November 23rd, 2007Greatest Hits: Sara Evans.
Sara Evans "Greatest Hits" hits the shelves this week, and if there’s any justice, it will sell well and introduce a whole new raft of fans to her music.
While her peers have dabbled with crossover music and pop music, Evans has remained fairly steady as an out and out Country artist.
We’ll forgo our usual gripe about including unreleased material (there are four new songs here) among a selection of old hits. In this age, you can easily download individual tracks thus avoiding duplication in your collection.
One of the new songs has every chance of giving Evans another top three hit. "Some Things Never Change" is Evans at her writing and singing best. The chorus is hardly the catchiest - and the arrangement there is very pop - but it holds some promise.
The music (barring that chorus) is a heavier mix of familiar Evans’ fare. The vocals are superb and the lyrics are passable.
The other new songs of the album are all disappointing.
"Pray For You" is a gentle little Country song with nice down home lyrics and a melody which is easy on the ear. The chorus might just have enough "hook in it to make this a good single, but it’s far from Evans’ best.
"As If", which has made the singles top 20, but as a demonstration of where she is, or is aiming at right now it’s a disappointment.
It’s a happy little "high summer" song, so the timing’s perfect but the backing is so full-on that Evans’ voice gets lost in a mess of music and there’s very little "Country" in it at all.
"Love You With All My Heart" is even middle-of-the-road. It’s one of those songs that should come on as the titles on some second rate Hollywood romance.
The powerhouse songs here (the true hits) will be familiar to Evan’s fans.
Our personal favorite is "Suds In The Bucket". This is a good old fashioned Country song: lyrics that touch the soul, music that warms the heart and vocals to die for.
But "No Place That Far" runs it a very close second. Here, Evans shows off her vocal skills at their best. The light and shade she manages to put into the powerful lyric give this song everything!
"A Real Fine Place To Start" is the lesser of our top tracks because the music edges into pop and the melody is not as original in the context of the song. But the lyrics are brilliant and Evans is at her best.
And there’s "Born To Fly" which is one of the best Country songs to have been released in recent years.
As if to demonstrate that Evans has had her pop/crossover periods and "I Could Not As For More" demonstrates that perfectly. But rather than heading for Kylie Minogue "perfect pop", she aimed at middle of the road, and, as background music, it’s quite acceptable.
Evans IS one of Country’s finest singers, and she writes a mean tune too. There’s proof aplenty here of that. But the four new songs suggest that while the old magic hasn’t disappeared, it could do with a polish.
What really disappoints is that, instead of putting out this compilation, she couldn’t find a way to offer us a wholly new collection.
Coquet-Shack’s View:
