Much like her hubby Tim McGraw followed up his best studio album, Live Like You Were Dying, with a hits collection, Faith Hill is prepping her first domestic hits collection. Greatest Hits is due for release on May 22, so it’s reasonable to assume a single will be coming soon. Will it be “I Need You”, the duet with Tim that is on his newest album, Let It Go? Who the hell knows?
My real interest is in how she’ll summarize a career that has taken so many sharp turns in style and content over just six studio albums. A good compilation captures all of the artist’s development over the time period it covers, rather than just throwing together the biggest chart hits. Here’s what I’d include on Greatest Hits if I had full reign, leaving room for the obligatory new tracks:
- Wild One
- Piece of My Heart
- Take Me As I Am
- It Matters To Me
- Someone Else’s Dream
- I Can’t Do That Anymore
- This Kiss
- Let Me Let Go
- The Secret of Life
- Breathe
- The Way You Love Me
- If My Heart Had Wings
- There You’ll Be
- Cry
- When The Lights Go Down
- You’re Still Here
- Mississippi Girl
- Like We Never Loved At All
- Stealing Kisses
I left off a few top ten hits, but what can I say? They don’t do much for me. I’d drop “The Way You Love Me” also, but that was number one for way too many weeks to have be omitted.
Any thoughts on what’s missing, or what should be left off?
Doesn’t seem like they’re putting too much effort into it or remembering her early career, which I actually prefer. Here is the track listing.
1 Breathe
2 This Kiss
3 It Matters To Me
4 The Way You Love Me
5 Stealing Kisses
6 Let Me Let Go
7 The Lucky One
8 Mississippi Girl
9 When The Lights Go Down
10 Piece of My Heart (live)
11 There Will Come a Day (live)
12 Cry (live)
13 Beautiful
There has been a UK version of her greatest hits available for years which represents a better deal than this disc – I think the UK version has 15 songs and an Australian version has 16 songs
I have that, it’s called “There You’ll Be.” It’s an interesting listen, though it’s mostly pop remixes. A loud, rock recut of “Piece of My Heart” on that is absolutely excruciating to listen to. Why do I bet that the live version on this new hits collection will sound like it instead of the original hit version?
When Faith’s Piece of My Heart first came out, she said at the time she didn’t even know about the Janis Joplin version. I think once she realized how the song was originally interpreted, she started singing her version of that in concert. I guarantee you that’s what will be on the greatest hits album.
I’m excited to hear the live version of “Cry”. Hasn’t she been doing it stripped down?
The version I have of THERE YOU’LL BE is the Australian version – it features 16 songs with only “Breathe” and “The Way You Love Me” being remixes – the rest are original versions (the Aussies being more in tune with American Country Music than the Brits are) .
Janis Joplin (or more properly Big Brother & The Holding Company) was not the original recording of the song “Piece of My Heart” that honor belonged to Erma Franklin (Aretha’s sister). I suspect that neither Janis nor Faith had recordings that were in line with what the writers anticipated, being Brill Building writers. If Faith has tailored her live version to fit the Joplin version, that would be reason enough to avoid this collection.
I have the Australian version too. It’s quite good. But I have to say that if they are putting Beautiful on, that’s silly. I love that song, but it wasn’t a hit right?
Here’s my idea of Faith’s Greatest Hits CD. Maybe she’ll take my suggestion
1. Wild One
2. Piece Of My Heart
3. Take Me As I Am
4. Let’s Go To Vegas
5. It Matters To Me
6. I Can’t Do That Anymore
7. You Can’t Lose Me
8. It’s Your Love (with Tim McGraw)
9. The Secret Of Life
10. This Kiss
11. Let Me Let Go
12. Breathe
13. The Way You Love Me
14. Let’s Make Love (with Tim McGraw)
15. If My Heart Had Wings
16. Cry
17. Mississippi Girl
18. Like We Never Loved At All (with Tim McGraw)
19. Stealing Kisses
20. I Need You (with Tim McGraw)
I went back and listened to THERE YOU’LL BE today, and it struck me just how few of Faith Hill’s songs are truly memorable. As a singer she just isn’t in the same league as Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Rhonda Vincent or Amber Digby (not to mention Patsy Cline, Connie Smith, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton). Faith cannot sell a song without production tricks
What is memorable for Faith are some of the videos – “This Kiss”, “Breathe” and “The Way You Love Me” are never-to-be-forgotten videos – memorable because of Faith’s sheer physical beauty. If you apply the Harry Belafonte rule (judge a singer with your ears open and your eyes closed) , Faith really doesn’t measure up as a singer . She’s not a bad singer – just nothing special