Greatest Hits

1	Blue 2:49
2	How Do I Live 4:26
3	Can't Fight the Moonlight Graham Stack Radio Edit 3:37
4	One Way Ticket (Because I Can) 3:43
5	Commitment 4:36
6	I Need You 3:48
7	Written in Stars 4:18
8	Unchained Melody 3:52
9	The Light in Your Eyes 3:21
10	On the Side on Angels 3:50
11	You Light Up My Life 3:37
12	Nothin' New Under the Moon 3:31
13	Big Deal 3:07
14	Life Goes On 3:34
15	We Can 3:37
16	Last Thing on My Mind / Ronan Keating 3:58
17	This Love 3:47
18	Crazy 2:54

Barnes & Noble

LeAnn Rimes's first greatest-hits package offers real bang for the buck. It effectively charts the country-pop chanteuse's career arc, from the startling debut, "Blue," to a new song, "This Love," which returns her to the booming pop-country power ballads she helped pioneer and seemed destined to own before her detour into glossy, high-tech contemporary pop. Rimes made that detour early on in her career, as the twangy Patsy Cline in her mutated into a Madonna sound-alike on dance hits such as the Diane Warren–penned "Can't Fight the Moonlight," and then she adopted Elton John's stilted phrasing when she dueted with him on the syrupy, orchestrated love ballad "Written in the Stars." But the country gal was never far from the surface, and she knocks big productions such as "The Light in Your Eyes" and the gospel-influenced "Big Deal" out of the park with a bluesy, urgent delivery reminiscent of Wynonna at her most sultry. In 1999, Rimes returned to Patsy Cline territory with a take on Willie Nelson's "Crazy," replete with a string-laden, Owen Bradley–style production and a riveting vocal attack marked by sustained, ascending wails and low, throaty moans, at once seductive and heartbreaking. Released just prior to the holidays, the disc closes out with a dramatic reading of "O Holy Night" that finds Rimes going from a captivating whisper to a full-throated, jubilant shout over a clattering orchestral arrangement. Rimes's material has not always been of the highest caliber, but when she wraps those pipes around a meaningful lyric, as she does often on this collection, it's quite the aural experience. David McGee

All Music Guide

Greatest Hits recaps LeAnn Rimes' time at Curb Records -- an era that began with enormous, surprising success and ended acrimoniously, with Rimes gunning for crossover success as the label churned out product. Released about a year after her teen-pop makeover on Twisted Angel, this collection is a bit like Rimes herself, perched between her country beginnings and pop crossover aspirations, wanting to be hip, but settling for the middle of the road more often than not. This comes through in the song selection, which has all the big hits that brought her steadily away from her classicist country beginnings with "Blue," and closer to the adult contemporary mainstream of "Can't Fight the Moonlight." While nothing major is missing -- and nothing should be missing, given its generous 19-track length -- there are no less than nine charting singles missing (including "Hurt Me," "Looking Through Your Eyes," most singles from Twisted Angel), with album tracks and new cuts, including a superfluous cover of "O Holy Night" tacked onto the end (the better to position the album for holiday sales), taking their position. Since all the major songs are here, it's a worthwhile collection, but the sequencing is not only hopelessly non-chronological, it develops no momentum and bogs down in the middle, suggesting that this was not so much compiled as it was thrown-together. That's the problem with this Greatest Hits -- it may give the hits, but its careless presentation means that it's much less than what it should have been. Stephen Thomas Erlewine