Carrie Underwood Releases 'Cry Pretty' Album

Carrie Underwood's highly-anticipated Cry Pretty album is out! The singer released the 13-track project, which she co-produced with David Garcia, on Friday, Sept. 14.

"We started collecting songs as soon as I came off the road in 2016," Underwood tells PopCulture.com and other media, referring to the end of her Storyteller Tour. "2017, after the holidays, everybody's waking up, getting back into things, it couldn't hurt to just start kind of collecting songs. I listened to lots of demos. I think the first song I put on hold was 'Ghost on the Stereo.' That one made it through the whole way. Usually, I kind of get tired of things, or things just don't make it to the end; you find better. But, I loved that one from day one.

"A little bit as the year started to progress, it was like, "Ok. I feel like I've gotten back to normal life," she continues, "because it's so strange coming off the road. You kind of have to figure out how to be a human again. I don't live on a bus anymore, Isaiah's going to school, how do I transition back into real life?"

The Oklahoma native spent much of 2017 writing and finding songs, and settling into her role as a producer for the first time.

"I started getting back into the writing game, and through that process met David Garcia pretty early on, kind of through [songwriter] Brett James," Underwood recalls. "I just loved what he brought to the table; we worked well together as writers. He would send me demos that I loved. I really was just like, 'What is this guy's story? How are his demos so good?' I knew he was doing them himself, and kind of started looking into more of what he did from the production side of things, and his writing. There's always a lot going on.

"So my 2017 kind of became write a little bit," she adds, "and then I'd have to go do something somewhere, like a week's worth of – I'd have shoots and I'd have some sort of media something or whatever to do, and then I'd kind of come back to writing."

The formula was a new method for Underwood, who went all in for her previous five records, setting aside a smaller window of time to focus on writing. But the gift of extended time allowed her to focus on what she wanted to say, and how she wanted to say it.

"I've never quite done it like that before," Underwood acknowledges. "Normally I block off a time for writing, and I'm writing four or five days a week, every single week. This was a little more broken up, which I think was good, because I was living life in between writing sessions. Just kind of getting it in my head that maybe I had the time to produce myself, obviously knowing I have a lot to learn ... And then we jumped in the studio, at the beginning of this year. I had a lot of songs written, a lot of songs collected, and just had to figure out what was gonna make the cut and what wasn't."

Cry Pretty includes the thought-provoking song, "The Bullet," as well as her current single, "Love Wins." Order Cry Pretty at CarrieUnderwoodOfficial.com.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Mike Coppola