We’ve reached that point in the zeitgeist where even Carrie Underwood videos take place in Kesha’s hair…

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Anthony Easton: Carrie Underwood doesn’t hunt, and she may not eat meat. She has given a lot of money to the Humane Society. Her estate just outside of Nashville has all of these no hunting signs all over the place. For someone who has succeeded so much in Country Music, this suggests a kind of separation from the culture. Unlike Blake Shelton, who can sing without irony the line, “A gun’s like a woman, son / It’s all in how you hold her,” or the coterie of hunters (Aldean, Bryan, Justin Moore, etc.) who get money from Cabela’s or the NRA or Outdoor Life Network, she makes a song about the absence of a gun’s power. “Little Toy Guns” frames domestic melodrama to talk about domestic violence — but the woman who wishes, “No smoke, no bullets, no kick from the trigger when you pull it / No pain, no damage done,” also wishes male phallic violence would be transformed, would become harmless, that men would become boys. The song tells Nashville that the men who shoot are boys playing cowboys, and it’s also an argument for safety. But just as importantly, Underwood makes this argument through a traditional female voice. The song is adroit in those formal choices, but it could not have been done without the songwriting of Hillary Lindsey, who seems to have made writing these kinds of women’s voices a life goal. (She writes really well for men, too — but consider her work on “Sober,” or “Backseat of a Greyhound Bus,” or “Cheap Wine and Cigarettes.”)
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Edward Okulicz: Underwood, whose skill with power outweighs her need for subtlety, attacks “Little Toy Guns” with exactly the same bluster she did “Blown Away,” resizing the domestic drama until it’s terrifying in scale and intensity. That nicely underlines how it must feel to an involved observer. She sings “bang, bang” like defensive punches thrown through tears. Knocking a point off for the clumsy rhymes in the verses, which are clever, not smart.
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Katherine St Asaph: Carrie Underwood has quietly (well, as quietly as a megastar can be) recorded some of country’s weightier, distinctly female singles, while receiving few of the plaudits Kacey Musgraves or even Miranda Lambert have gotten for it — I don’t think the money was the only reason “Quarterback” was written for her. “Little Toy Guns” at first seems like it’ll be another of these, but toward the end Underwood’s diva derails it. It might be a songwriting thing. You can’t talk about little toy guns while singing like a bazooka.
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Alfred Soto: A sequel or prequel to the superior “Blown Away,” although I dig how those intro drums boom like cannons (geddit?). Those give the ruse away though: where “Blown Away” matched aural detail with a boomin’ lyric, here the track just booms. And blows.
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Josh Love: Not just a clever inversion of the old “sticks and stones” saw, the syntax here actually proves the song’s point. The words chosen really do leave a mark, especially the powerhouse way Underwood delivers them — “sting,” “bang,” “bullets,” the “kick” from the “trigger” — you can feel the bite in every one. Docked a point for how the cloying background vocals cushion the blow.
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Josh Langhoff: Ever the formalists, Carrie Underwood and Mark Bright see that their “bang bang” has more campy hand motion potential than “The Warrior,” and that their drums kick harder than “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” (FWIW, Tom Petty has no hard feelings and Carrie’s people are very understanding of his predicament.) As usual with this pair, Everygirl’s everystrife is secondary to the musical awesomeness she so generously inspires.
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Megan Harrington: I will soon be thirty years old, but my life is still full of new discoveries. Recently, via my sister’s fancy gym pass, I discovered the treadmill. It’s this giant piece of plastic and rubbery plastic that forces you to move at a speed of its choosing. Incredible. Unlike the pavement, which you move beneath yourself according to your whims, the treadmill demands commitment and then leaves you spinning, stumbling over to the antibacterial spray thirty minutes later. In order to meet the treadmill’s mercury, you must have the right soundtrack. It’s absolutely crucial, trust me; if you want to “Beez in the Trap,” take yourself to the stairmaster! I fumbled through a perfectly mediocre medley of Cam’ron, T-Pain, and Wiz Khalifa before my phone shuffled to “Little Toy Guns.” Reader, I would never kid, I was honestly firing my finger guns and nodding my head left and right as I shot down each challenge the treadmill issued. It was the most climactic workout I’ve ever completed. 
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