American radio didn't like it but I do
Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 01/12/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Brooks and Dunn had been accustomed to success in a big way, with all their singles attaining high placings on the country charts - until the release of this album. For some reason, American country radio stations were less enthusiastic about the singles from this album. Only one of them (You'll always be loved by me, an outstanding ballad) made the top ten, with others such as Beer thirty (a great rocking country song) and Missing you (a cover of the John Waite pop classic) falling well short.
Clearly, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn were spending less time together, as they no longer co-wrote any songs together and they started using separate producers - Don Cook for Kix's songs and Byron Gallimore for Ronnie's songs. This may make for a less cohesive album but should not matter for a single released to radio. So it may just be that Kix and Ronnie did not make enough effort to promote the album via live appearances.
Whatever the reason for the failure of the singles (none of which made it to Greatest hits volume 2), this is an excellent album full of high quality music - great rocking songs and wonderful ballads. Apart from the tracks already mentioned, I particularly like Getting under getting over you (a great rocking song to open the album), Too far this time (a sad ballad), I love you more (a great ballad by Kix), All out of love (an original song, not a cover of the famous Air supply classic) and Texas and Norma Jean (a great story song by Kix), but I love the other songs too.
Kix and Ronnie must have learned why the singles from this album were comparative failures because they have resumed their successful ways with their next album, Steers and stripes, but although this may sometimes sound like a compilation of two solo albums, the music is of such quality that I love it anyway.
If you already have the two greatest hits collections (or the British compilation, Very best of), this is a great album to add to your collection, because none of the tracks here appear on those compilations. If you are building a collection of their original albums but don't have any of their compilations, I recommend starting with their first two albums - Brand new man and Hard working man. After that, the others are all of a consistently high quality including this one."