Maps of Music

Blown Away (2012)

Where the lyrics of Blown Away take you, and where it was really made.

The cover turns Underwood away from her girl-next-door image and presents her as an airbrushed, supermodel heroine.

Key places

Recorded and mixed at Starstruck Studios (2012)

Recording site Nashville — The album was recorded and mixed at Starstruck Studios, with additional recording at the same studio and The Yellow House. The point is set at city level, so the exact building is not pinned. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Blown Away: fourth studio album by Carrie Underwood
• Released May 1, 2012 through 19 Recordings and Arista Nashville
• Produced by Mark Bright
• Underwood co-wrote eight of its 14 tracks
• Country album that expands her pop-country base with pop-oriented production and weather-themed imagery
• Debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, her third consecutive studio album to top the chart
• Four singles: Good Girl, Blown Away, Two Black Cadillacs, See You Again

Background

• Developed over nearly a year after her third headlining tour, Play On Tour
• Play On Tour ended in December 2010, and Underwood then started work on the album
• She wanted to step away from the celebrity bubble to have real things to write and sing about
• The album presents a deliberate shift toward darker, more narrative-driven material
• The title track was written by Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear, who also wrote Before He Cheats
• Ashley Gorley said Good Girl came together while he worked in Los Angeles with Chris DeStefano, after Underwood's management suggested the three collaborate

Recording

• Recorded and mixed at Starstruck Studios
• Additional recording at Starstruck Studios and The Yellow House
• Mastered at Gateway Mastering & DVD in Portland, Maine

Cover

• Underwood gazes into the distance in a gray gown whose extended train billows behind her
• The image reflects her move from the girl-next-door image of her early career to a more stylized, dramatic persona
• She is depicted as an airbrushed, supermodel heroine, in a gown compared to Angelina Jolie at the Academy Awards

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Carrie Marie Underwood, born March 10, 1983, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, is an American singer and songwriter.
• She won the fourth season of American Idol in 2005.
• Her debut single "Inside Your Heaven" debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the first country artist to do so.
• Her debut album Some Hearts (2005) became the best-selling debut album by a solo female country artist and won three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist.
• Carnival Ride (2007) sold over 527,000 copies in its first week and won two Grammy Awards.
• Play On (2009) made her the only woman with eleven consecutive top-two singles on the Hot Country Songs chart.
• Blown Away (2012) was among the year's best-selling albums and earned another Grammy.
• Storyteller (2015) made her the only country artist with her first five studio albums reaching the top two on the Billboard 200.
• Cry Pretty (2018) debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and made her the first woman to top the chart with four country albums.
• She has won eight Grammy Awards and is the most-awarded artist in CMT Music Awards history.
• She was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2008 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.
• Underwood is a judge on American Idol since 2025.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Metacritic: average score of 70 based on 12 reviews, generally favorable
• AllMusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine): turn-of-the-millennium nostalgia handled with skill and savvy, with arena-ready country within her wheelhouse
• Billboard (Deborah Evans Price): Underwood delivers her most adventurous work to date, covering abuse, infidelity, revenge and regret
• Country Weekly (Jessica Nicholson): easily her most well-rounded and confident work to date
• The New York Times (Jon Caramanica): her huge voice is especially effective when channeling anger
• American Songwriter (Eric Allen): considerable artistic and creative growth, more thematic and unified, her strongest effort to date
• Entertainment Weekly (Melissa Maerz): her most stadium-rock-friendly album yet
• USA Today (Elysa Garnder): reaffirms her natural gifts and encourages her to push beyond them
• Los Angeles Times (Mikael Wood): much of it uses her remarkable voice for feel-good bromides
• Slant Magazine (Johnathan Keefe): she takes far more creative risks than before, though the overall assessment is restrained
• Tampa Bay Times (Sean Daly): dominated by cliché pleadings for lost love, sounds more Hollywood safe than Nashville tough
• Rolling Stone (Jody Rosen): her voice remains as powerful as ever, but the melodrama is amplified through heavy strings and effects
• The Guardian (Caroline Sullivan): may be too formulaic to give her much of a foothold
• Awards: won at the 2012 American Music Awards and 2013 Country Music Awards of Australia
• Nominated for the 2013 Academy of Country Music Awards, Country Music Association Awards, Billboard Music Awards and World Music Awards

Records

• Billboard 200: debut at number one with first-week sales of 267,000 copies
• Second week: stayed at number one with 120,000 copies, her first album to spend more than a week at the top
• Top Country Albums: debut at number one, topped the chart for seven weeks
• Seventh best selling album of 2012 in the US
• Over 1,400,000 copies sold worldwide in 2012 per IFPI
• US: 1,853,200 copies as of October 2019; 3x Platinum from the RIAA in January 2020
• Canada: debut at number one with 17,300 first-week copies
• Australia: number four on the ARIA Top 50 Albums and number one on the ARIA Top 20 Country Albums
• UK: debut at number eleven on the UK Top 100 Albums and number one on the UK Top Country Albums; 61,000 copies sold; BPI Gold

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Royal Albert Hall in London hosted her first UK concert on the Blown Away Tour, and the concert sold out within 90 minutes of public ticket sales
• On the North American leg of the tour, Underwood donated one dollar from each ticket sold to Red Cross disaster relief
• The UK and Japanese editions add four bonus tracks from her previous albums: Cowboy Casanova, Before He Cheats, Last Name and Jesus, Take the Wheel
• The Boot ranked the album cover first on its list of Underwood's Top 10 single, EP and album covers
• Good Girl leaked on February 21, two days before its official release on February 23

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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