It’s a bold strategy, but it worked.
This week on American Idol, pageant coach Landry Champlin auditioned with a helluva rendition of judge Carrie Underwood’s “Good Girl,” which had to be nerve wracking to sing in front of the woman with an insane vocal range who made the song a hit. It was written by Carrie along with Chris DeStefano and Ashley Gorley, and included as the lead single from her fourth studio album Blown Away in 2012. It eventually peaked at the top of the Billboard US Hot Country Songs chart, and has since been certified triple platinum in the United States.
Landry talked about growing up in Texas, and how she would always sing Carrie Underwood songs for the crowd, so it was a full-circle moment:
“I grew up singing on this place called the Grapevine Opry. So think like Grand Ole Opry, but way smaller in Grapevine, Texas, and they would always ask me to sing a song by Carrie Underwood. It’s amazing. I’ve been watching the show my whole life. I have dreamt of being on the show since I was, like, yay tall. One of my first ever memories growing up was watching Carrie Underwood win American Idol. I’m the biggest Carrie Underwood fan known to man. I’m obsessed with her. I’m looking at her right here.
Carrie, I grew up singing all of your music. So yeah, I’m actually going to sing one of those songs for you today… And Carrie, I have to tell you before I sing this, I had a dream last week, y’all that Carrie, you sang a little bit of this with me, and then you told me you were going to Hollywood. So if you want to make that come true.”
Carrie jumped in on the background vocals for Landry, who belted out every note and really did a solid job with a song that is actually quite hard to sing. Luke pointed that out in his comments after, and all of them noted how relieved they were to hear how good Landry was, especially considering she was singing one of their songs.
I mean, it has to so awkward to say no to someone who is a huge fan and goes out on a limb to sing a song for a judge that winds up saying no, but all three judges loved Landry’s audition, so she got a “yes” from each one, and is heading to Hollywood for the next round.
I’ve always felt like this is such an underrated Carrie song, and while a lot of her newer stuff isn’t really for me (besides her gospel album My Savior, that was incredible), she had some straight up heaters back in the day that still go just as hard today.
You can watch her audition here:
Now you have to turn this up too…
