Latest Greatest Straitest Hits

By maintaining a consistent pace of one album and several hit singles per year, George Strait is one of the few artists in pop history who warrants a new hits collection every five years. Latest Greatest Straitest Hits collects his singles between 1994 and 2000, a phase that found Strait settling into his role as unswerving hit-maker and country music elder. Following the massive shifts in country style in the early Nineties, Strait hit his stride and delivered a string of instant classics. From ballads (“Carrying Your Love With Me,” “I Can Still Make Cheyenne,” “Carried Away”) to catchy singalongs (“Blue Clear Sky,” “True”) Strait in his forties was besting singers half his age. The first of two songs exclusive to this collection “The Best Day” is bright in both theme and delivery, but even better is “Murder on Music Row,” a duet with Alan Jackson that boldly, but humorously, takes on the country music mainstream for ignoring tradition. Coming from anyone else the sentiment would sound obnoxious, but Strait and Jackson have the credentials to make it stick.