In 2018, Carson was featured on three EDM songs: R3hab's "Rumors", Alan Walker's "Different World" and Galantis's "San Francisco". "Back to Beautiful" was written by Julia Michaels, who also wrote Carson's next single, "Ins and Outs". On January 27, 2017, she released her single "Back to Beautiful" featuring Alan Walker, and on February 15, 2017, she released the official music video on YouTube. She performed " The Star-Spangled Banner" at the 2017 A Capitol Fourth, an annual concert at the United States Capitol in celebration of Independence Day. Carson has performed in NBC's 2015 Thanksgiving Parade, ABC's Disney Parks Christmas Celebration, Univision's Feliz 2016 (New Year's Eve Special), and the 2016 Radio Disney Music Awards, and she was a presenter on ABC's Disneyland 60th Anniversary Special. Carson released a promotional single on August 26, 2016, entitled " I'm Gonna Love You". Balvin, and a music video with Carson and Balvin was released for that version. "Love is the Name" had an alternate version featuring J. Her debut single was " Love Is the Name", an interpolation of Opus' " Live Is Life", and was released on April 8, 2016. In March 2016, Hollywood Records and Republic Records officially announced that Carson had signed a joint worldwide record deal with both companies. In an August 2015 interview Carson stated she was working on her first album. She was also featured on the Descendants 2 and Descendants 3 soundtracks, which reached numbers 6 and 7, respectively, on the Billboard 200. She performed as part of the cast on the 2015 Descendants soundtrack, which reached number one on the Billboard 200, including her single version of " Rotten to the Core". In 2012, Carson signed with BMI as a "singer-songwriter". Carson said she is mainly influenced by pop music and admires artists who "tell stories through their music", cited 20th-century acts like The Beatles and Michael Jackson and modern acts like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift as influences.