Carrie Underwood photo by Matthew Rolston, courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Carrie Underwood’s new Play On album is perhaps the most representative of her yet as an artist. Of the 13 songs she recorded, Carrie wrote seven, including the first single, “Cowboy Casanova.”

Coming out of her win on “American Idol,” Carrie was launched straight into the life of an artist, a career she hadn’t actually planned to pursue. She picked up her earliest hits from other songwriters, but she already had a foundation to begin writing her own. After all, she’d done plenty of writing when she pursued a journalism degree before her “AI” tryout.

“I got a lot of practice writing in general, especially in college,” she said in a press conference, according to The Oklahoman. “In high school, I wrote for the school paper. In college, I wrote for the school paper and was always busy writing stories.”

It’s almost impossible to pin Carrie down musically, though. Just this year, she revived the Randy Travis-penned traditional country hit “I Told You So.” “Cowboy Casanova” is a feisty number with a rock-driven chord progression, and Play On features a number of songs with pop-style melodies.

In a way, she’s a microcosm of much of what’s going on in the genre.

It’s “a great time for a lot of different kinds of country music,” she said. “If you turn on the radio you can find something you like, whether you like things that are more kind of contemporary country, or you find more things that are traditional country or more kind of rock-influenced.”

Play On is expected to debut at No. 1 this week on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart. On Wednesday, she’ll join Brad Paisley to co-host the 43rd annual Country Music Association Awards at the Sommet Center in Nashville.

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