![]() He has sold over 40 million albums in the US as of October 2011. Twelve of his 15 studio albums have also reached number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. His highest-certified albums are 1994's Not a Moment Too Soon and 2000's Greatest Hits, at 6× Platinum certification each. Kenny Chesney, man of many hats."Greatest Hits" reveals Tim McGraw as distinctive amid the schlock of New Country.American singer and songwriter Tim McGraw has had seventeen studio albums and thirteen compilation albums. (To hear a free Sound Bite call Post-Haste at 20 and press 8181 for Tim McGraw and 8182 for Kenny Chesney.) If that's a true story, and this song is any indication, Chesney had far better taste in material before he grew up. Seven of the 17 cuts are either previously unreleased songs or remixes, including the new "Don't Happen Twice," on which Chesney recalls singing " 'Bobby McGee' on the hood of my car" as a young boy. So even potentially pleasant moments, such as those Chesney might have had on 1999's novelty smash "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," get lost in the studio mix.Ĭhesney's CD doesn't even make him seem worthy of a greatest-hits disc. As with too many hat acts, steel guitars and the singer's throaty tenor take a back seat to the beat of the snare drum or the wailing of a heavy-metal-style electric guitar. No matter what Stetson he's sporting, a homogeneous blandness plagues Chesney's output. Listeners so inclined can tell which songs came from his days in an olive-colored cowboy hat ("Fall in Love" and "All I Need to Know" from 1995) or from his spell in a white hat ("When I Close My Eyes" and "Back Where I Come From," 1996) or the inevitable black-hat era ("She's Got It All" and "That's Why I'm Here," 1997) and finally, from 1999's brown-hat collection, "Everywhere We Go," the selections "How Forever Feels" and "You Had Me From Hello." The booklet that accompanies Chesney's disc contains the cover photos from all his releases. Kenny Chesney, McGraw's accomplice in an alleged horse-rustling episode outside Buffalo last summer, has also recently released a "Greatest Hits." It's a body of work that helped give hat acts a bad name. Hill shows up for "It's Your Love" and "Let's Make Love," carnal duets that insinuate that there are times when McGraw actually doffs his cap. His marriage to New Country diva Faith Hill enhanced his marketability. In real life, of course, McGraw did get the girl. McGraw does no harm to the melody as he tells a tale of bowing out gracefully after failing to get the girl. It's the type of peaceful, easy tune that Randy Travis, a far more naturally gifted vocalist than McGraw but no longer as commercially viable, might have gotten first crack at before pop sensibilities overtook Music City. McGraw's finest moments come on "Just to See You Smile" (1997). With subsequent ballads like "Please Remember Me" and "My Best Friend," and rowdy rockers such as "I Like It, I Love It," and "Something Like That," he's kept both factions satisfied. Meanwhile, his first party-hearty anthem, "Down on the Farm," brought McGraw an alpha-male audience. The supremely sappy narrative "Don't Take the Girl" introduced McGraw to Reba McEntire fans, and demonstrated that he shared her knack for selling songs with even the dorkiest libretto. "Indian Outlaw" (1994), McGraw's first big single, is crummy on several levels, with lyrics that Native Americans could easily find offensive ("You can find me in my wigwam / I'll be beatin' on my tom-tom / Pull out the pipe and smoke you some / Hey, and pass it around") and a backing track too similar to Paul Revere and the Raiders' 1971 groaner, "Indian Reservation." Amid all the schlock, McGraw's achy-breaky voice and phrasing are distinctive, no mean feat among New Country's crop. But "Greatest Hits" confirms just how much McGraw's tune-selection skills have improved over the years. The hunky 33-year-old native of tiny Start, La., never shows up in public without a lid on, and doesn't write the songs he records. However simple his species, McGraw's recent "Greatest Hits" collection documents, and fairly justifies, his prosperity and endurance. None of the so-called "hat acts" spawned during this artistically grim era of New Country has been more successful than Tim McGraw. At some bleak point early in the last decade, Nashville labels resolved that almost any young male artist could be made marketable as long as he kept a cowboy hat on his head and a pop mix on his recordings.
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