"Gabby Barrett's big break arrived in 2018, when she placed third on the 16th season of American Idol. During her time on the show, she was positioned as a country singer, performing songs by Maren Morris, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Miley Cyrus, and there are indeed echoes of these influences on Goldmine, the splashy major-label debut she released in the summer of 2020 ... The focus on the overall package, though, is also the album's appeal: It's a debut that's selling a persona as much as its songs"