Carrie Marie Underwood is an American country singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of American Idol in 2005, returning as a judge beginning with the twenty-third season in 2025. Underwood's first single, "Inside Your Heaven" (2005), made her the first-ever country artist to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the only solo country artist to top the Hot 100 in the 2000s. Bolstered by further crossover singles "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and RIAA diamond-certified "Before He Cheats", Underwood's first album, Some Hearts (2005), became the best-selling debut album of all time by a solo female country artist, was ranked by Billboard as the top country album of the 2000s, and won her three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist. She followed it with Carnival Ride (2007), which sold over half a million copies first-week and won two Grammy Awards. Her third album, Play On (2009), made her the only woman in history to achieve eleven consecutive top-two singles and the first since the 1980s to accumulate ten number-ones at US country radio.