Carrie Underwood - "Smoke Break"

[cufan7]

Aug 24, 2015 11:44:31 GMT -5 BDGeek said:

Every time I get to the "I don't smoke" part of the chorus, my brain wants the next line to be "but sometimes I need a long toke."

I have definitely thought this too...

[sabre14]

Whoa, "Smoke Break" nearly got all 154 monitored MB stations on impact day as its pulled in 145 adds as of 3:00 p.m. ET. So its final totals this evening will be at least that.

Edit: It is 145 adds according to Kenny Jay's twitter. That would be a record number of adds in one week.

[carriekins]

Jesus that's almost the whole panel! Good for Carrie!

[onebuffalo]

Final MediaBase numbers:

0 31 CARRIE UNDERWOOD Smoke Break 1799 0 1799 12.931

[Deleted]

It's amazing that nobody else pulls in initial numbers like Carrie can. Record-setter.

[McCreerian (Harris 2024!)]

The video is here! m.etonline.com/music/170567_exclusive_watch_carrie_underwood_brand_new_smoke_break_video/

[14887fan]

Aug 24, 2015 18:34:16 GMT -5 14887fan said:

Video is fine. Nothing spectacular or "Somethin' Bad"-level of incredible, but it's good. She looks absolutely breathtaking (a given), and YES! at that "Renegade Runaway" teaser opening the video.

[desertfloods]

Video was alright. I get the idea but the execution of it is lacking (feels disjointed, barely acceptable acting).

But I'd rewatch the video solely for Carrie. SMOKING HOT!

[Gabe]

I feel like I've seen this music video before....

Oh yeah:

[ILLUSION]

Aug 24, 2015 16:42:03 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Final MediaBase numbers:

0 31 CARRIE UNDERWOOD Smoke Break 1799 0 1799 12.931

Kworb.net is saying it is #28 on Mediabase, interesting

[sabre14]

Aug 24, 2015 19:47:27 GMT -5 ILLUSION said:

Aug 24, 2015 16:42:03 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Final MediaBase numbers:

0 31 CARRIE UNDERWOOD Smoke Break 1799 0 1799 12.931

Kworb.net is saying it is #28 on Mediabase, interesting

Kworb is the "Rolling Chart", meaning a day-by-day look. The "finalized" MB numbers are calculated on Sunday night and reflected in Country Aircheck on Monday nights. Carrie is #31 officially on MB this week.

"Smoke Break" debuts at #24 on Billboard Airplay.

[Carriefan1190]

Good I'm glad I'm not the only one who wasn't feeling the video. Usually her videos are on point but this felt like it didn't fit the song, no real plot. Disappointing considering she reached her video pinnacle with BA and TBC.

However awesome that she broke yet another record of most added song ever! Time to march to #1! The queen is back!

[sabre14]

From Billboard tonight, in regards to how "Smoke Break" came to be:

That’s exactly what Underwood and her co-writers, Chris DeStefano(“Little Toy Guns,” “Just Gettin’ Started”) and Hillary Lindsey ( “ Two Black Cadillacs,” “Girl Crush”), had in mind when “Smoke Break” was conceived during a songwriting session on June 3, 2014 at Underwood’s cabin in suburban Nashville. They had started working on a different song, based on some tracks that DeStefano had built on his laptop, but they were stuck. And that made songwriting feel like work.

Meanwhile, the temperature outside was maybe 75 degrees, and Underwood has a relaxing fountain on the lawn. The yard was practically calling them, so they all grabbed their coffee cups and headed for the sunshine.

“It was good just to step outside,” recalls Lindsey. “And it cleared our head for a minute. We weren’t even talking about that song anymore. It was, ‘Wow, what a beautiful day.’”

That apparently happened more than once. And when they got stuck again, they’d pick up and go back out, jokingly referring to it as a smoke break. It wasn’t long before Underwood suggested that maybe “Smoke Break” might be the basis for a song.

“That’s a really cool title, and that sounds all kinds of country,” assesses Underwood. “So Chris went inside and got his guitar, and we wrote it.”

The thing tumbled into place in about 45 minutes, with two different characters in the song — one woman, one man — grappling with their unique stresses. She’s working three jobs to raise four kids — and she’s married, which raises a lot of questions about her husband. “I didn’t even really realize that, to be honest with you,” says Lindsey with a laugh.

The man, meanwhile, is a small-town guy who’s fighting his way up the corporate ladder in a big city, struggling to maintain his integrity for a boss who may not value that.

“As a son, I’ve always wanted to do good by my parents, make them proud, and there was definitely a lot of that in that second verse,” recalls DeStefano. “That really struck a chord.”

Once they had “Smoke Break” written, he used his mobile rig to find an appropriate synthetic drum beat and played acoustic guitar chords on top of it, giving Underwood a framework to lay down a scratch vocal. Later, he would build in more parts, creating what Underwood describes as a “Southern-rock kind of country thing.”

But before they ended the day, they returned to the original song. Apparently, their “smoke break” worked as intended, because they knocked that first song out, too.

Recording “Smoke Break” was a new experience for Underwood, whose previous hits have all been a collaboration with producer Mark Bright (Sara Evans, The Swon Brothers). Instead of cloistering singers in a cramped vocal booth, Joyce put Underwood in his studio’s big room — a converted sanctuary with a cross, backlit in green, behind the podium where the pul-pit once stood — with a baffle, a music stand and a microphone.

Drummer Fred Eltringhamand bass player Dave Roegave the backbeat a trashier feel than Underwood has had in her past recordings, and Joyce built the foundation, using her demo as a road map, before she ever arrived at the studio.

“It wasn’t like this tracking session where I had all these studio musicians and they were all just waiting and they had their charts,” she says. “Jay did a little work on his end first, and he plays a lot of stuff himself. So when I came in, it was like, ‘OK, here are the basic bones to the track,’ and I sang to it. Then we talked about what we liked and I was like, ‘Yeah, I love where this is headed. What else
are you planning on doing with this?"

Joyce added a twin-guitar solo to the mix along with a few other effects, including a wafting guitar line at the end that sounds like a sonic representation of smoke.

Underwood’s lead vocal part was comparatively uncomplicated. “This song is not difficult for me, which is really nice,” she observes. “Whenever I start rehearsing for tours, I’m like, ‘Why do I write and pick the hardest songs ever?’ I mean, I love a challenge, but it makes for really tough tours. So it’s nice to have a song that’s a little more laid-back.”

As is her habit, Underwood brought her co-writers back in during the spring to do the background vocals with her one night — again, in the former sanctuary.“It was old school, kind of fun, and it was really cool having both Carrie and Chris there,” says Lindsey.

DeStefano was a necessity. He had built the harmonies on the demo, and they wanted to re-create them. But they were difficult to pick up off the original recording. He isolated them so they could hear their parts a cappella, and they cruised through the process without a lot of trouble.

“I like to go a little out of the box and not do straight thirds or straight-up harmonies, just do something a bit different,” he says. “We’d listen to [the originals] and keep rockin’ it till it was right.”

“Smoke Break,” which debuts at No. 24 on Country Airplay, was a “no-brainer” for a first single, says Underwood, in part because it’s fairly representative of the new album’s tone. The only potential negative the team could find was the possibility that some fans might misinterpret it as an endorsement of cigarettes. But she has a history of slashing tires in “Before He Cheats,” getting hitched in a drunken stupor in “Last Name” and plotting a murder in “Two Black Cadillacs.” She’s confident that the fan base will see through the surface smoke.“I kill people in my songs,” she muses. “This is nothing. This is fine.”

[bornfearless2000]

Lmao at 'I kill People in my songs'

[Marv]

If the remaining nine slowpokes/neanderthals/deadbeats who didn't add this standout tune get their rears in gear and do so next Monday, this will go into the Mediabase record books for becoming only the secomd single to clear 100% of the reporting panel in a mind-blowing TWO weeks.

The first and so far only tune to accomplish that staggering milestone spent five weeks in the penthouse en route to topping the year-end chart in 2006. 

That tune turned out to be 'What Hurts The Most'.

Here's hoping Lil' Miss Record Breaker does it again!

[bornfearless2000]

Lovin the video.

I love how she keeps the video very simple. She looks very very beautiful.

[ant]

Carrie hitch hiking in the desert reminds me of the "That Don't Impress Me Much" video. Loved the video though.

[14887fan]

Album cover for Storyteller (minus the watermark) --

[Ten Pound Hammer]

I agree that the "and a good Christian" line seems a bit out of place. Other than that, I think this is a reasonably well written song. I hear the Miranda comparisons but not to the point of derivation. (Anyone think that Joyce should produce Miranda's next album? I'd love that personally.)

It's just nice to hear a Carrie song again that isn't self-motivational Martina-esque belt-y fluff. She was this close to jumping the shark for me after the terrible trifecta of "See You Again", "Something in the Water", an "Little Toy Guns", none of which I liked at all. But this song is certainly good enough to suggest a move to something at least a little different.

[countrygirl918]

To be honest, I hear more of an '80s rock and southern rock vibe in this song than I do a Miranda Lambert vibe. And it's not inconsistent with Carrie - she hasn't really done it on her records before, but she sings those kinds of songs in concert all the time.

Aug 25, 2015 11:20:58 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

I agree that the "and a good Christian" line seems a bit out of place.

That line doesn't feel out of place to me at all. I've seen a few people confused by that set of lyrics, but to me it seems super clear. Being a wife, a mom and a Christian means you are being pulled in a million different places and everyone has different expectations of you. I'm sure Carrie herself feels that way - in particular with the "good Christian" line, I constantly see people criticizing her for either being "too preachy" or "not Christian enough". No matter what you do, someone is going to have a negative opinion. So I could understand if she has frustrations about that.

The only line that bothers me in this song is rhyming "drink" with "drink". They could have been a bit more creative there. And with Luke Bryan rhyming "up" with "up" in his latest song - is this becoming a thing now? I hope not.

[carriekins]

Jul 26, 1974 1:31:48 GMT -5 countrygirl918 said:

That line doesn't feel out of place to me at all. I've seen a few people confused by that set of lyrics, but to me it seems super clear. Being a wife, a mom and a Christian means you are being pulled in a million different places and everyone has different expectations of you. I'm sure Carrie herself feels that way - in particular with the "good Christian" line, I constantly see people criticizing her for either being "too preachy" or "not Christian enough". No matter what you do, someone is going to have a negative opinion. So I could understand if she has frustrations about that.

100% agree with your assessment of that line, that is exactly how I interpreted it as well as a wife and mom who literally sometimes locks herself in the bathroom to get a second alone to regroup. True life at it's least glamorous and most honest.

[onebuffalo]

Carrie Underwood NOT slowing down!:

CARRIE UNDERWOOD Smoke Break 107 2220
JASON ALDEAN Gonna Know We Were Here 14 157
TIM MCGRAW Top Of The World 7 121
BLAKE SHELTON Gonna 5 86
THE BAND PERRY Live Forever 6 76

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Aug 25, 2015 12:51:51 GMT -5 carriekins said:

Jul 26, 1974 1:31:48 GMT -5 countrygirl918 said:

That line doesn't feel out of place to me at all. I've seen a few people confused by that set of lyrics, but to me it seems super clear. Being a wife, a mom and a Christian means you are being pulled in a million different places and everyone has different expectations of you. I'm sure Carrie herself feels that way - in particular with the "good Christian" line, I constantly see people criticizing her for either being "too preachy" or "not Christian enough". No matter what you do, someone is going to have a negative opinion. So I could understand if she has frustrations about that.

100% agree with your assessment of that line, that is exactly how I interpreted it as well as a wife and mom who literally sometimes locks herself in the bathroom to get a second alone to regroup. True life at it's least glamorous and most honest.

Okay, fair enough, I can see the line that way. It just kinda jumped out at me moreso than the other lines in that verse, and seemed a little jarring on first listen, but I guess that makes sense.

[Uncle Lumpy]

Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised by this. I just heard this for the first time & was being my regular jaded self ..... and found myself liking the first Carrie single in AGES! And a lead single no less? The production was a bit heavy handed but that sounds like a genuine country song in there. Two thumbs up!

[bornfearless2000]

Video is up on Youtube.

[rbundy1987]

The video for "Smoke Break" is now available to buy on iTunes, $1.99. Thought I would get word out!!!

[.indulgecountry]

Fantastic video. She always delivers pretty solid videos so it's hard to play favorites, but I definitely think "Smoke Break" is among her best, imo. She just looked absolutely incredible throughout (the wardrobe/hair/makeup was EVERYTHING), loved the desert scenery, and the storyline of her journey to the bar at the end where she performed. It had a very different feel that fit with the song being a bit of a left-field choice for her and I absolutely loved everything about it. Though the beginning with her driving the truck instantly made me think of the video for "Automatic" and the Miranda comparison came back to me once again, lol. This is a pretty great song and I think that perfect music video is only going to make this grow on me even more/faster.

[EPG]

Okay, the video sealed the deal for me. I really enjoy the song now. Solid "A-." However, I reeeeaally hope she hasn't completely abandoned her poppy side.

[carrieidol1]

Aug 26, 2015 3:31:11 GMT -5 EPG said:

Okay, the video sealed the deal for me. I really enjoy the song now. Solid "A-." However, I reeeeaally hope she hasn't completely abandoned her poppy side.

I was hoping you'd come around!
This song, I think, is definitely a "grower" for some people because it's a little different for Carrie. She hasn't ever released a song quite like this, so it takes some getting used to. Once you're used to it, it's easy to love it because the song itself is actually quite good. I'm glad to see that people are still liking/loving it, and it shows on iTunes as well; maintaining excellent sales in the top 12 since its release.

[onebuffalo]

Carrie Underwood has the BEST videos around. I love Smoke Break and can honestly say I do see/hear comparisons to Miranda Lambert. However, this one continues the 'Underwood attitude' that she has given us since Before He Cheats. Another thing I like about Smoke Break is that Underwood gives an 'understated performance' of the song. She really isn't doing any vocal gymnastics here. I like that about her. She really isn't reaching for the sky in that department. She did reach for it in the video. An A+ for sure!