Storyteller (Carrie Underwood album)

Storyteller
Studio album by Carrie Underwood
Released	October 23, 2015 (2015-10-23)
Genre	Country pop rock[1]
Length	46:12
Label	Arista Nashville 19
Producer	Mark Bright Zach Crowell Jay Joyce
Carrie Underwood chronology
Greatest Hits: Decade Number 1 (2014) Storyteller (2015)
Singles from Storyteller
"Smoke Break" Released: August 21, 2015 "Heartbeat" Released: November 30, 2015

Storyteller is the fifth studio album recorded by American singer and songwriter Carrie Underwood. It was released on October 23, 2015, through Sony Music Nashville. Following the release and success of her fourth studio album, Blown Away, Underwood began work on Storyteller in early 2014. However, she tentatively suspended most work on the album because of her pregnancy with her first child. In the midterm, Underwood released her first compilation record, Greatest Hits: Decade #1, on December 9, 2014 to much success. After the birth of her son, she took some additional time off before going back into the studio in early 2015 to finish working on the album.

Underwood drew inspiration for the title of the album from the storytelling aspect of country music, as well as her own songs. Storyteller has been described by Underwood as being more laid-back and more twangy as opposed to the her last studio album. Unlike her previous four albums, Underwood worked with multiple producers on Storyteller, including her longtime record producer Mark Bright, as well as Zach Crowell and Jay Joyce.

Met with mostly positive reviews from music critics, Storyteller became a commercial success and set multiple records upon its release. By debuting at number two on the Billboard 200 chart, it made Underwood the only country artist in history to have all of her first five studio albums debut at number one or two, and with a number one debut on the Top Country Albums chart, it made her the only artist to score six consecutive number one albums on the chart. Storyteller also performed well internationally upon its release, including a number four debut in Australia, number three in Canada and thirteen in the United Kingdom.

Background

After the release and success of her fourth studio album, Blown Away, in 2012 and its international supporting tour, Blown Away Tour (2012-2013), Underwood confirmed, in August 2013, that she had began planning on a new album and would start working on it in 2014.^[3] However, she released her first greatest hits album in late 2014 to much success, while pregnant with her first child.^[4] After giving birth, in February 2015, Underwood went back into the studio to finish working on the album.^[5] On August 20, 2015, Underwood announced the album's title and release date via live Facebook stream.^[6]

Underwood has described Storyteller as being more laid-back and more twangy as opposed to the her last studio album, Blown Away (2012).^[4] For this album, Underwood worked with frequent collaborators such as Hillary Lindsey, Ashley Gorley, Chris DeStefano, David Hodges, Brett James, and Mark Bright, although Underwood also worked with new collaborators such as Liz Rose, Zach Crowell, and Jay Joyce.^[7] Joyce produced the album's lead single "Smoke Break", which Underwood wrote with DeStefano and Lindsey.^[8]

Singles

"Smoke Break", the lead single off Storyteller, was released on August 21, 2015. The song set an all-time record for the largest first-week radio adds in the history of Country Aircheck, with 145 Mediabase adds and 159 total Billboard and Country Aircheck reporting stations lined up for the song’s official airplay impact date.^[9][10] It reached number four on the Hot Country Songs chart and number two on the Country Airplay chart.

"Heartbeat" was confirmed as the second single from Storyteller at the 2015 American Music Awards.^[11] The song made its official impact on country radio on November 30, 2015.^[12]

Promotion

Underwood revealed the album's track listing on September 9, 2015, via her Instagram account. On September 10, 2015, Underwood appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and also performed "Smoke Break". On September 21, 2015, Underwood performed the song at the Apple Music Festival in London.^[13]

On October 9, 2015, "Heartbeat" was released as a promotional single from the album.^[14] The song features background vocals by country artist Sam Hunt . It sold 23,000 copies and debuted at number 26 on Hot Country Songs chart for the week ending October 31, 2015. As of October 26, 2015 the song has sold 31,000 copies.^[15] The song also entered the Scottish Singles Chart at number 80.

"Renegade Runaway" was released as the second promotional single on October 16, 2015. It sold 13,000 copies and debuted at number 34 on Hot Country Songs chart. A third and final promotional single, "What I Never Knew I Always Wanted" was released October 19, 2015. It sold 9,000 copies and entered the Hot Country Songs chart at number 38 and reached number 32. As of November 21, 2015, it sold 21,000 copies. All three singles were made available for download on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital retailers with a pre-order of the full Storyteller album.

Tour

It was announced on October 27, 2015, that Underwood would embark on a tour to support the album. Named "Storyteller Tour: Stories in the Round", the tour began on January 30, 2016, in Jacksonville, Florida.^[16]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	74/100[1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[17]
Billboard	[18]
The Boston Globe	Positive[19]
Entertainment Weekly	A-[20]
Exclaim!	6/10[21]
Rolling Stone	[22]
Spin	70/100[23]

Storyteller received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 74 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews" based on nine reviews.^[1]

Jewly Hight of Billboard rated the album three and a half out of five stars, and commended : "Unlike newer country acts who can sound like they’re merely co-starring with their own faddish production, Underwood commands the spotlight, balancing the well-established extremes of her on-stage persona -- Midwestern girl-next-door and imperious diva -- within these freshened-up aesthetic frames. If it weren't for several songs’ worth of forgettable filler (the half-baked outlaw escapade “Mexico,” cursory club anthem “Clock Don’t Stop”), the album would be divided almost evenly between episodes of vengeful, countrified melodrama and moving celebrations of conventional fulfillment. The first half holds a pair of Southern-Gothic blockbusters that are the closest she has come to channeling McEntire’s down-home storytelling: “Choctaw County Affair,” a tale of lovers silencing their would-be blackmailer, and “Church Bells,” a rags-to-riches murder ballad in which a woman quietly offs her abusive husband. The second half concludes with sentimental tunes that will soundtrack many a wedding slow dance in coming months: the wistfully swelling power ballad “The Girl You Think I Am” and adult-contemporary pop number “What I Never Knew I Always Wanted.”^[24] In a mixed review for Exclaim!, Stuart Henderson wrote that the record is "more than halfway boring," explaining that "It isn't uninspired or weakly performed. Rather, it is boring in spite of the overwhelming bombast, the booming bass and pounding drums, the huge vocals, the wailing guitars; it is boring because rather than electrifying you, it distances and anaesthetizes."^[21]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album four out of five stars and states: "Storyteller is no small album: it demands attention and it deserves it, too."^[17] The Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman calls it Underwood's best album yet, and writes: "there’s plenty on Storyteller that will sound familiar to Underwood fans, and a few filler tracks."^[19]

Commercial performance

In the United States, Storyteller debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 177,000 equivalent album units; the album sold 164,000 copies in pure sales, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting the album's streaming and track equivalent album units.^[25] This made Underwood the only country artist to have his or her first five studio albums debut at number one or number two on the Billboard 200 chart.^[26] In addition, the album debuted at number one on the Top Country Albums chart, earning Underwood another record as the only artist to score six consecutive number one albums on that chart.^[26] It held the number two position on the Billboard 200 in its second week, moving another 81,000 units, including over 73,000 album copies sold.^[27] On the chart dated December 19, it rose back to number one on the Top Country Albums for a second week.^[28] As of February 8, 2016, the album has sold 497,800 copies in the US.^[29] It was certified Gold by the RIAA on December 4, 2015 for shipments of over 500,000 copies in the US.^[30]

Outside of the United States, the album debuted at number three in Canada, number four in Australia,^[31] number six in Scotland, number thirteen on the UK Albums Chart—becoming her second top twenty album in the region^[32]—and charted in another six regions.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from AllMusic.^[35]

Performance credits

• Lead vocals — Carrie Underwood
• Background vocals — Perry Coleman, Zach Crowell, Chris DeStefano, Jerry Flowers, Sam Hunt, Hillary Lindsey, The McCrary Sisters, Rick Marty, James Moore, Carrie Underwood

Instruments

Production and creative imagery

Other charted songs

Following the release of the album, five of its songs charted on the Hot Country Songs: "The Girl You Think I Am" at number 38 (8,000 copies sold), "Like I'll Never Love You Again" at number 39 (8,000 copies), "Dirty Laundry" at number 47 (3,000 copies), "Relapse" at number 48 (4,000 copies) and "Church Bells" at number 49 (2,300 copies).^[36]

Charts

Certifications

Release history

References