User:Pennynm/Play On (Carrie Underwood album)

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Play On is the third studio album by American country music singer Carrie Underwood. It was released in the United States on November 3, 2009, through Arista Nashville. (ADD WHERE IT WAS RECORDED AND WHO PRODUCED IT AS WELL AS WHAT INSPIRED THE ABLUM)

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The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 318,000 copies, which was rated as the highest first-week sales for a female artist in 2009 upon release. It is her second album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, and her third to debut atop the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. As of October 2016, the album has been certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA, Platinum by the CRIA and Gold by the ARIA. Play On has since sold over three million copies worldwide. "Temporary Home" and "Mama's Song" were both nominated for Grammy Awards, while Play On was nominated for Album of the Year at both the 2010 Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, and won Favorite Country Album at the 2010 American Music Awards.

The album spawned three consecutive Billboard Hot Country Songs number one singles — "Cowboy Casanova", "Temporary Home" and "Undo It", all of which certified Multi-Platinum or Platinum by the RIAA. The fourth single, "Mama's Song", reached number two on the chart and received a Gold certification from the RIAA. "Cowboy Casanova" achieved one of the biggest single-week upwards on the Billboard Hot 100 of all time, when it climbed 96-11 in its second week.

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Background:

On October 16, 2009, Underwood made a promotional stop in Singapore to promote her upcoming album to the Asian media. The album was released on November 2 in Singapore and various parts of Asia, followed by a November 3 release in the United States. Underwood performed on The Late Show with David Letterman on November 2, and performed a special outdoor concert at Lincoln Center on Good Morning America on album release day, and rounded out her week with a visit to Live with Regis and Kelly on November 5.

Songwriter Luke Laird said of writing the album's title track, "Carrie had pretty much blocked out three months to write for this album, and she probably wrote over 60 songs during that period. This was the first time Natalie and Carrie had met, and "Play On" was actually the second song we wrote that day. When we finished writing the first song, Carrie went downstairs to get a drink, and I told Natalie, "I'll bet she's going to want to write another song." Because when Carrie comes in to write, she's ready to work all day."

Underwood said later of the song "Someday When I Stop Loving You," "It never became a single, but it's one of my absolute favorites. I heard [co-writer] Hillary Lindsey's voice on the demo, and I knew I had to have it."[citation needed]

Promotion
Prior to the release of Play On, three promotional singles were made available by iTunes. "Mama's Song" released on October 12 followed by "Temporary Home" which was released on October 20 and "Undo It" released on October 27. Billboard.com also posted a 60-second clip of each song being released on iTunes.

She debuted several of her singles at the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards.

She also appeared on several shows to promote her album including Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Live With Regis and Kelly, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show on NBC, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, American Music Awards, CNN International, and at the Grand Ole Opry.

Underwood also performed in Singapore on October 16, 2009; it is her first public appearance in an Asian country in line of a series of events for the grand opening of the newest shopping attraction in the heart of the city, ION Orchard as well as performing another outdoor concert for Good Morning America at the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tennessee on November 11, 2009, with Brad Paisley.

On November 16, 2009, episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, Underwood performed "Temporary Home", which is the second official single from Play On.

Singles
"Cowboy Casanova" served as the lead single for the Play On. The song was released on September 14, 2009, two months before the album's official release and debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs at number 26, the fifth highest debut by a female artist on the chart. It jumped from number 96 to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in its second week, one of the biggest single-week upwards on the chart of all time. The song received a nomination for Song of the Year at the 45th ACM Awards where Underwood was nominated as an artist and a composer. The music video for Cowboy Casanova was released in October 2009. The song has sold 2,300,000 copies in the United States and has been certified 2x platinum.

"Temporary Home", the second single, was released to country radio starting the week of December 14, 2009. The song has hit at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs becoming her ninth number one song in the process. It has also hit number 41 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The music video for the song was released in February 2010. Carrie won the CMT award for Best Live Performance at the 2010 CMT Awards for her performance during her personal CMT Invitation Only. The song received a nomination at the 53rd Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Vocal performance. It has sold 1,093,000 copies and has been certified Platinum by the RIAA.

The third single, "Undo It", was released on May 24, 2010. Underwood performed the song on the season finale of American Idol and at the 2010 CMT Music Awards. The song peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100, giving Underwood her eleventh Top 40 single and reached number one on Hot Country Songs chart. "Undo It" was nominated for the 2010 Teen Choice Award for 'Choice Country Song'. It has sold 1,600,000 copies and has been certified Platinum.

The fourth single, "Mama's Song", was officially released to radio on September 13, 2010. Underwood announced this in an interview after her performance on the Today Show on NBC on July 30th. The music video premiered on VEVO on September 24, 2010. Mama's Song reached the number two position on the country charts. It has been certified Gold and has sold 443,000 copies. At the 54th Grammy Awards, the song was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance.

Promotional Singles
Prior to the release of the album, three promotional singles were released exclusively on Apple's iTunes Store. These promotional singles should not be confused with ordinary singles.

"Mama's Song" was the first promotional single and was released on October 12, 2009. It was released to radio as the fourth official single off the album on September 13, 2010. "Temporary Home" was the second promotional single and was released on October 20, 2009. It was released to radio as the second official single off the album on December 14, 2009. "Undo It" was the final promotional single and was released on October 27, 2009. It was released to radio as the third official single off the album on May 24, 2010.

"Temporary Home" received multiple forms of promotion, including performances on the Late Show with David Letterman, the television special "A Home For the Holidays", Underwood's personal CMT Invitation Only performance, Underwood's Christmas variety show entitled "Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special", at the 45th ACM Awards, and on her tour.

After Underwood performed the song "Change" during the 2010's Idol Gives Back, the song received a 2,001% gain in sales, selling 9,000 to a total of 53,000 digital downloads. "Look at Me", a cover of a song originally by Alan Jackson, debuted at No. 22 on Country Digital Songs in 2014 after it appeared in a viral video, and sold 18,000 copies for the week for a total of 80,000 sold.

North American Tour
On March 11, 2010, Underwood began the Play On Tour. The tour includes several legs traveling across the globe, with the first and second leg focusing on the United States and Canada. Her opening acts/guest performers for the spring tour were Craig Morgan and Sons of Sylvia. The second leg included Sons of Sylvia and country singer Billy Currington. The first leg began in Reading, Pennsylvania on March 11, and concluded in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Minnesota State Fair on August 31, 2010. The second leg began on September 25, 2010, in Portland, Oregon, and concluded on December 19 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

In July 2010, the tour ranked at number 15 on the Top 100 Tours for the first half of the year. Within four months of the tour's first leg, it raked in an approximate total of $18,400,000, and sold over 375,000 tickets.

In December 2010, the tour ranked at number 19 for the largest North American tours of 2010, and again at number 31 for the largest tours worldwide for the 2010 touring year. The tour made a collective total of $38,300,000 and reached to over one million fans, becoming Underwood's largest tour to date.

Australian Tour
On May 16, 2011, Sony Music and Underwood collectively announced that the Country singer would travel to Australia in June 2011 to promote her Play On album for her first international headline tour.. During the tour's duration, Underwood would also release the Play On: Deluxe Edition exclusively to Australia. The album included six previous number one singles of Underwood's, as well as a studio recording of "Home Sweet Home", a recording in which has never been featured on an album before.

Critical reception
Play On had a score of 54 out of 100 from Metacritic based on "mixed or average reviews" from music critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album 2.5 out of 5 stars. He argues that "Carrie is still nominally a country artist and sometimes will sing supported by fiddles and steel guitar, but this is crossover pop pure and simple, whether it's the thundering rhythms on the Shania-styled strut "Cowboy Casanova" or the succession of maudlin melodies on the preponderance of power ballads." In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a "dud" rating. Leah Greenblatt rated it B in Entertainment Weekly, saying "If it seems vaguely insulting to call the smashingly successful Idol alum's material formulaic, know at least that it is, three albums in, one of the most well-honed formulas in the business."

Sean Daly from the St. Petersburg Times argues that Play On is Underwood's "weakest album to date," but predicts that the album will "sell like gangbusters." Daly says that "Cowboy Casanova", "co-written by 50 Cent buddy Mike Elizondo, brazenly bites from both 'Before He Cheats' and 'Last Name'." Daly highlights the song "Someday When I Stop Loving You". He says that it "is so good. It has a vague '70s feel, reminiscent of all those great old Chicago songs."