Cry Pretty

Carrie Underwood has long been America’s country-pop sweetheart, belting playful revenge anthems and hear-me-roar power ballads. But her sixth album brings a shift in tone: Topical and contemplative, it represents a period of personal change (at 35, she’s a new mom and expecting her second child), and comes at a moment so politically fraught that even traditionally conservative country megastars are daring to ask tough questions. There’s urgency in songs like “The Bullet” and “Love Wins” (detailing the emotional wreckage of shootings and the importance of gay rights, respectively), and courageous reflections on private battles in “Drinking Alone” and “Spinning Bottles.” The title track draws a hard line between vulnerability and weakness. “Falling apart is as human as it gets,” she sings. On any other album, the party songs (“Southbound”) and hip-hop collaborations (“The Champion,” featuring Ludacris) would steal the spotlight, but here they’re simply outshined. Thirteen years after her *American Idol* debut, we’re finally getting to know the woman behind the mic.

Piano & A Microphone 1983 is an unpolished Prince gem, while Metric loses focus on Air Of Doubt, and Lonnie Holley is louder than ever on Mith. Plus, we take a look at Carrie Underwood’s sixth LP, Cry Pretty.

On her new album Cry Pretty, Carrie Underwood belts out rafters-reaching country anthems, incorporates dance and hip-hop beats into her radio-ready twang-pop and even dips her toe into politically charged waters on a couple of songs.

The singer's big-box country tackles gun violence and addiction alongside heartbreak and early-AM booty calls.

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Carrie Underwood is one of country music's great criers. Her commitment to specific, overwhelming melodrama is a skill that seems slightly o...

Six albums in, Carrie Underwood knows what works. Formally, she's pinned down the formula and employs it to full effect on Cry Pretty

It’s not actually horrible, but Underwood’s sixth album feels almost as if it was produced by an algorithm