Carrie Underwood Defends American Idol

Carrie Underwood photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Carrie Underwood never expected to win American Idol. When she did, she took the opportunities that had been set before her and became one of the biggest stars in all of music. While American Idol has been criticized for being a voting competition rather than a singing competition by people like Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits, Carrie begs to differ.
“I certainly disagree with that statement,” Carrie told Billboard. “I guess it’s a little bit of both, but nowadays there aren’t too many avenues of real discovery, as far as if somebody like me who lives in Oklahoma just started playing in bars around Oklahoma. There’s no way I’m going to get discovered. It just doesn’t happen like that anymore. If you know the right people or you have enough money, then you can get your way into the industry, but American Idol is for people like me. It’s for people like Scotty [McCreery] and Lauren [Alaina] who were in small towns and didn’t know how to do it, but had a love for music and a great talent and did their thing.”
Carrie is also quick to defend Scotty McCreery, the newest Idol winner, on criticism that the 16 year old is ‘too country.’ “I really don’t understand that terminology at all-’too country,’ what is that?” she said. “I’ve been criticized for being ‘too pop.’ Everybody is too something it seems like, but the format is doing pretty good so obviously nobody is too anything. It’s exciting to turn on the radio and hear traditional country and then hear Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban, which are a completely different sound. I personally don’t want to hear the same song over and over again.”
New music from Carrie is in the works. She has started the process of recording a new album, her first since Play On was released in 2009. “It’s shaping up, at its earliest form, to be very eclectic,” she told Billboard. “I always look for vocally challenging songs. It’ll be me, but hopefully more progressive.”
While fans wait for new music from Carrie, they can hear her duet with Brad Paisley on “Remind Me,” from his new album, This Is Country Music.