I can honestly put my hands up in confidence and admit that I have never heard a single Carrie Underwood track. I realise she’s one of the stateside acts around at the moment, but she has never had even a pixel of coverage on UK screens. I have never heard her played once on the radio; she’s one of those artists everyone knows, but not sure why they know them. So going into this track I was a complete newbie, a clean slate if you must, so I really didn’t know what to expect… Shall we see how that went?
I don’t really see the big appeal here? This track was unbelievably bland, with not one asset being remarkable in any way. It’s almost difficult to even review because there really weren’t any stand out moments. The track wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good either. I felt that Carrie Underwood could of been swapped out for any female singer currently working today, and I still wouldn’t of noticed the difference. Now this isn’t just because her performance is underwhelming, but because the accompaniment is the definition of generic.
Production wise the track was solid, I can’t really moan about anything here. The backing instrumentation sounded clear and crisp, the vocals came across natural and untampered and the track over all just sounded well textured. Good job production team, ya’ boy’s proud of you.
The musicality of the track however, is a completely different story. A resounding yawn goes out to you whom hath written this snooze fest. From the stereotypical bass drum build up, to the un-imaginative vocal melodies, this track really takes the easy option throughout. There were no dynamic deviations or any truly distinguishable sections; the whole song was one progression playing over and over again. There were no decorative transitions, no interesting sections and not a single moment worth re-listening to.
The vocal performance was functional but lacked any real individuality or spice. Her tone never became prominent throughout the run-time and it felt like she was just ‘phoning’ it in. I know she has a notoriously good country tone to her voice, so I’m left here wondering where that went? Lyrically the song was competent, but nothing to really be too proud about. There were some decent phrases and the track wasn’t too cheesy, but it felt lie the lyrics were more of a function than something to be excited about.
5/10 – The most average a song could possibly be.
String Buzz 