Carrie Underwood Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This review was written by Brian Mansfield of USA Today:

Underwood's Blown Away is an album clearly made for more than country radio. Sure, Good Girl is already burning up the charts, and the album has enough singles to fuel that format for a couple of years -- and tracks like Cupid's Got a Shotgun and Leave Love Alone will give programmers as much twang as they want, should they decide they want to go that direction. But with Blown Away's broad range of styles, somebody's thinking about broadening Carrie's fan base, even if Carrie says that wasn't an intentional goal while she was cutting the album.


Blown Away's sequencing almost suggests four EPs and a bonus track -- the trio of dark, dramatic songs that start the album, a brief foray into a catchy acoustic country-pop, a couple of ballads, some throwback country, then a Mutt Lange tune that pops up out of nowhere. Whatever type of country music you like -- or even if you think you don't -- Carrie's got something for you here. After winning American Idol and selling more than 12 million albums to date, she's already the country star that everybody knows. With Blown Away, her best album since 2005's Some Hearts and maybe ever, she seems to want to become the country star that everybody loves.

Good Girl (Chris DeStefano, Ashley Gorley, Carrie Underwood). Carrie's always had a thing for '80s hair metal -- it's nice to finally see that make its way onto one of her albums. Good Girl's got vintage rock guitar riffs, tons of echo and a melody that lets Carrie wail like Pat Benatar. But those Merseybeat hand claps are what elevate this single to instant earworm status.

Blown Away (Josh Kear, Chris Tompkins). Brought to you by the team that created Before He Cheats, this one comes off like a cross between that song and Martina McBride's Independence Day as a young woman exacts her vengeance on her "mean old mister" alcoholic father. The synthesizers, strings sounds, vocal overdubs and echoing guitars combine dramatically to give Blown Away a neo-'80s feel -- think an Oklahoma version of the Eurhythmics.

Two Black Cadillacs (Carrie Underwood, Josh Kear, Hillary Lindsey). Assuming that Carrie killed Blown Away's "mean old mister" and taking the hint that the "angel in the ground" mother died at his hand, it's time to start the album's body count (three, to this point). Two Black Cadillacs begins with a funeral procession, and if you've ever seen Diabolique (either the 1955 French classic or the 1996 Sharon Stone remake), you'll quickly figure out what led to this moment and why the procession needs two Cadillacs. Funny thing is, Carrie's never seen the movie. Wonder if Josh or Hillary has.

See You Again (Carrie Underwood, David Hodges, Hillary Lindsey). After a very dark start to Blown Away, the mood suddenly shifts to this song of sorrow and hope, initially written to submit to Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The big whoa-oh-oh singalong hook may not have suited that film (producers went with Carrie's There's a Place for Us instead), but it perfectly suits this song and its '80s MOR throb. One of several tracks with crossover-hit potential written all over it. And maybe the person Carrie's singing to just went away for a very long time, but she sings it in a way that suggests she'll have to travel beyond the ends of the earth for a reunion. Body count: Four.

Do You Think About Me (Cary Barlowe, Hillary Lindsey, Shane Stevens). Carrie recalls an early love with nostalgic fondness and a mandolin-heavy acoustic-pop arrangements. It's like Carrie's version of Deana Carter's Strawberry Wine, or something the Band Perry might do.

Read more - http://content.usatoday.com/communities/idolchatter/post/2012/05/carrie-underwoods-blown-away-a-track-by-track-review/1#.VDZyonBOnFo

Advertisement