Music » Contemporary Country Music

2003 album includes the hit single, 'What The World Needs', 'Flies On The Butter (You Can't Go Home Again)' feat. a special appearance by Wynonna & Naomi Judd (The Judds), 'I Want To Know What Love Is' feat. a special appearance from Jeff Beck, 'Burnin' Love' from the film 'Lilo & Stitch', & 'You Are' from the film 'Someone Like You'. 14 tracks. Curb.

Eco-Friendly Packaging Using Recycled and Recyclable Cardboard.

Release Date: 1995-10-24, Audio CD, Arista

Release Date: 1997-09-16, Audio CD, Arista

Release Date: 1995-02-07, Audio CD, Rounder / Umgd

You don't have to get very far into Alan Jackson's splendid second anthology of hits before you're struck by how well the rangy Georgian has built his catalogue and how beautifully Keith Stegall continually produces his songs, filling the instrumental breaks with unexpectedly creative solos. While Jackson's choice of cover songs is usually inspired ("Pop-A-Top," "Little Bitty"), he's a deft writer, alternating his tongue-in-cheek, Sheriff Andy Taylor persona with his "just a singer of simple songs" earnestness, lacing it all with an unfettered delivery and a Haggardesque dedication to the bedrock honky-tonk sound. There are times when he edges too close to formula, running the romanticized, small-town, cornbread-and-chicken conceits ("Where I Come From") into the ground. But then he quickly redeems himself with a lip-tremblingly good "Drive" or "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)." This package consists of two discs, 16 hits and two new cuts filling the first and an unnecessary and somewhat inferior eight album tracks occupying the second. Of the two new songs, the emotional husband-and-wife ballad "Remember When" handily outdistances the too-trite "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" with perennial smart-ass Jimmy Buffett. Jackson's too good an artist to settle for such an easy reach, but hey, let's cut him a little slack. He's paid his dues. --Alanna Nash

When Brad Paisley sings, as he does on the lead single "Celebrity," "No matter what you do, people think you're cool just 'cuz you're on TV," he ratifies his status as a formidable voice in modern yet accessible and traditional country music. "That's Love" and "Is It Raining at Your House" offer romance freed of hazy metaphor or greeting-card slogans. There's a miniature morality play, "The Cigar Song," and the obligatory closing gospel chestnut ("Farther Along"). The guest shots--by contemporary stars Alison Krauss and Vince Gill, and veterans Bill Anderson, George Jones, and Little Jimmy Dickens--are pleasant but hardly necessary, since Paisley's good musical sense abounds. He also revives a long-vanished tradition: the featured sideman. As Chet Atkins once played for the Carter Sisters and Don Rich picked behind Buck Owens, Paisley spotlights the amazing guitarist, Merle Haggard alumnus Redd Volkaert, letting him loose on "Spaghetti Western Swing." Paisley himself flies free on the extended country-jazz jam in the middle of "Make a Mistake with Me." With wit, heart, and unyielding devotion to the earthy, Paisley follows his 2001 gem, Part II, with an even more compelling album that should set a new standard. --Rich Kienzle

Release Date: 2000-11-21, Audio CD, Curb Records

Song after song packs danger and despair between the lines, in drinking to kill the pain, in wallowing in depression, in walking the 'low road' of life. That said, Hank III knows how to conjure a gutbucket rhythm ('7 Months and 39 Days') as well as a mournful tearjerker ('5 Shots of Whiskey'), and his touring band keeps things spare, raw & honkin'. Curb Records.

Clint Black is often an amazing songwriter with one of the best pure voices in contemporary country music. However, since his impressive debut, Killin' Time, Black seems to have grown increasingly more attached to clever word play and abstract ideas than he is to emotion and narrative. And when the songs are as awful as "A Bad Goodbye" (an overwrought 1993 duet with Wynonna), who cares how good his voice is? The Greatest Hits collects, seemingly at random, 14 of his Top 10 hits released between 1989 and 1996, plus an album track and a live Eagles cover. However, it omits at least 10 singles from that period that were every bit as popular and, unfortunately, most of them were from his superior earlier years. Still, any album that includes "A Better Man" (a modern country masterpiece), "We Tell Ourselves" (an idea song that works), and "Put Yourself in My Shoes" (as good a male vocal performance as Nashville has heard in 15 years) can hardly be called bad. But it sure can be called disappointing. --David Cantwell