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Single Review: Lori McKenna, "Salt"

April 18, 2013 Kevin John Coyne 7

Lori McKenna Salt“Hearts don’t fly, but they can run like hell when they have to.”

Lori McKenna’s greatest gift as a writer is her ability to weave brilliantly constructed metaphors together with remarkably specific and quite often mundane details of small town, working class life.

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Retro Single Reviews: Shania Twain, 2004-2012

April 15, 2013 Ben Foster 1

After the enormous success of the Up! project, Shania Twain released a top-selling Greatest Hits album in 2004, which spawned three singles.  She then embarked on an extended hiatus before returning in 2011 with a new single and a reality series on The Oprah Winfrey Network.  In this set of retro single reviews, we’ll take a look at Twain’s six most recent single releases to date.

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“Party for Two” (with Billy Currington or Mark McGrath)
2004
Peak:  #7

The first single from Twain’s Greatest Hits package was her last Top 10 country hit to date, but only the second Top 10 hit for her then-up-and-coming duet partner Billy Currington.  The premise is shamelessly silly, as are the spoken word intro and the “You’ll be sexy in your socks” line, but Twain and Currington sell it with flair.  Twain delivers her verses with a flirty, playful performance, while Currington renders his with the same laid-back smolder that would become his calling card at country radio.

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Retro Single Reviews: George Strait, 1992-1993

April 14, 2013 Leeann Ward 9

The comfortingly reliable George Strait mixes it up a bit during his 1992-1993 run of singles with a cover of a beloved classic, hardcore country, a surprising country rocker, and a sweet love song for good measure.

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“Lovesick Blues”
1992
Peak: #24

Strait ably tackles the Hank Williams classic. He doesn’t surpass the original, but it’s cool that he brought the song back in 1992. Imagine if somebody tried to do that now.

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Single Reviews Round-Up: Rascal Flatts, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw ft. Taylor Swift and Keith Urban, & Kip Moore

April 11, 2013 Tara Seetharam 16

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Rascal Flatts, “Changed”

Like “I Won’t Let Go” a few years back, “Changed” is built on a sweeping sentiment, rousing melody and very little else. That’s not an inherently bad thing; despite an ounce of detail about the confessor, “Changed” feels like a confession –it pleads and swells and submits. Add in an earnest and relatively restrained performance, and the song has legs.

Written by Gary LeVox, Wendell Mobley & Neil Thrasher

Grade: B

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