Retro Single Review: Faith Hill & Tim McGraw, "Let's Make Love"
2000 | Peak: #6
An awkward attempt to recreate the magic of “It’s Your Love.”
Faith Hill
100 Greatest Men: #45. Tim McGraw
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
He started out as one of the lesser-ran hat acts of the nineties boom, catapulted to fame on the strength of a novelty song. But skillful song selection and deepening commitment to artistry helped Tim McGraw emerge as one of the genre’s strongest talents.
Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, "My Next Thirty Years"
2000 | Peak: #1
Age forty is still seen as more of a milestone, but age thirty might be the best place to neatly divide your life.
McGraw captures that feeling of settling in to who you’re going to be, and the growing confidence that you’re really an adult and that you’ve somewhat established yourself.
1999 | #13
Single Review: Clay Walker, “Like We Never Said Goodbye”
As the title suggests, Clay Walker’s latest single plays out like the alternate ending to Faith Hill and Tim McGraw’s fiery “Like We Never Loved At All.” Whereas the latter finds the woman agonizing over her ex moving on, “Like We Never Said Goodbye” tackles a smaller, more predictable range of emotions as its characters rekindle their relationship over wine. On paper, it’s the less interesting road taken.
Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, “It’s Your Love” (with Faith Hill)
1997 | #1
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s first studio collaboration is still one of their best (“one of” – “I Need You” is even better). I’ve never been a huge fan of power ballads, but I probably would be if they all sounded as great as this.
Retro Single Review: Shania Twain, “You’re Still the One”
1998 | #1
As the story goes, “You’re Still the One” was inspired by media speculation that Shania Twain’s marriage to Robert John “Mutt” Lange would not last. Twain and Lange decided to respond to the criticism in song. The result was a song that become a monster crossover hit, a staple for weddings and anniversaries for years to come, an instant standard of nineties country and pop music, and one of the songs that would go on to define Twain’s unique and outstanding career.
Pop Goes Country – A Cover Song Report Card
Cover songs can be a hot topic at just about any given time. We recently got to hear a somewhat underwhelming OneRepublic cover by Faith Hill, which Kevin recently reviewed. Other recent attempts include Sara Evans’ pop-country reworking of Rod Stewart’s “My Heart Can’t Tell You No,” as well as last year’s polarizing Beyoncé cover by Reba McEntire.
Since cover songs are so much fun to talk about, I thought I’d weigh in on a few well-known cover songs from the past few years – the good ones, as well as a few that we would rather forget. My criteria is simple: A good cover song should bring something new to the table, and the song should be treated in a way that is well-suited to the artist as well as the genre. This list focuses specifically on country covers of non-country songs.
