Carrie Underwood | 4th Album Era | Part I

[vinman]

FYI, Aussiefan21 capped the hq locally, you can find that vid uploaded to my site.

[clarksonnumber1]

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

[cufan7]

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

Uh, I think they did for SH and CR.

Play On's could have been better.

I think everyone is on the same page with "Cowboy Casanova" being the perfect 1st single (I'm still bitter they didn't promote it on pop).

"Temporary Home" I feel like got mixed reviews about being single #2, I thought it was perfect.

"Undo It" I think a lot were thinking it was too pop for country. I agreed back then but after seeing how well it did, I think it worked, and I think a lot of fans realized that.

Then there was "Mama's Song".... The only reason I think the fans were okay with this is because of how much it meant to Carrie. Still think it was a bad idea though.

Most Carrie fans wanted "Someday When I Stop Loving You" and "What Can I Say" as the 4th and 5th singles and if there were to be 6 that "Songs Like This" be thrown in there.

[jptexas]

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

I wouldn't have chosen some of her singles, but I don't get paid to decide. With all the success she's had the last 6 years, I can't complain. IMO, she could very easily have sold alot more cds if she had tweaked her songs for pop consumption, but that's not her style. So, all in all, she's done about as good as any artist could have done with the similar circumstances.

[lyrichord]

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

I still think "So Small" was the worst single decision (I haaate "Mama's Song," but it was a fourth single with the album not selling much anymore so I don't think it made any impact on her career). Carrie had huge momentum coming off Some Hearts and they blew it by releasing such a hookless song as a lead single. "All-American Girl," "Last Name," and "Just a Dream" were all better candidates (and have all subsequently sold more despite being out for a shorter period of time).

[themagic]

Why does undo it sound like complicated by avril lavigne?

[vinman]

People in AU were complaining it sounded like a rip off of JOY - Lucinda Wiliams.

[cufan7]

Jun 17, 2011 14:05:45 GMT -5 lyrichord said:

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

I still think "So Small" was the worst single decision (I haaate "Mama's Song," but it was a fourth single with the album not selling much anymore so I don't think it made any impact on her career). Carrie had huge momentum coming off Some Hearts and they blew it by releasing such a hookless song as a lead single. "All-American Girl," "Last Name," and "Just a Dream" were all better candidates (and have all subsequently sold more despite being out for a shorter period of time).

Didn't really think about "So Small". Yeah, I think AAG as a lead single would have been a wiser move.

[Typo]

She slayed.

And...I can understand the 'Joy' comparisons but 'Undo It' does not sound like 'Complicated', at all.

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

I probably would've opened Carnival Ride with 'Get Out Of This Town' but I think 'So Small' was chosen because it worked as the best transition from the previous album - it just made sense. I'm still a little baffled by the Play On single choices, excluding 'Cowboy Casanova'. But, whatever, the past is the past.

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2011 14:56:54 GMT -5 @themagic said:

Why does undo it sound like complicated by avril lavigne?

??? That's the oddest comparison I've ever heard to a Carrie song.

Jun 17, 2011 12:49:43 GMT -5 clarksonnumber1 said:

Do Carrie fans feel RCA has done a good job with deciding singles for Carrie? What grade would you give them?

Some Hearts - Fine job.
Carnival Ride - Fine job, as well, but they could've easily gotten a sixth single out of the album, i.e. "I Know You Won't", "Crazy Dreams", "Flat On the Floor", etc.
Play On - Oy vey.
-"Cowboy Casanova" - perfect lead off single.
-"Temporary Home" - not a good follow-up choice, but it's Gold and went #1, so there's no complaints there.
-"Undo It" - while I would've rather had "Quitter" or "Songs Like This" be the next upbeat single from the album, the song went #1, went Platinum, and is one of the biggest hits from Carrie's career, so it turned out well and turned out to become a good decision. However, lyrics-wise?
-"Mama's Song" - no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I never believed in the song since I heard it was being released as the next single. As a matter of fact, once I heard it was going to be the next single, I said "There goes her #1 streak," which ultimately came out to be true. It peaked at #2 which is a great accomplishment, especially for a song as weak in the lyircs as MS is. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that it wasn't, nor is it, a single-worthy song. "Someday When I Stop Loving You" and "What Can I Say?" are arguably two of Carrie's finest songs she's ever recorded. If the intent of the label and Carrie were to release singles that she cowrote, they could've easily gone with WCIS. However, due to the fact that MS was released after her wedding, it was more appropriate. I've never really been much of an advocate for the song, but I'm a Carrie supporter, so I at least have appreciation for the song in the sense that it's a beautiful vocal and a lovely ode to her mother and her devoted husband, Mike Fisher. Other than that, I'm still in disbelief that they really released it.

So overall, I give the label a B in terms of single releases.

[austin]

As someone not totally obsessed with Carrie as some/most of the people posting in here are, I thought I would offer my two cents, having heard all her albums in entirety (and owning Some Hearts).

The first record, they nailed the singles, even if I didn't like "Jesus Take The Wheel" all that much.

Second record, "Last Name" is a horrible song. Just absolutely terrible. "All American Girl", however, gets my vote as the best single of her career, and I agree with an earlier poster that it could have been even bigger if it was released as the lead. "So Small" I never really got into, but I don't think it was the worst choice, and "Just A Dream" is a tremendous song that I have just grown tired of now. If I was the label, I would have chosen:

All American Girl
Just A Dream
Flat On The Floor
So Small or I Told You So
The More Boys I Meet

For this last record, which I feel was Carrie's weakest effort to date, they completely blew the single choices. And they messed up hard. "Cowboy Cassanova" was a great lead single and a massive hit. Then they went completely downhill. "Temporary Home" is just an atrociously cliche song, and despite its #1 peak, I think it stalled album sales big time. Sales picked up with "Undo It", though lyrically it is very weak and now Carrie has to sing it at EVERY show she does because it's follow up, the career low-light "Mama's Song", was not well received. The issue with this record is as Carrie's vocals matured and became even better, her material got weaker and did not fit the artist she can and should be. The label should have marketed this record differently by sending out:

Cowboy Cassanova
Someday When I Stop Loving You (album highlight)
Songs Like This or Undo It (I dislike both and disagree with Undo It as a single, but she needs an uptempo here and you cant really dispute Undo It's success)
What Can I Say (this is a very good song, why it is staying an album track I cant even begin to guess)

So while "Play On" overall was a very mediocre album, there was a way to maximize it's highlights and her label did her NO favors.

Just my two cents and I know you all disagree. ;)

[countryfan1985]

I think the reason why Some Hearts was so awesome is because Carrie just come off of winning AI, Carnival Ride was awesome too, Play On was awesome too, all of her singles went to number 1 accept for MS but we didn't vote hard enough for MS to reach #1, we were complaining about MS, Carrie has had a amazing & awesome career so far and just because one song didn't make it to #1 on the charts that doesn't mean Carrie or team fail, there's going to be times in Carrie's wonderful career that she won't get a song to number 1 or winning awards. U can't win everything.

Some Hearts A+
Carnival Ride A+
Play On A+

I like all of Carrie's songs etc.

[Typo]

What makes Some Hearts so great is that it literally couldn't have been done by anyone else. That album just made so much sense coming from Carrie at that point in time. I think this Nashville Scene album review really nailed it:

Early in the last season of American Idol, when Carrie Underwood was just one of 11 wannabe stars, judge Simon Cowell predicted she would not only win handily, but would sell more albums than any of the show’s previous winners. Less than a year later, her debut album has already sold more than a million copies. (She’s yet to best multiplatinum champion Kelly Clarkson.) A polished, well-rounded, country-pop record, Some Hearts and its accompanying publicity blitz position Underwood comfortably for the kind of crossover stardom that many acts labor for years to achieve.

This is part of what makes Idol so compelling: before our eyes, a timid college senior is transformed into the next Faith Hill. It’s hard to imagine what that experience is like, but Underwood takes a stab at telling us on the autobiographical “I Ain’t in Checotah Anymore,” noting wryly, “My hotel in Manhattan holds more people than our town.”

“Checotah” is an appropriate closing statement for Some Hearts, an album full of young women faced with the unknown, experiencing firsts as prosaic as bills and as profound as true love. In “Don’t Forget to Remember Me,” an 18-year-old heads for the big city with a map, a Bible and a $50 bill from her mama, accompanied by spiraling fiddle accompaniment that captures the bittersweet tension between longing for home and reveling in the first taste of independence. Even in seemingly straightforward love songs like “That’s Where It Is,” that quarter-life crisis is present, as Underwood gives thanks for support “when I’m crashing through the madness / Not sure who I’m supposed to be.”

“We’re Young and Beautiful” is a more playful ode to youth, as the narrator implores her beau to kiss her while she’s still got the goods. But even as Underwood’s laid-back vocals convey the insouciance of a woman with a lifetime of kisses ahead of her, some lightning-fast guitar picking drives the groove forward, unapologetically marking the time that slips by so quickly.

It’s one of life’s great ironies that the young are often far more anxious about that passage of time than the old, as they struggle to define who they are and what they’ll leave behind. That particular anxiety reaches a fever pitch on “Wasted,” a darker shade of country-pop that draws on anthem rock to document the epiphanies of an alcoholic and his estranged lover determined to change the direction of their lives.

Sophisticated in composition and production, “Wasted” pushes Underwood to both ends of her vocal range. She growls the gravelly verses, but when it’s time to declare “I don’t want to spend my life jaded, waiting,” she releases the notes from her higher register like a trap door springing open. It’s a combination that ups the song’s emotional ante considerably.

The space between childhood and adulthood is barely longer than a breath, but it’s a time when the world seems both full of promise and terrifyingly large. Some Hearts captures this tension well, its characters giving themselves over to the joy of youth while planning feverishly for the future. It’s an endearing snapshot of a moment that for most of us is over quickly—but not a moment too soon.

[what]

"All American Girl", however, gets my vote as the best single of her career, and I agree with an earlier poster that it could have been even bigger if it was released as the lead.

it would have been big regardless as a 2nd single if the label didnt sacrifice its chart run to get alan jackson to the top with small town southern man..

[Arabella21]

I still think "So Small" was the worst single decision (I haaate "Mama's Song," but it was a fourth single with the album not selling much anymore so I don't think it made any impact on her career). Carrie had huge momentum coming off Some Hearts and they blew it by releasing such a hookless song as a lead single. "All-American Girl," "Last Name," and "Just a Dream" were all better candidates (and have all subsequently sold more despite being out for a shorter period of time).

Yeah, I didn't get that. I think she'd gotten a lot of fans due to BHC being such a crossover hit earlier in 2007, so before a single from CR had been released, my first thought was that they would go with something pop friendly again (though still clearly country), just to keep all those Pop fans from drifting away. But they went in the direction of repeating the formula of Some Hearts: inspirational first single, sentimental second single, sassy third single, etc. SH sold like crazy so it wasn't a bad idea on paper. I don't think I would've minded the inspirational single so much if had just been better than "So Small". The woman made a performance of How Great Thou Art into a viral sensation! When you look at how SS has ended up selling compared to the CR singles that followed, you do have to conclude that people really weren't feeling it.

From Play On, I wish she'd released "Quitter" at some point because it's a different from her, an upbeat, happy love song. So, if it had been up to me:

"Cowboy Casanova"
"Someday When I Stop Loving You"
"Undo It"
"Quitter"
"Temporary Home" (I do like the wintry video which wouldn't work if it had been released another time of year. And how would a fifth single have worked with "Remind Me"?)

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2011 18:00:23 GMT -5 Arabella21 said:

And how would a fifth single have worked with "Remind Me"?)

MS peaked in January. If they released a single in February, it would've peaked and started falling just in time for RM to pick up.

I don't get why people didn't like SS as a lead in single. I thought it was a great choice, and it even set the record for the highest female debut ever on the Country chart at #20. It was obviously a pretty darn good choice.
Plus, the video is still a favorite of mine. Carrie looks GORGEOUS in that video.

[realityBITES]

I, too, thought So Small wasn't the right single, given how much momentum she had going at the time. I like the song, but it shouldn't have been the lead single. That said, Last Name would have just been deemed a copycat (especially coming right after BHC was huge) and AAG just didn't pack the punch a first single probably should have. Maybe JAD? Not sure.

This era has been a bit of a mess. Mama's Song should never have been a single. SWISLY, Quitter, WCIS >>> Mama's Song. I'm still OK with TH as a single, although it didn't perform as well as I thought it would. And while UI did well, I still would have chosen SLT as the next uptempo. It just had a different sound than any of her other uptempo offerings.

But yeah, in short So Small and Mama's Song are really the biggest misdirections I see.

[themagic]

Reasons for me thinking it sounded like complicated was the beginning of Undo It and the melody that goes throughout the entire song.

First time i heard it i was like "Oh it's complicated i love this song" and then you hear carries voice lol.

[lyrichord]

Jun 17, 2011 18:20:18 GMT -5 @14887fan said:

I don't get why people didn't like SS as a lead in single. I thought it was a great choice, and it even set the record for the highest female debut ever on the Country chart at #20. It was obviously a pretty darn good choice.
Plus, the video is still a favorite of mine. Carrie looks GORGEOUS in that video.

Carrie had such huge momentum at the time that any lead single would have done well in its place and shot straight to the top. A better song would have kept selling well long after its chart run and sustained strong recurrent play, neither of which is the case for "So Small." I would have picked "All American Girl" first since it's so different from the SH singles but still super catchy and relatable, and "Just a Dream" second since it's so powerful and has a strong hook. Also I don't like the SS video, Carrie's spray tan looked very unnatural and the storylines were disjointed.

[neally]

Jun 17, 2011 16:00:19 GMT -5 Typo said:

Of the three performances of 'Undo It' (I think there were three- right ?) from Australia this past week or so, this is my least favourite. I love that she is performing as a relatively new artist to a HUGE stadium crowd, but she sounded out of breath during the choruses and even for some of the verses, which took away from the effect of the song, resulting in some uncharacteristic pitchiness, and perhaps didn't rouse the crowd as it should have. On the contrary, the previous performance at that all-female talk show was essentially perfect- so much energy, swagger, and with no pitchiness or breath control issues. This is why I am bummed that a probably MUCH higher television (and of course live) audience in Australia is being introduced to Carrie with this particular song and performance. Perhaps I am being overly picky but I wish her Australia gets more of a taste of some incredible, riveting performances that we, her fans, had had the pleasure of viewing....

Is 'Undo It' Carrie's official first country single from her Australian release ? I am curious as to why her label has chosen 'Undo It' instead of 'Casanova', Carrie's first US single from 'Play On' and IMO, a MUCH better song than 'Undo It'.

[realityBITES]

They may have thought CC was too country. I personally would have picked it, too. But I'm not familiar enough with Australia's country music scene to know what would have/wouldn't have worked.

[Typo]

They probably chose 'Undo It' because of the ACM performance with Steven Tyler. I'm not hearing any breath issues there - she sounds fine.

Jun 17, 2011 18:37:39 GMT -5 @themagic said:

Reasons for me thinking it sounded like complicated was the beginning of Undo It and the melody that goes throughout the entire song.

I just don't hear that, at all.

[Arabella21]

I, too, thought So Small wasn't the right single, given how much momentum she had going at the time. I like the song, but it shouldn't have been the lead single. That said, Last Name would have just been deemed a copycat (especially coming right after BHC was huge) and AAG just didn't pack the punch a first single probably should have. Maybe JAD? Not sure.

Maybe "Flat on the Floor" if it had been a completely new song? I also feel like FOTF could be a little faster, that would make it more "urgent" and angrier sounding, is it just me?

I partly think Carrie went with SS because it wouldn't have crossover appeal, so she wouldn't be accused by anyone in Nashville of trying to "go pop" off the heels of BHC having so much crossover success. Yet she keeps making songs that could get airplay on Pop with the right push (that never seems to materialize). So that's a bit frustrating.

[cufan7]

Jun 17, 2011 17:51:46 GMT -5 what said:

"All American Girl", however, gets my vote as the best single of her career, and I agree with an earlier poster that it could have been even bigger if it was released as the lead.

it would have been big regardless as a 2nd single if the label didnt sacrifice its chart run to get alan jackson to the top with small town southern man..

Still bitter about that... I think AAG was headed to be a JTTW/BHC hit for her on Country...

And I would have sent "Cowboy Casanova" to Australia over "Undo It" any day but then again I don't know what their current music scene is sounding like.

[neally]

In other news, 'Remind Me' is shooting up the iTunes sales charts: up to #18 for all-genre and #3 on country !!!

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2011 19:08:00 GMT -5 Arabella21 said:

I, too, thought So Small wasn't the right single, given how much momentum she had going at the time. I like the song, but it shouldn't have been the lead single. That said, Last Name would have just been deemed a copycat (especially coming right after BHC was huge) and AAG just didn't pack the punch a first single probably should have. Maybe JAD? Not sure.

Maybe "Flat on the Floor" if it had been a completely new song? I also feel like FOTF could be a little faster, that would make it more "urgent" and angrier sounding, is it just me?

I partly think Carrie went with SS because it wouldn't have crossover appeal, so she wouldn't be accused by anyone in Nashville of trying to "go pop" off the heels of BHC having so much crossover success. Yet she keeps making songs that could get airplay on Pop with the right push (that never seems to materialize). So that's a bit frustrating.

Yeah, I don't understand why they make these crossover-type songs that could have potential on formats other than country, and yet only send them to country. I respect her for staying true to country music, but if that's the only place she wants to be seen on the chart then I'd like for some of her songs to be more country-sounding in the future.

Overall, I really do love Carrie's songs. I do think sometimes her songs don't match her talent and true potential, but I'm hoping with this next album we just get an amazing tracklisting with hopefully 5-6 great single choices.

I don't get why they didn't do a 5th single from Play On. What a mistake. They could've went 6-7 singles in with that album if they wanted and it would probably have went 4x Platinum.

[vinman]

Another Aussie interview.

www.4bh.com.au/blogs/4bh-blog/carrie-underwood/20110617-1g7n1.html

[cufan7]

Jun 17, 2011 20:31:45 GMT -5 @ant said:

I don't get why they didn't do a 5th single from Play On. What a mistake. They could've went 6-7 singles in with that album if they wanted and it would probably have went 4x Platinum.

No way the album would have gone 4x platinum unless she had a huge crossover hit which I don't think any of the remaining songs could have been. But I do agree on it being dumb that they didn't do a 5th single. And it was dumb "Someday" and "What Can I Say" weren't 4th and 5th. But oh well, that's in the past and I hope in the future her label takes into account more so what will do really well.

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2011 20:31:45 GMT -5 @ant said:

probably have went 4x Platinum.

That's probably pushing it.

[vinman]

MTV Australia interview with Carrie.

Unless your are in Australia, you can't view it on their site. As usual, for your viewing pleasure!