Let me first start out by saying that I did enjoy this year's American Idol season - there were several very talented performers that I rooted for and several I wished would just shut up.

... and yes, I did vote for Carrie. I early awaited the final results show and jumped up and down and did all sorts of phone-calling and screaming when she won and was very impressed that she managed to maintain (most of) her composure during the post-win performance of Inside Your Heaven.

With the announcement of this single back in May, I was eagerly awaiting its release because Carrie had done so well on the show - she couldn't possibly disappoint, could she?

The answer? Yes.

The best words to describe this, I think, would be negative ones - such as "bland", "mediocre", "uninspired", and "boring".

The first of the two A-sides is Carrie's polished, studio rendition of Inside Your Heaven - which has some very pretty instrumentation and some okay singing from Carrie. Until the chorus, that is, when she and her backup singer become overpowered by the instrumentation and Carrie's singing turns from somewhat-interested into "God, what am I doing?"-sounding. It just goes downhill from there, as if Carrie was half-asleep during the recording - she's all over the place vocally and her performance leaves much to be desired. That, and the lyrics suck.

For a double A-side single, one would think there would be another song that's not already featured on another CD to back the title track, but no, Carrie's producers/the Idol people decided to use her cover of Martina McBride's Independence Day as the second song. This is a very faithful cover, and Carrie performs it well, but it was over-done on the show and there are many better choices that could've taken this song's place. Even more, it's not even a new recording - it's the exact same one featured on the Showstopppers album released earlier. For being the "Idol", Carrie seems to have gotten screwed over - a bland title track and an already-used track. Wow, what a single. Even Bo got to re-record Vehicle for his single.

Here's to hoping Carrie's album is better than this, because it's not impressive at all.

Recommended: No

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