Carrie Underwood's recent hints that there might be new music on the way plus the March 18 reveal of new single "Ghost Story" culminated on April 7 with the unveiling of album title Denim & Rhinestones (out June 10) and its cover art.
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As of May 20, she's teased the album with two additional songs, with the most recent being "She Don't Know": a throwback to some of Underwood's earlier, more traditional-sounding country material.
"What she don't know is I know what she's been up to / I bet she thinks she got me played for a fool / But the joke's on her, in that bed she's lyin' in / What she don't know, she don't know / She can have him," goes lyrics by Underwood, David Garcia and Hilary Lindsey about about the other woman in a web of infidelity.
On April 22, Underwood shared album track "Crazy Angels." Her latest arena singalong-sparker points to country stars' long-running fixation with Saturday night sinners and Sunday morning saints via such lyrics as "Got Holy Ghost conviction confliction when the sun goes down / You know where to find me on a Sunday morning / But tonight, I come with a whiskey warning."
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Underwood describes "Ghost Story" in a press release as "a different take on a revenge song, which is something I love to sing about. Instead of smashing headlights, this scorned lover is letting her ex know that she will continue to haunt him no matter how hard he tries to forget her."
Josh Kear, Lindsey and Garcia wrote the chilling tale of revenge as a long game, which was co-produced by Garcia and Underwood.
It's an all-star lineup of Underwood collaborators. Garcia co-produced Cry Pretty and My Savior with Underwood, while Kear ("Before He Cheats," "Blown Away") and Lindsey ("Jesus, Take the Wheel," "Church Bells") co-wrote several of the American Idol winner's best-loved hits.
"I loved obviously the lyrics, but there was also just something super cool about the music," Underwood told Today's Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen in March. "And I feel like the chord changes and just kind of the musicality of it. It just didn't sound like anything else that's on the radio right now. And I feel like it was a great first choice first single, because I feel like it's enough of hopefully what people like about me. There's some drama. It's a cinematic song. It's a great story song. It's kind of this little revenge kind of song and there's just something kind of epic about it. So I just felt like it was a great song and then getting in the studio and singing it myself, it was just like, ah, this just feels good."
More ears got pointed to "Ghost Story" after Underwood performed it live at the 2022 Grammy Awards and during an acrobatic appearance at the CMT Music Awards.
Underwood further discussed her forthcoming album with Bannen.
"I feel like overall, just this next project is... It's fun," Underwood said. "It's a lot of fun. We covered a lot of ground making it and just kind of went into the whole project of let's just have fun and make music we love and see what happened. And I got to write a lot. I got to co-produce again with David Garcia, which is just so much fun getting able to be there from the ground up and really make more musical decision. Yeah, it's a lot of fun and I feel like people are going to hear everything and just going to get some warm fuzzies and just, I don't know, hopefully it'll just make people happy to listen to. It's a very like sing into your hairbrush, in your house, in your room kind of album, which I think it's going to translate well. I think people are going to like it."
Underwood's prior musical output since the Sept. 2018 release of Cry Pretty (her first country album for Capitol Records Nashville) brought us Christmas (My Gift) and gospel albums (My Savior) as well as chart-topping and ACM Single of the Year-winning Jason Aldean duet "If I Didn't Love You."
The Underwood co-produced album Cry Pretty brought us four Top 15 country airplay hits: the title track, "Love Wins," "Southbound" and "Drinking Alone." It was preceded in the Oklahoma-born superstar's album discography by Some Hearts (2005), Carnival Ride (2007), Play On (2009), Blown Away (2012) and Storyteller (2015). All six albums topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and reached no lower than No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
Underwood has since shared the album's tracklist.
Denim & Rhinestones Tracklist
1. "Denim & Rhinestones" (Carrie Underwood, David Garcia, Josh Kear, Hillary Lindsey)
2. "Velvet Heartbreak" (Underwood, Garcia, Lindsey)
3. "Ghost Story" (Garcia, Kear, Lindsey)
4. "Hate My Heart" (Underwood, Garcia, Michael Hardy, Lindsey)
5. "Burn" (Underwood, Garcia, Ashley Gorley, Lindsey)
6. "Crazy Angels" (Underwood, Garcia, Lydia Vaughan)
7. "Faster" (Underwood, Garcia, Lindsey)
8. "Pink Champagne" (Underwood, Garcia, Gorley, Hillary Lindsey)
9. "Wanted Woman" (Underwood, Garcia, Josh Miller)
10. "Poor Everybody Else" (Underwood, Chris DeStefano, Miller)
11. "She Don't Know" (Underwood, Garcia, Hillary Lindsey)
12. "Garden" (Underwood, Garcia, Miller)
This story originally ran on March 14, 2021. It was updated on May 20, 2022 following the unveiling of "She Don't Know."
