Last night, country superstar and Season 4 American Idol champ Carrie Underwood took to Instagram to reveal the tracklisting of her 5th studio album, Storyteller, due out 10/23, in a fun way – as chapters of a book. Check out the media first, and then scroll down for the songwriting and producer credits via press release:
Storyteller features 13 new tracks, 6 of them co-written by Carrie, including lead single “Smoke Break,” which broke a record for the most first-week country adds when it was added by 145 stations of the 154 station Mediabase country panel. “Smoke Break” currently sits at #17 Billboard Country Airplay and #19 Mediabase country in its 3rd week out. The “Smoke Break” writing team of Chris DeStefano, Hillary Lindsey and Carrie also cowrote the song teased in the “Smoke Break” video, “Renegade Runaway.” Hillary Lindsey, whose association with Carrie goes all the way back to Carrie’s debut country single, “Jesus Take The Wheel,” cowrote 9 songs on the album.
On the production side, Carrie’s long-time producer Mark Bright returns for 5 tracks, while Jay Joyce (known for his work with Eric Church and Little Big Town) helms 6 (including “Smoke Break”) and Zach Crowell (known for co-producing Sam Hunt‘s Montevallo) helms 2.
Carrie has described the album as leaning more traditional and twangy than her previous work, and as the album title suggests, she says the songs on the album reflect country music’s storytelling tradition that she values so much.
Here’s the Storyteller tracklist, followed by production credits. All songwriters are listed in alphabetical order.
1. “Renegade Runaway” (Chris DeStefano / Hillary Lindsey / Carrie Underwood)
2. “Dirty Laundry” (Zach Crowell / Ashley Gorley / Hillary Lindsey)
3. “Church Bells” (Zach Crowell / Brett James / Hillary Lindsey)
4. “Heartbeat” (Zach Crowell / Ashley Gorley / Carrie Underwood)
5. “Smoke Break” (Chris DeStefano / Hillary Lindsey / Carrie Underwood)
6. “Choctaw County Affair” (Jason White)
7. “Like I’ll Never Love You Again” (Hillary Lindsey / Lori McKenna / Liz Rose)
8. “Chaser” (Carrie Underwood / Mike Elizondo / Hillary Lindsey)
9. “Relapse” (Ben Caver / Sara Haze / Brett James)
10. “Clock Don’t Stop” (Blair Daly / Chris DeStefano / Hillary Lindsey)
11. “The Girl You Think I Am” (David Hodges / Hillary Lindsey / Carrie Underwood)
12. “Mexico” (Kathleen Higgins / Jamie Moore / Derrick Adam Southerland)
13. “What I Never Knew I Always Wanted” (Brett James / Hillary Lindsey / Carrie Underwood)
Tracks 1, 2, 5-8 produced by Jay Joyce
Tracks 3, 10-13 produced by Mark Bright
Tracks 4, 9 produced by Zach Crowell
Carrie will appear as both a guest and performer on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon tonight, singing her new single, “Smoke Break” and previewing her new Sunday Night Football intro for NBC, which debuts this Sunday. It’s a busy day for her today, as she spent the morning debuting her women’s athleisure line Calia at New York Fashion Week. Tomorrow, she’ll be the guest judge for Project Runway‘s season finale, which will air on 11/5. On 9/21, she’ll become the 1st country act to ever headline at the global Apple Music Fest, which will stream live.
But wait, there’s more! On 10/6, Carrie’ll join Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Paul Simon and Brad Paisley for the Country Music Hall of Fame’s All For The Hall benefit in New York City – a concert in a guitar-pull format at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square. Speaking of Brad Paisley, Carrie will reteam with him to cohost the 49th Annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards on 11/4, their 8th consecutive year hosting the show. Check out yesterday’s nominations and a preview of some of Carrie & Brad’s host hijinks here.
What do you think of Carrie’s tracklist reveal and are there any titles and songwriters that jump out at you on the tracklist?
