| Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 - Trace Adkins | |
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Reviewed by Matt Bjorke
The year was 1996 and Trace Adkins's debut single "There's A Girl In Texas" blasted through my speakers. The moment I heard Trace's emotive baritone voice I knew I was gonna have to get that CD. Dreamin' Out Loud was released that summer and it featured the Top 10 singles "I Left Something Turned On At Home," "Every Light In The House Is On" and Trace’s first #1 single "(This Ain't) No Thinkin' Thing."
Trace and his label followed up Dreamin' Out Loud with 1997's Big Time. The first single from that collection was the beautiful ballad about Trace's wife Rhonda, "The Rest Of Mine." A stone country wedding song, The song still is Trace's most requested song ever. The follow up singles from the record, "Big Time" and "Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone" both missed the Top 10 but were solid singles for Trace.
Trace's third CD (1999's More... featured three hit singles, "Don't Lie", "More" and "I'm Gonna Love You Anyway." However, only "More" was a Top 10 hit. The other two both stalled inside the Top 40 with "I'm Gonna Love You Anyway" Trace's worst performing single ever and as such it does not appear on this Greatest Hits collection.
Since the last CD had stalled after the title track hit, Trace and his label, now under the third different President in Trace's tenure at Capitol, knew that the fourth CD was a make or break release for Trace. The record, 2001's Chrome solidified Trace's place in the country music industry as a neo-traditionalist who picked songs based on the lyrical content first. The hit singles were the Jeffrey Steele/Anthony Smith penned "I'm Tryin,'" and "Chrome" along with a mournful ballad "Help Me Understand." All three were Top 10 hits with "I'm Tryin'" becoming Trace's first Top 5 single since "The Rest Of Mine."
After the success of Chrome, it's now time for Trace to take a look back at his career and he does so with The Greatest Hits Collection, Vol. One. The CD is not like most recent "Greatest Hits" CDs on the market for it includes 12 of his 13 singles he's ever released, not just the top ten ones. In addition to the 12 hit singles, there's two new songs.
"Then They Do" is the first single and it's a lovely song about a father who wishes the children would grow up and when they do he realizes how much he misses them when they're gone. The other new track is the southern rock styled song called "Welcome To Hell." The song finds Trace singing as the devil and welcoming a guy (could be a terrorist, could be an guy who cheated on his wife or something else) who did stuff wrong and was sent to Hell. Now I don't know if radio will take to this southern rocker, but I hope they do for it's a nice change of pace from all those ballads at radio right now.
With fourteen songs, 13 of which are already hits, this is a value-packed collection of the best Trace has done. He has basically sneaked up on the rest of the country genre as a consistent hit maker and just a few weeks ago was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. I congratulate Trace on achieving two milestones in his career, a Greatest Hits CD and becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Song List:
Album cover used with permission of Capitol Nashville
Sound clips courtesy of Barnes & Noble