators for this album are the creme de la creme, from her own Paul Epworth, to Ryan Tedder, and the ubiquitous Max Martin.

Here’s “Try,” a great record:

Updated with a tip of the hat to Amir Syarif Siregar ‏@Sir_AmirSyarif

This week Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable” album only dropped 3% since last week and sold 18,888 copies according to hitsdailydouble.

That’s a marked change from the prior week, when “Unbreakable” dropped either 81% or 74% depending on which calculation you accept. Either way, “Unbreakable” careened down from 105,000 copies in its debut to 19,000 the second week.

It’s great that sales stabilized, but what happened? It turns out Janet has been selling physical CDs, vinyl, and digital downloads as part of a package with T shirts and merchandise. For either $29.99 or $39.99 you get a nice T shirt plus three or four different kinds of recordings. And those recordings count toward sales.

Is it fair? Well, both Prince and Madonna have been selling CDs bundled with concert tickets for some time. Initially it inflates sales of the music and puts them on the charts. It doesn’t always work, however, and hasn’t very much for those two artists. In Janet’s case it looks like it helped a lot. Her tour is going well, and everyone wants a T shirt. Bundled with the music, the whole thing thing a bargain.

Is it kosher? The business is tough, so every marketing idea is welcome now. Janet’s people are treating it like a concert souvenir. Even with all this, BMG is losing money on that album.

Are things this melodramatic and somber in the UK these days? First Sam Smith released “Writing’s on the Wall,” a listen-to-me once single. Now Adele returns after rolling in the deep for four years with a soap opera of a new ballad that sounds like it could be a commercial for a cell phone company.

Adele has blues, but no rhythm on “Hello,” the lead off single from her new album. It’s a good thing we don’t have to depend on vinyl anymore– you’d have to get up and move the needle to the second track after a couple of minutes. There’s nothing wrong with Adele’s voice. It’s just as rich as ever. But the song–sheesh. Plus Lionel Richie may be thinking he already wrote this.

Here’s hoping the rest of “25” is a little more upbeat.

I think Rod Stewart’s people forgot about me. But what the heck– here’s his new album. I found it myself. I’d worry about that marketing. Anyway. I think it comes out October 23rd. Good luck!