Listening to Carrie Underwood’s sophomore album Carnival Ride, two things become clear: Her voice is amazingly strong so early in her career, and that voice isn’t always used with the best songs.
On the whole, the album is a solid effort, though it’s fair to say it doesn’t live up to the standard set by Some Hearts, her debut that has sold about 6 million copies. There’s no shame in that, though.
Underwood has a retort ladies, regardless of their music tastes, are sure to be belting out almost as regularly as “Before He Cheats” in her new song “The More Boys I Meet.”
“And I close my eyes/ And I kiss that frog/ Each time finding/ The more boys I meet/ The more I love my dog,” Underwood laments.
This line is certainly the punchiest of the album, but there’s plenty of variety to be found, as well.
“Just a Dream” is as convincing as it is anguishing. It tells the story of a woman whose significant other has died. She feels like someone from the outside observing the tragedy in her own life as everyone tries to comfort her.
“Baby why’d you leave me?/ Why’d you have to go?” Underwood asks. “I was counting on forever. Now I’ll never know/ I can’t even breathe/ It’s like I’m looking from a distance standing in the background/ Everybody’s saying he’s not coming home now/ This can’t be happening to me/ This is just a dream.”
Then there’s “So Small,” her current single that sits at No. 5 on this week’s Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The ballad, which she cowrote, concludes that life’s problems seem small compared to the importance of love.
“Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand/ What you’ve been out there searching for forever, is in your hand,” Underwood suggests. “And when you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else seem so small.”
While the song’s conclusion may seem a little mushy, it is one of the few songs that can rival the quality of the best songs from Some Hearts.
The album digresses from time to time, including “I Know You Won’t,” a whiny song about how the lady in the song’s man isn’t quite reliable. It may be a tough thing to face in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean it merits more than four minutes of treatment on this CD.
“Flat on the Floor,” “All-American Girl,” “Last Name” and “Crazy Dreams” all do their part to make sure this is an upbeat album.
But one of the best fast-paced songs is “Get Out of This Town,” during which you may mistake Underwood for Faith Hill.
“Let’s get out of this town tonight/ Nothing but dust in the shadows,” she implores. “Gone by the morning light somewhere/ We won’t ever get caught, ever be found.”
The album closes with “Wheel of the World,” a song meant to reflect the unpredictability of the life, which it effectively does.
“It’s the wheel of the world/ Turning around/ And around/ God put us here on this carnival ride,” Underwood sings. “We close our eyes never knowing/ Where it’ll take us next.”
For now, the carnival ride is providing plenty of music worth listening to, even if it’s not quite what she’s produced before.