Carnival Ride - Carrie Underwood (CD)
Carrie Underwood is a pretty girl with a pretty voice, singing pretty songs about, presumably, pretty people. And that makes the whole package - including her new album "Carnival Ride" (Arista), like the multi-platinum, award-winning smash before it "Some Hearts" - all kinda nice, if predictable.
"Carnival Ride" goes down extraordinarily easy - lots of lush, inspirational ballads that make the most of her gorgeous voice and a handful of rock-tinged up-tempo numbers about getting out of town or following your dreams, where she channels the Dixie Chicks, without all that, you know, messy political stuff.
"Carnival Ride" sticks incredibly close to the formula of "Some Hearts," which is the second-biggest selling album of the past two years. The glorious first single "So Small" could be "Jesus Take the Wheel (Part Deux)" - the installment where the once-desperate girl has learned her lessons and can now offer advice, including, "Sometimes that mountain you've been climbing is just a grain of sand." The fact that "So Small" takes so similar a path - from the tempo to the phrasing to the swell of strings - seems like a minor quibble, considering the stirring results
However, after it happens time and time again, "Carnival Ride" starts to pick up an assembly-line feel that is only staved off by Carrie's standout delivery. She angles for a "Before He Cheats"-type pop crossover with "Last Name," right down to the plodding guitar. And "I Know You Won't" fills the role of big pop ballad "Inside Your Heaven."
Carrie does stretch a little, letting a bit of her sass shine through on "The More Boys I Meet," with some nice images of dating duds ("oversized pants with an ego to match") and the killer country hook of "The more boys I meet, the more I love my dog." There's some Coldplay to "Twisted" and some Miranda Lambert-styled spunk to "Get Out of This Town" and "All-American Girl," but only trace amounts.
It's hard to be this blank a slate for this long a time, but Carrie
clearly works at it. She's trying to be a singer, not a personality - kind of refreshing, in a time when private lives so often triumph over public work. But as nice as "Carnival Ride" has turned out, Underwood will simply be going around in circles until she invests a little more of herself into the process.Read full review
