NASHVILLE -- Two years after the release of her 6-million-selling debut album, "Some Hearts," Carrie Underwood insists her personal world hasn't changed much. "Same house, same car, same dog," she says with a laugh, sitting in a recording studio on this city's famed Music Row.
But the 2005 "American Idol" winner's career has lived up to the title of her sophomore album, "Carnival Ride," which comes out today. When she auditioned for "Idol" ("I don't know why I tried out," she says), she was a quiet, farm-raised Oklahoma college student with ambitions of becoming a broadcast journalist.
Today, the 24-year-old has zoomed to major country-music stardom, all five of her singles, including "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Before He Cheats," racing to No. 1 on the country chart. She's captured two Grammys, including best new artist, an American Music Award, two People's Choice awards, five Academy of Country Music awards, and two awards from the Country Music Assn., which has nominated her in three categories for this year's Nov. 7 fete.
As with the metaphor of her new album -- "You get on the ride and take a deep breath, go up and come down, spin around, and it's scary and exciting," she says -- some of her trajectory has been bumpy. Country stars Faith Hill, Wynonna and LeAnn Rimes all stepped in spit when they jokingly (or not) reacted to the rookie's success at the various award shows. Whether Nashville was ready for her, in short order the artists Underwood considers her heroes have become her peers.
That's particularly apparent on "Carnival Ride." In spots, especially on the first single, "So Small," as well as on "All-American Girl" (two of the four songs Underwood co-wrote), the new album sounds remarkably like the work of Martina McBride, Underwood's main influence when growing up in the pin dot of Checotah, Okla.
But "Carnival Ride" makes it clear, to paraphrase Underwood's one co-writer on "Some Hearts," she ain't in Checotah anymore. While the hurriedly made first album had an organic feel and ingenue's charm, "Carnival Ride" sounds far more studied, even as it also showcases Underwood's growth as a vocalist. She considers it to be more country than her debut.
Her vision, she says, seeming relaxed and often breaking into a smile, was to "make music that I would love to hear if I were just driving down the road listening to the radio." To that end, she was deeply involved in virtually all aspects of making the new album, and she held a writers' retreat at Nashville's venerated Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Grand Ole Opry.
