Audio CD review:
Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride

Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride

Band: Carrie Underwood Title: Carnival Ride Rating: Release Date: 23 October, 2007 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Flat on the Floor 2: All-American Girl 3: So Small 4: Just a Dream 5: Get Out of This Town 6: Crazy Dreams 7: I Know You Won't 8: Last Name 9: You Won't Find This 10: I Told You So 11: More Boys I Meet 12: Twisted 13: Wheel of the World

Editoral Review For her follow-up, producer Mark Bright steers her toward the big Martina McBride skies, with a plethora of strings and huge emotional crescendos. Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts, hastily made and released some five months after she won the 2005 American Idol crown, was surprisingly solid and tuneful. Underwood co-wrote four songs, mostly with the tried-and-true tunesmiths who made Some Hearts soar. On the torchy heartache ballad "I Know You Won’t," she gives a beautifully nuanced and controlled performance, but if that song would suit any number of lush female pop stars from Celine Dion on down, "Flat on the Floor" rocks hard while preserving co-writer Ashley Monroe’s Appalachian angst. Still, there are missteps: the easy tears of the unlikely war ballad "Just a Dream," a too-obvious attempt to repeat the sass of "Before He Cheats" ("The More Boys I Meet"), and the Shania-ish bad-girl-on-Cuervo stomp of "Last Name. " The big payoff, then, is how much 24-year old Underwood has improved as a vocalist. How often listeners line up for this Carnival Ride depends on their attitude about country music’s continual melding with pop, and how they feel about a princess upstart taking home the awards that used to go to her heroes. --Alanna Nash Carrie Underwood Photos More from Carrie Underwood Some Hearts American Idol Season 4 - The Showstoppers .. You can see a complete list of all Carrie Underwood discography, or go back to the Carrie Underwood tabs