Single Reviews – Page 78 – Country Universe

Retro Single Review: Alan Jackson, “Someday”

August 12, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 8

1991 | Peak: #1

The conversational approach that wasn’t quite as effective on “Wanted” delivers here, mostly because Jackson has eliminated the middle man.

Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, “Refried Dreams”

August 10, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 8

1995 | Peak: #5

By all laws of logic and reason, I should hate this song. But I don’t.

Retro Single Review: Dolly Parton, “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy”

August 10, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 1

1969 | Peak: #45

This one’s a masterpiece. Among Dolly’s southern gothic classics from the early days, it’s rivaled only by “Down From Dover.”

Reader’s Request – Single Review: Ronnie Milsap, “If You Don’t Want Me To”

August 9, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 3

Requested by reader Keith Means.

Veteran artists who have fallen out of favor at radio often kowtow to the current trends in an attempt to regain acceptance.

There’s certainly none of that going on here.

Retro Single Review: Shania Twain, “The Woman in Me (Needs the Man in You)”

August 8, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 8

1995 | Peak: #14

There are some majestic ballads on The Woman in Me, but the title track isn’t one of them.

Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, “Not a Moment Too Soon”

August 5, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 4

1994 | Peak: #1

The intense heat of McGraw’s record sales helped propel a handful of middling songs to the upper rungs of the chart.

Retro Single Review: George Strait, “A Fire I Can’t Put Out”

August 5, 2011 Ben Foster 6

1983 | Peak: #1

The weeping fiddle intro sets the tone perfectly. The fourth and final single from George Strait’s second album Strait from the Heart, also his second number-one single, found him once again tackling the classic country theme of a memory that won’t go away… and nailing it.

Retro Single Review: Dolly Parton, “In the Ghetto”

August 4, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 3

1969 | Peak: #50

As with her take on “Imagine” decades later, Parton’s cover of the now-classic Elvis Presley single “In the Ghetto” is fatally flawed.

Retro Single Review: Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, “Always, Always”

August 4, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 0

1969 | Peak: #11

Far too polite and matronly to make for an interesting country record.

CU Roundtable Review: Martina McBride, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”

August 3, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 12

Written by Ben Hayslip, Sonya Isaacs, and Jimmy Yeary

Leeann Ward:

After changing record labels and subsequently releasing the refreshingly sassy “Teenage Daughters”, not to mention interviews that hinted that she hadn’t been completely happy with the direction that her music had taken in recent years, it seemed that blessedly gone might be the days of overwrought, cloying power ballads with generic productions for Martina McBride. The release of “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, however, laid that hope to rest for those of us who had tired of such songs a zillion Martina songs ago