All hail the queen of country.
Carrie Underwood‘s sixth album, Cry Pretty, notched an impressive opening weekend — the biggest female album debut of the year so far, in fact. After selling 265,654 equivalent album units this weekend, Cry Pretty unseated Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy as the biggest debut from a female artist in any genre this year. With Cry Pretty debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, Underwood became the first woman in history to land four country albums at the top of that chart.
Cry Pretty is the biggest country debut of 2018, and also one of the best-selling country albums in a while. It had the biggest debut since Luke Bryan‘s Kill the Lights in August 2015, and the biggest female debut since Taylor Swift‘s Red in October 2012 (the last Swift album that could be described as “country”).
In Eric Renner Brown’s PEOPLE review for Cry Pretty, he wrote, “American Idol‘s most successful alum is back with her sixth album, and it’s another standout set of polished country-pop. Underwood had more of a hand in this LP than in any of her previous efforts—it’s her first turn as a coproducer—and her voice shines in ways that go beyond the strictly vocal: On ‘Love Wins,’ Underwood denounces the “politics and prejudice” that divide the country—”How the hell’d it ever come to this,” she asks—and she even explores the long-term effects of gun violence on ‘The Bullet.’”
Brown continued, “Elsewhere, her powerhouse pipes deliver both bluesy ballads (the simmering ‘Drinking Alone’) and stadium-size anthems (‘Backsliding’). But Underwood still ensures that there’s a good time to be had, singing about redneck margaritas—that’s tequila and Mountain Dew, for the uninitiated—on twangy earworm ‘Southbound.’ She also embraces a hint of EDM on ‘That Song That We Used to Make Love To.’ This world may be in a condition that’s more sorry than pretty these days, but at least it’s got Carrie Underwood in it. “
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