were being lauded for their growing depth and sophistication, this collection of "inspirational songs" seemed anachronistic and downright corny. The concept was more appropriate to a TV-marketed album by some faded legend than a singer so young. Even the best singers would have difficulty bringing anything new to the over-recorded title song, "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," "God Bless America," "Amazing Grace," and "The Star Spangled Banner," songs impossible to redefine. That might explain why Rimes's vocals throughout are as soulless and detached as her performance of "Blue" was passionate and earthy. At times, she sounds as if she's singing from a teleprompter. The album's success is undeniable. Whether it did her talent justice is another matter. --...  (less)

be just another of his elaborate put-ons, on par with his affection for female mud wrestling. But his very real death guaranteed his legacy. R.E.M. paid him tribute several years ago with the movie's title track, and now they've come back to finish the job, contributing the film's score and "The Great Beyond," a melancholy number that stands as one of R.E.M.'s strongest songs in years. Several tracks of Kaufman himself--leading a spirited romp through the Mighty Mouse theme song, yodeling a sensitive, country-tinged "Rose Marie," singing as Tony Clifton (belting out a terse "I Will Survive"), and then inviting the audience out for milk and cookies--as well as the theme from Taxi and a few other comedic odds and ends, round out...  (less)

weight of it--by inviting George Jones and Hank Williams Jr. to appear in spoken-word bits which bookend the record. (The Possum also contributes a weak cameo on "4th of July.") But such shilling comes off as exactly what it is, and the listener knows to expect a song about how awful Nashville is and how modern country just ain't got no soul. Jennings does not disappoint--in fact, he's got a couple tunes like that (the Neil Young-based title track and "Solid Country Gold"), and he also obliges with an Outlaw penchant for self-mythologizing ("Busted in Baylor County," about being jailed for speeding and smoking). The younger Jennings doesn't have his father's commanding baritone, his mother's delicate balance of pathos and strength, or even th...  (less)

rounds, Black adds some cowboy philosophizing ("Code of the West"), a plea for a return to purer country or better farmland ("Too Much Rock"), and a glimmer of spirituality ("Back Home in Heaven"). With Black producing and writing (or at least collaborating on) all of the material, the results aren't quite as consistent as they were in his hitmaking heyday. He suffers a novelty low with "Undercover Cowboy," about a seductive schemer who "only wants to know how to get under the cover with you," yet channels the dance-floor inspiration of Bob Wills with the twin fiddles of "Heartaches" and the breezy swing of "I Don't Wanna Tell You." Wherever the music takes him, there's a whole lot of Texas in these tracks. --Don McLeese More ...  (less)

roll crooner developed into the Music City equivalent of Barry White with an unsurpassed string of hot and heavy hits. With titles like "I'd Love to Lay You Down" and "Lovin' What Your Lovin' Does to Me" and a voice that caressed like silk sheets on warm flesh, Twitty was the one Nashville star who seemed better suited for the bedroom than the barroom. Love Songs bundles 14 tracks, most from the '70s and '80s, on one dim-the-lights country collection where singer and theme are perfectly matched. --Steven Stolder  (less)

and it’s unlikely he thinks of himself as plural poets and pirates--the material, performances, and support rank from solid to state-of-the-art. He waxes philosophic on the hit "Don’t Blink." He teams with George Strait for the Caribbean-flavored "Shiftwork," a song that will doubtlessly inspire double-entendre barroom sing-alongs. He channels of the soul of a stripper who’s just trying to support her family on "Dancin’ for the Groceries." And he does a convincing Dwight Yoakam sound-alike on the honky-tonker’s "Wild Ride," with Eagles’ Joe Walsh riding shotgun on lead guitar (and "Rocky Mountain Way" voice box). When you’re as hot as Chesney, you get your pick of material and musicians, including Vince Gill on guitar and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. Chesney...  (less)

lively little fiddle break. But unless you're a full-on Reba fan, it's pretty much downhill sledding from there as McEntire falls back on the Nashville formula for many of the originals penned for the album. While her voice is always in good form--and she suggests Brenda Lee and Loretta Lynn in "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus"--there are too many predictable chord progressions and decorative shadings in songs such as "Santa Claus Is Coming Back to Town," a heartbreak Christmas song. What she needs is more tunes like the closing cut and the title track, a sparsely arranged acoustic number that avoids maudlin sentiments and faux cheer. No amount of children singing ("The Angels Sang") or pretty playing can get her out of the deep ruts that Nashville has got most of its stars ...  (less)

of listening to Loretta Lynn and the late Tammy Wynette in her younger days. With Born to Fly , her third album, Evans continues her descent from the neo-traditional high ground and her move uptown. She makes it clear she's also listened quite a bit to the likes of Trisha Yearwood and Bruce Hornsby, whose "Every Little Kiss" she ably covers here. On the exuberant title tune and on fine country-pop ballads like "I Could Not Ask for More" and the lovely "Saints and Angels," Evans proves she can just as sweetly and deftly patrol the uptown territory as she can the down-home highlands, which she revisits on the steel guitar-adorned weeper "I Learned That from You." Though not every song on Born to Fly insinuates its way into listeners' imaginati...  (less)

midtempo material that follows ranges from the somber to the morose. There's the night-shift weariness of "I'm Workin'," the alcohol-drenched heartbreak of "Whiskey and You," and the soul-tortured title track. Even a song with the upbeat title "Put Your Lovin' on Me" has McGraw asking his lover to "be my drug" and "take this weight off me." Things turn positively lethal with "Between the River and Me," the story of revenge on an alcoholic, wife-beating stepfather. The set also features the obligatory duet of marital devotion with Faith Hill ("I Need You") and a couple of nods toward classic country ("Kristofferson" and the closing "Shotgun Rider," which could be McGraw's "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"). "Nothin' t...  (less)

Wilson's third album fires on all radio-ready-honky-tonk-and-hillbilly-rock cylinders. It's also a portrait of a tough, talented woman making her own way in what's still largely a man's, man's country world. She gets plenty of help from hot Nashville writers John Rich, Rivers Rutherford, and Vicky McGehee, but her working-class and feminist spin on country archetypes--temptation, whiskey, work, and Mom--is authentic and her own. Even when, as on the title track, she revisits "Redneck Woman," she retools the conceits with one of her best melodies. When she goes for the throat on "You Don't Have to Go Home," with a ripping fiddle line and an AC/DC guitar break, she's not just wailing last call: she's showing the whole honky-tonk who's boss. She st...  (less)

only been featured on Ally McBeal: A Very Ally Christmas . Nevertheless, it's on the traditional songs--including never-can-go-wrong usual suspects like "White Christmas," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and "The Christmas Song"--that Womack's evocative vocals come across most memorably. A "big band" album in the vein of holiday offerings from some of the greatest crooners of the '60s, this moves the 2002 Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year even further away from her country roots than her more recent pop-oriented discs did. Accordingly, Harry Connick Jr. shows up to duet with the singer on a version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" that seems destined to become a holiday staple, even if it's a bit corny. --Bill Holdship  (less)