Carrie Underwood
News (Page 3)

Here's news on what ought to be the highest grossing music tour of 2008:

Carrie Underwood will join another country superstar, Keith Urban, on a co-headlining, 24-city tour, starting January. 31.

The tour, named for a combination of the titles of the two artists' latest albums, is called the “Love, Pain & the whole crazy Carnival Ride Tour.”

Tickets go on sale December 1.

Another awards ceremony, another haul for Carrie Underwood.

The American Idol champion won a pair of trophies for her single, "Before He Cheats." It took home the Country Music award for Single of the Year, while Underwood also won Female Vocalist of the Year.

Underwood was humbled, telling the press:

“God has blessed me with so many wonderful things. If you told me a few years ago I had been nominated with the people I’m nominated with, I would have called you absolutely insane.”

Carrie Underwood rules.

Carnival Ride is the number-one album in the country, having sold a staggering 527,000 copies during its debut week.

This is the American Idol winner’s first top-ranked album. We're guessing it won't be her last, however.

Carrie's new disc bests her previous effort, 2005’s Some Hearts, which debuted to 315,000 copies sold in its first week. Chace Crawford must be so proud!

Carrie Underwood likes the drama on Gossip Girl.

Reportedly, she also likes one of the actors on that show.

But current dating aside, the American Idol champion and woman behind the new CD, Carnival Ride, recently talked to Us Weekly about past relationships:

You had a hit with 'Before He Cheats.' Do you still keep in touch with your exes?
Not really because most of my exes are pre-Idol, so, yeah, I don't really. [It's like,] "Well, you wish you would have stayed with me, huh?" [Laughs]

Do you listen to talk about your looks or consider yourself a sex symbol?
No. If I didn't do what I do, nobody would ever look twice at me. I'm a blender – and the only reason anybody, if they do think of me in that way, it's just because I do what I do. I'm okay. But I'm not, like, anything special.

What motivated you to write some songs on your new album?
It's definitely a plus when you can write your own stuff. It's coming from a personal place – and it's just more to be proud of. I just wanted to see if I had the talent and just try. It wasn't a huge deal like, "every song on the album must be mine," because there are so many talented writers.

Carrie Underwood is busy this week going on dates with Chace Crawford and releasing her new album, Carnival Ride.

Below, USA Today reviews various song on the album. You can read more about it at the newspaper's American Idol blog.

Flat on the Floor: Great start. This is a modal-sounding banjo-driven country-folk tune, and Carrie's vocal is really aggressive, with a desperate edge to it, more so than anything previous. She's not cuddly Carrie any more on this one.

All-American Girl: Sentimental tale of a guy who's got his mind set on his first child being a boy, but gets a daughter instead and is immediately captivated by her. Years later, the same is said abot the high school football star who ends up marrying her and winds up telling her that when it's time for their first child, he wants an All-American girl just like his wife. Carrie co-wrote it.

So Small: First single is a power ballad displaying Nashville craftsmanship at its finest, with a chance to soar for Carrie. You may have heard it on the radio already.

Just a Dream: Ballad about a widow mourning the loss of her soldier husband. Heartfelt, but a little heavy on the sentiment and a less-than-standout song musically.

Get Out of This Town: Upbeat ditty about the need to escape; not much depth or musical distinctiveness.

Crazy Dreams: Another song co-written by Carrie - and it's perfect for her, a salute to all the "hairbrush singers and dashboard drummers" and showbiz wannabes that carries a lot more conviction coming from one of their own who actually made it.

I Know You Won't: Slushy ballad, although well-sung.

Last Name: The Before He Cheats of this album, as Carrie takes on a persona totally foreign to her nature: that of a girl who gets so blitzed that she elopes with a stranger and gets a quickie Vegas marriage, all without learning the dude's last name. She co-wrote this one, too.

Once again, Carrie Underwood has been spotted on a date with Chace Crawford.

In town to promote her new CD, Carnival Ride, the American Idol champion met up with the Gossip Girl actor at at upscale Italian restaurant “Destino” on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

It looks official now that Tony Romo is out of Carrie's love life. And Crawford is happy to be in it.

The Dallas Morning News was rather harsh in its review of Carnival Ride, the latest album from Carrie Underwood. It read:

While Carnival Ride fiddles with a handful of traditional country instruments such as banjo, mandolin and steel guitar, her roots remain in radio-ready pop. Tellingly, the CD's best cut, "Last Name," is a rocked-up little corker about too much booze and a surprise Vegas wedding.

It's a catchy guilty pleasure.

Ultimately, Carrie Underwood's artistic abilities amount to a bunch of air. Give her a batch of palatable pop nuggets, such as the breezy final track "Wheel of the World," and then let her blow. She'll blend perfectly with the proceedings. She'll even harmonize for you. Her voice will be purely pleasant white noise.

Just like any other background vocalist.

Wow. Not very kind. What do you think of the CD?

While it may be hard to sympathize with a beautiful singer when it comes to dating, Carrie Underwood made some good points about her love life under the glare of celebrity during a recent interview.

"Eventually you are going to get busted if you are dating someone," the American Idol champion told Nashville's Tennessean newspaper in an interview published Sunday. But she added "there are definite ways around it."

In this latest profile, part of her media rounds to promote her new album Carnival Ride (out Tuesday), Underwood talked about Romo and the pitfalls of finding love after American Idol.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Carrie said her and Romo were never officially a couple. But the two remain close pals.

"Right now, the place we are at, he is my best friend. He'll call me after games. ... Either I'm flying high with him or making him feel better. It took a little while to get to this point. It seemed like maybe for a bit we were headed there. We never got there."

But what about Gossip Girl actor Chace Crawford? Are he and Underwood now dating?

"It's just weird when it's not a date and people immediately assume it is," Carrie said, although it was unclear if she had a certain young star in mind.

Great timing by Entertainment Weekly: the fun magazine has Carrie Underwood on its cover this week, always apt if you're an American Idol or country music fan.

But especially appropriate these days, as Carrie is in the news a lot for dating Gossip Girl star Chace Crawford.

That relationship wasn't covered in the interview. But the following was...

Some Hearts had a handful of pop songs, while Carnival Ride absolutely sounds like a country record the whole way through.
The first one definitely had a different purpose to serve. I'd gained a big following from Idol of people who were not all country-music listeners. I want to be a country artist in a country world with country fans. We had to figure out a way, even if they're not country-music fans, to make them country-music fans.

You co-wrote several songs on this record, compared with only one the first time.
I'm so new at the writing game that I just wanted to see what I could do. I'm not sure if I could sit down and write a whole song by myself. A lot of people write throughout their lives and then if they get a record deal, they have material. I never thought I'd be in the position I'm in now. So I never tried to write.

Have you ever had singing lessons?
Years ago I got together with a voice coach briefly and I hated it, because I felt like they tried to change things that, like, would make me me, you know? There's been a lot of growth over the past two years. I think I sound different now. I've gotten a lot more practice and everything's just gotten easier.

Like, notes that I could barely hit for the first album — like, ''Oh my gosh, this is gonna kill me'' — are a piece of cake now. We're on to new notes now that are way in the stratosphere. On [Carnival's] ''All-American Girl,'' the high note is the highest I've ever hit.

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To paraphrase the narrator of The CW show, Gossip Girl:

Spotted in New York City October 12: Chace Crawford and American Idol star Carrie Underwood, who dined togetherat Nobu, then hit hot spot Marquee to sip champagne and smooch in a secluded booth.

“They were all over each other,” an eyewitness told Us Weekly.

As we reported yesterday, it certainly appears as though Underwood has ended her relationship with Tony Romo - and latched on to this Gossip Girl star.

Sunday night, Carrie and Chace held hands during a double date with Crawford’s costar Ed Westwick at Italian eatery Del Posto.

And Underwood even told People magazine she considers the actor to be "really cute," adding:

"I've met him and he seems like a really nice guy. He's got cool hair, he's a nice height and he just has beautiful blue eyes."