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Today's Country Artists
If you don't have these tapes &
CDs in your collection,
here's your chance to fix it.
Today's
Traditional Artist |
Description |
Fly
Other Dixie Chicks Albums:
Star
Profile
Wide Open
Spaces |
After the roaring success of Wide Open
Spaces--a blend of turn-of-the-century pop and country traditionalism--what do you do for
an encore? Rather than deliver more of the same, the Chicks have chosen instead to up the
ante in country radio with a follow-up that's both poppier and twangier than its
predecessor, and just plain better too. Some of it we've heard before: "Hello Mr.
Heartache," for example, adheres pretty closely to the honky-tonk model of
"Tonight the Heartache's On Me." Mostly, though, the record lights out for new
territories. "Without You" is driven by an in-your-face string arrangement
that's downright fierce, and the rootsy "Sin Wagon" may rock harder--and with
more solos--than any mainstream country since Buck Owens held forth. That's not to say
Fly's perfect. A couple of songs miss the mark, particularly "Goodbye Earl," an
abusive-husband murder song that's sure to get criticized (wrongly) for being antimale but
actually fails because it can't decide if it's a moral lesson, a horror movie, or a joke.
Still, even in this failure, the Chicks are bravely pushing the envelope. If they push
hard enough, maybe Young Country radio will open up some wider spaces. --David Cantwell |
One
Voice
There are no previous albums. This kid
is fresh out of the gate, coming in at #4 Billboard the first week of July, 2000! |
While Nashville's "country for
kids" campaign has largely been a bust, this 12-year-old plows fearlessly and
headlong into anything and everything thrown his way. Tammy Wynette's classic "'Til I
Can Make It on My Own" doesn't faze him. Neither do cotton-candy pop oldies
("Little Things" and "Little Bitty Pretty One"), oddball novelties
("The Snake Song"), or inspirational fare ("There's a Hero"). His
credible delivery of "Oklahoma," the moving tale of one boy's trip to meet a
long-vanished father, is a fine performance that transcends his age. Don't blame him for
the weak spots. Credit for the cookie-cutter arrangements and such soggy ballads as the
preachy title track goes to multiple producers Don Cook (Music Row's dean of formulaic
production), David Malloy, and Blake Chancey. As always, their goals are to satisfy the
one-dimensional country-radio consultants who dictate what gets played, nothing more. Long
ago, producers Owen Bradley and Billy Sherrill helped Brenda Lee and Tanya Tucker,
respectively, build youthful success into enduring adult careers. If only young Gilman had
such visionaries enhancing his talent. --Rich Kienzle |
The
Whole Shebang
Other SheDaisys Albums:
There are no previous albums. T |
The artist, Kristyn Osborn, SHeDAISY
#1 , July 5, 1999 It's about time! Hey, thanks for the great
reviews...and for those of you stopping by to check us out, rest assured you will find NO
KNOCK-OFFS here. SHeDAISY has been around when there was no Dixie Chicks as we know them
today, but we were known as The Osborn Sisters in 1989 when we moved to Nashville and had
our first record deal on RCA. Bottom line here is not everyone is going to like us, some
will say we are too pop, some may say too country, but we can say we have remained true to
ourselves as artists, without resorting to the "producer casting couch" method.
If you want different, we are definitely different, and it seems as though people fear
what stands apart from the pack. But as they say, "different is good" or in this
case, different is great! |
Cold
Hard Truth
Other George Jones Albums: The George Jones
Collection 16
Biggest Hits Anniversary: 10
Years Of Hits
Merle Haggard
& George Jones |
He's the voice of experience, the
voice of regret, or simply the Voice. Though George Jones suffered a near-fatal collision
while recording this album, his first for Asylum, Cold Hard Truth has the vocal command of
an artist with a new lease on life. Highlights such as
"Choices," "Our Bed of Roses," and the album-closing "When the
Last Curtain Falls" (with harmonies from Vince Gill and Patty Loveless) extend his
reign as the most heart-clenching singer of sob-song balladry in country music.
Without a doubt . . . the possum is awesome! |
Real
Live Woman
Other Trisha Yearwood
Albums: Songbook: A
Collection Of Hits
Where Your
Road Leads Hearts
In Armor |
Real Live Woman finds Trisha Yearwood
fully embracing the inner soft-rocker she's flirted with for years, and so it makes sense
that it's the most fully realized album of her career. Her Cali-rock jones gets a fix here
thanks to a Linda Ronstadt cover ("Try Me Again") and a guest shot by Jackson
Browne on "Sad Eyes," a Los Angeles-era Springsteen number, but the voice
remains hers--a modern-day country girl who's been uptown and likes it. The result is an
album that finds the middle ground between the sonic options won for country radio by the
Dixie Chicks, the adult-contemporary blues of Wynnona and Bonnie Raitt, and perhaps even,
amazingly, a bit of Garth's Chris Gaines project. The title track's the real keeper, a
country-soul anthem that revisits the character Yearwood first introduced in songs like
"She's in Love with the Boy" and "XXX's and OOO's" and finds her a
good deal wiser now--and feeling blessed to know it. |
Let's
Make Sure We Kiss Goodbye
Other Vince Gill Albums:
When
Love Finds You
The Key
High Lonesome
Sound
The Essential
Vince Gill
When
I Call Your Name |
Vince Gill is deeply in love. It's
hard to imagine an adolescent in the throes of first crush sounding any giddier than Gill
does on this mash note of an album to new wife Amy Grant (who returns the devotion with a
duet on "When I Look into Your Heart"). Though romantic rapture doesn't
necessarily produce lesser music than heartbreak, the mushiness of "Feels Like
Love," "The Luckiest Guy in the World," and "Look What Love's
Revealing" is wince-worthy rather than Vince-worthy (particularly in comparison with
his previous album, 1998's deeply moving The Key). Sentiments such as "We hold hands
walking and spend all night talking and make love as the sun starts to rise" would
better have been confined to pillow talk. Here's wishing the happy couple all the best,
while hoping that Gill has gotten the sappiest album of his career out of his system.
--Don McLeese |
Come
On Over
Other Shania Twain Albums:
The
Woman In Me
Beginnings
(1989-1990) |
The come-from-nowhere success of
Shania Twain's previous album, The Woman In Me, proved that the world was ready for a
combination of traditional instruments, girl-power themes, and dance-pop dynamics. Whether
Twain is a modern-day Dolly Parton or a country music Spice Girl is a matter of
perspective. But with her third album, she accentuates the sing-along choruses and simple
dance rhythms while downplaying the country elements. As a pop move, it works wonderfully
for her, earning Twain a valued spot on MTV, VH-1, and pop radio. The emphasis is on fun
rather than depth, of course. But no one can accuse her of being stingy: She and her
Svengali-like producer/husband, slick-rock king Robert "Mutt" Lange (Def
Leppard, Bryan Adams, AC/DC), load down the album with 16 songs, all of them quite
radio-friendly. --Michael McCall |
Breathe
Other Faith Hill Albums:
Faith
It Matters To
Me
Take Me As I
Am |
From the suggestive series of photos
in the CD's packaging to the aerobicized dance-floor workouts within, Faith Hill refuses
to concede an inch of crossover dominance to Shania Twain. Except for a seductive
duet with husband Tim McGraw on "Let's Make Love" and an occasional pinch of
fiddle or steel guitar, there's little here to characterize Hill as a country artist. As
pop, the results range from pretty ("Breathe," "Love Is a Sweet
Thing") to pretty slight ("I Got My Baby," "If My Heart Had
Wings") to borderline inane ("Bringing Out the Elvis," the voyeuristic
twist of "The Way You Love Me"). Though Hill's version of Bruce Springsteen's
"If I Should Fall Behind" is admirably understated, too much of the album
substitutes surface dazzle for emotional depth.
--Don McLeese |
Last
Chance For A Thousand Years: Greatest Hits From The '90s
Other Dwight Yoakum Albums:
Dwight
Live
Guitars,
Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. |
All those folks who contemptuously
dismiss today's mainstream country and wish they could have been around for the heyday of
Lefty Frizzell and Buck Owens are missing the boat. Right now, right in front of us, the
Frizzell-like George Strait and Owensesque Dwight Yoakam are quietly assembling two of the
great careers in country music history. Further evidence is now available in the form of
Yoakam's second greatest-hits package (the first, Just Lookin' for a Hit, collected his 10
best singles from 1986-89). The new collection gathers 11 of his 13 Top 40 country hits
from 1991-96 (strangely omitting "Nothing's Changed Here" and "Try Not to
Look So Pretty") and adds three new songs. The new ones are good ones--Yoakam gives
the ballad "Thinking About Leaving," cowritten with Rodney Crowell, a striking
low-note guitar riff; he makes Waylon Jennings's "I'll Go Back to Her" even more
traditional than it was; and he lends Queen's rockabilly romp, "Crazy Little Thing
Called Love," an authenticity it never had. Yoakam is living proof that it's still
possible to combine commercial success and artistic achievement in country. --Geoffrey
Himes |
Strait
Out Of The Box
Other George Straight
Albums: Latest
Greatest Straitest Hits Does Fort Worth
Ever Cross Your Mind Right Or Wrong
Strait Country
|
When the hits come as effortlessly
as they do to Strait, it's easy for an artist to lose interest. The man who ushered
in country's hat-act era has spent a career bouncing from lifeless and fluffy to hard and
soulful. This four-CD box tells the story from 1976 (when he cut the first of three
singles for Houston indie D Records) through 1995. At his best--"Does Fort Worth Ever
Cross Your Mind," for example--he defines the modern heart song, but lightweight
stuff such as "Hollywood Squares" won't win him new converts. 4
CD Box Set . . . a must for every George Straight fans. |
Reba
McEntire Greatest Hits, Volume 2
Other Reba Albums: Live Greatest Hits
The Last One
To Know |
As the late 1980s gradually segued
into the early 1990s, the choices of material and the production values Reba McEntire
brought to her recordings often seemed to be guided as much by right-brained market savvy
as by true left-brain inspiration. This "hits" compilation skims the cream of
her commercial achievements during this prolific period in her career. Though there
are only 10 tracks, these include landmark No. 1 singles like "You Lie,"
"Fancy," "Is There Life out There," and "Does He Love You,"
a heartfelt duet with Linda Davis. |
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