Critical Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| Boston Herald | B |
| The Cincinnati Post | B+ |
| Digital Spy | |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| Newsday | B |
| PopMatters | |
| Robert Christgau | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Slant Magazine | |
Reviews of Carnival Ride have been generally positive. Based from the music review aggregator Metacritic, it has received an average score of 72 out of 100.
The first official review of the album from AllMusic gave it 4 out of 5 stars, on par with what they gave her debut. The site classified the album as "completely contemporary country", and said "the remarkable thing about Carnival Ride is that it's stronger song for song than Some Hearts." They also praised the album for having "the appearance of a genuine heart, something that no other big country-pop album has had since the glory days of Come On Over." USA Today also praised the album for its versatility saying "The songs call for vulnerability (You Won’t Find This), urgency (Flat on the Floor), sympathy (Crazy Dreams, her co-written salute to “the hairbrush singers and dashboard drummers” from whose ranks she sprang), humor (The More Boys I Meet, the tag line of which goes “The more I love my dog”) and extreme role-playing (Last Name’s saga of a bar pickup that turns into an impulsive Vegas marriage). She delivers on all counts." The Boston Herald gave the album a B, and claimed, "Underwood manages enough spunk to occasionally avoid the cookie-cutter, especially with the curious beat-box-meets-banjo arrangement of "Get Out of This Town" and "Just a Dream," a bona fide about a young war widow."
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