I love “Something Burning Out” and “Train Without a Whistle,” but my favorite song on the whole album is “Someone Somewhere Tonight.” It adds a whole new dimension to her legacy, and a new power to her vocal ability.

This album is nothing short of outstanding

I’m listening to it right now, after just importing into my iTunes: it sounds really good. It’s on random and I just done listening to “Train…” and man…gotta love that moanful steel and swaying fiddle….just hits you deep in the soul. I have an appointment with a professor soon, but I’ll have to listen to the rest later!

One of the reasons that online criticism still lacks the same credibility as “print” criticism is that there’s so much “fanboy” writing that gets posted, and sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where any given source falls on the spectrum between legit and, well, Ain’tItCoolNews. What makes this review such a fantastic piece of real critical writing is that, knowing what a big fan you are of Pam Tillis’, your bias actually leads you to engage the album in the kind of fine detail (you’ve drawn my attention back to several of the album’s standout lyrics, and I plan to revisit some of the self-written songs on her previous albums) that material and performances this strong deserve. Even better, the candid, personal sections of the review speak to the reasons why people feel compelled to write about the music that’s important to them, and it’s more than the cliche about “dancing about architecture” and, contrary to the fanboys’ beliefs, it’s far more than an impulse to tear down something they don’t like out of sport. This piece was written with the same kind of authority and conviction that Pam Tillis brought to her album, and that’s how it should be done.

Re: country as an “art” format vs “radio” format, as a fledgling country fan myself (only been a fan since about 2005, the stigma had kept me away to that point) one thing I’ve noticed in support of this point is that frequently I find the radio singles off of country albums to be among my least favorite tracks on the albums (oh, “Watching You” or “Lucky Man” or “Anyways”). Compred to pop, where I generally find the radio singles are the best tracks. Country is a more lyrics based genre anyways, which makes it tough for some of the best stuff to succeed, since radio seems to care mostly about the radio friendly sound. Not disparaging the radio friendly sound. I love the radio friendly sound.