Tracks (CD - 2000)

Personnel includes: Collin Raye, Bobbie Eakes (vocals); Biff Watson, B. James Lowry (acoustic guitar); Brent Mason, Dann Huff, Gordon Kennedy, Jeff King (electric guitar); Paul Franklin (steel guitar); Aubrey Haynie (mandolin, fiddle); The Nashville String Machine (strings); John Hobbs, Steve Nathan, Tim Akers, Matt Rollings (keyboards); Joe Chemay, Mike Brignardello (bass); Paul Leim, Lonnie Wilson (drums); Eric Darken (percussion); Wes Hightower, Troy Johnson, Chris Rodriguez, Gene Miller, Russell Terell (background vocals).

Producers: Collin Raye, Paul Worley, Dann Huff.

Engineers include: Jeff Balding, Mark Hagan, Jake Nicely.

Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee.

Recording information: Nashville, TN.

Collin Raye's sixth conventional album continued his mainstream country-pop approach. "I Couldn't Last a Moment," which was on its way to the country Top Ten as the album was released, was a song of romantic regret that was typical of the album as a whole. The music sounded about as country as the Eagles, no more, no less, and Raye himself could have been mistaken for Don Henley in one of his smoother moments. "A Long Way to Go" was another song in which a man confessed his unhappiness at a romantic breakup, while several others expressed romantic devotion; "Landing in Love" concerned new love; "She's All That" was a romantic fantasy full of exaggerated praise of a woman. Taken together, you'd have to say that this was an album of songs aimed at pleasing Raye's female constituency, especially when you added in "Harder Cards," a story song about a patrolman who aids a victim of domestic violence by making her murder of her husband look like suicide, and "She's Gonna Fly," about an aging mother. Raye included the usual number of ballads, varying the formula now and then with an uptempo change of pace such as "A Long Way to Go." "Loving This Way," a breakup duet with Bobbie Eakes, also added diversity. Raye sang earnestly, as usual, but the material, while consistent, never rose above typical Nashville fodder, which kept the album from being anything more than another Collin Raye record, much like his others. Fortunately, that was all anybody expected from him. ~ William Ruhlmann

New Country star Collin Raye has always excelled at romantic ballads and songs of social commentary, but although there are several of the former on TRACKS ("Landing in Love," "You Still Take Me There") this album's real reason for living is the absolutely extraordinary "Harder Cards." It's the story of an abused wife who's just shot her husband, sung from the point of view of a cop on the scene. Stark, unsentimental, and (incidentally) hooky in the extreme, it's almost worthy of Steve Earle. It stands out from the rest of the album (save for the concluding "She's Gonna Fly," which is about Alzheimers Disease) like a tarantula on a piece of angelfood cake. minimize