I don't hate Play On but it's the album that I've revisited the least. I personally see the album cycle being a time of transition of sorts for Carrie, both personally and musically. It was when she had recently gotten married and her love was blooming with Mike. Plus, after the success of Carnival Ride, I'm not sure what it was exactly, but I think there must have been bursting possibilities in the directions she wanted to take (even more so after Some Hearts). That's why I'm personally not that hard on Play On because every artist goes through a period of figuring themselves out and that can result to unexpected results. Nevertheless, there are strong moments on the album and there are my two cents:
- SWISLY is one of her standout career songs. In terms of its pace, tone and feel, I'll put it in the same league as FC and LINLYA.
- I find the instrumentation of TT and Q layered and intricate and I personally want to hear songs with instrumentation like that. I'd say I also like the softness of the title track too.
- In retrospect, I don't find CC very interesting vocally (although it was my most played song at some point) but I do find the strong use of the steel guitar throughout the track a unique feature that is not heard on pop-country songs at all!
- SLT is another favourite of mine from the album.
- Unapologize is very generic but it's one song that I have revisited time and again. It's a great melody and vocal.
Even though I listened to the album as much as any other Carrie album at the time, in retrospect, TH, C, LAM, WCIS and MS are songs that I don't much care for. TH doesn't resonate with me like it used to, I don't like big-statement songs like C anymore, LAM was released too soon after ITYS and (for me) paled a little in comparison, WCIS is a little generic pop for me and could have been better with a changed instrumentation, and while MS is a greeeat vocal and production, I can't get over the basic lyrics haha.
I think much of your assessment of the album is spot on.
Like you, I've tended to rather under-rate this album in the sequence of her career (in my case, probably because I found most of the singles, in particular, to fall somewhat below the standard of her more memorable releases). But lately, I've come to value it much more - and to see parts of it as a forerunner of the direction she's been taking in her latest albums. One of the things i find most characteristic of Carrie's work (and something I much admire) is her sensitivity to the genre's roots, and her willingness to blend and pay homage to that in her drawing on wider influences and development of modern sounds. (It is in fact, an aspect of her work that is often overlooked, but which, I think, deserves much more credit than it receives.)
You mention the strong use of steel guitar, and the relatively unusual emphasis on this compared to much of today's contemporary chart material and Pop Country - and that is a point I'd like to enlarge on a little. Much of the pedal steel playing on the album is by Mike Johnson - a long term presence on Carrie's early albums - who plays, I think, on eight of the tracks here. But the guest steel players are also interesting. On "Quitter", Carrie is joined by Jon Graboff (who plays pedal steel in Ryan Adams' band). "Quitter" is an interesting song, because it was Carrie's only foray, so far, into the Swedish Pop of Max Martin and Shellback. This is a fashionable genre blending experiment (Taylor Swift, for example, tried it) - but, as far as I know, Carrie stands out as almost unique in the extent to which she was determined to keep a strong Country element in the recording.
Another unusual example is the use of lap steel in "What Can I Say" (I've seen lap steel used in Dixie Chicks and early Miranda Lambert performances - but it would seem quite striking for most of today's chart artists.) Here it's played by by Austin Clark (of the Sons of Sylvia) and you can see it most clearly in the All Star Holiday Special video
One of the artists playing on this album is Aubrey Haynie, an IBMA winner, best known for Old Time style fiddling. (He has, for example, collaborated with Ashley Monroe, on the highly traditional "Pretty Saro", a song that goes right back to the genre's distant roots in the British Isles.) One wouldn't typically associate Carrie with that aspect of the musical blend - but here we have a traditional fiddler playing on two of Carrie's biggest hits, "Cowboy Casanova" and "Undo It" - and this, again, illustrates for me her determination to retain the element of Country tradition in her progression to newer sounds.
"Play On", the title track, is one of the "special" album closers, where Carrie likes to explore a theme with a special meaning to her. It's additionally noteworthy for me as Carrie's only co-write, so far, with Natalie Hemby (currently adding to her already strong critical appeal as a member of the Highwomen)
In general, though, I would agree with you in naming SWISLY and SLT as two of my favourites, and I would also add UI. SWISLY was the song that Carrie herself called her favourite track on the album, and I think it stands as one of her most sensitive vocals overall - more reflective than the better known "power vocals", but, in my view, all the more expressive for that. SLT is a pure "character" piece (Carrie herself would never hold those sentiments in real life!), but it is a high energy Country Rock number, of the type I'd like to hear her do more often. UI is deservedly, in my opinion, a perennial crowd pleaser - but also sometimes dismissed as not, in itself, a very worthwhile song. On the contrary, I find it a very clever mix of Pop/Rock motifs (including the wordless syllables and stuttered vowels), delivered in a way that sounds unmistakably Country - and thus a very "Carrie" song, in the sense I have been emphasizing.
(Two of those songs, by the way, were co-writes with Steve McEwan, a British songwriter who was involved in some of Carrie's best early songs, and who, I think, showed a strong understanding of her artistic strengths I think, though, that this was probably the last album of hers he collaborated on)