Live, Laugh, Love

1	She's Always Right 3:24
2	Lose Some Sleep Tonight 3:04
3	Holding Her and Loving You 3:22
4	Cold Hearted 3:57
5	If A Man Ain't Thinking ('Bout His Woman) 3:11
6	Once In A Lifetime 4:30
7	It Ain't Called Heartland (For Nothin') 3:40
8	Woman Thing 2:50
9	This Time Love 3:51
10	The Chain of Love 5:03
11	Live, Laugh, Love 4:06

Barnes & Noble

Living, laughing, loving -- on his latest, Clay Walker brings these mere words alive with the most sensitive and dynamic performances of his career. Working with new producer Doug Johnson, Walker sounds reenergized and refocused. He still celebrates connubial bliss and the shifting dynamics of evolving relationships, but this time, Walker digs deeper for some fresh takes on familiar themes. And there are no wimps allowed - the Stones-ish thrust of the self-penned "Cold Hearted" provides the ideal soundscape for a tale of love flowering at a feverish pace. That stripped-down band feel adds ballast to the other up-tempo tunes; there's more to Walker's Texas dance hall roots than we thought. To balance out the mood, Walker scorches a power ballad, "Once In a Lifetime Love"; gets tender on "If a Man Ain't Thinking ('Bout His Woman)"; and articulates despair, conflict, and desire all at once in "Holding Her and Loving You," a finely wrought cheatin' song originally cut by Earl Thomas Conley. LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE has all the earmarks of another commercial triumph for Walker, one of the '90s bestselling country artists. But its intensity, intelligence, and commitment mark it as an artistic milestone to boot. David McGee

All Music Guide

Clay Walker is a good journeyman singer. He has a strong voice, knows how to twist clichés to his advantage, and knows that straying too far from the clichés will lose his wide audience. In turn, that means that he's enjoyable, but a little predictable, which is an accurate assessment of Live, Laugh, Love, his fifth album. The album never really distinguishes itself from its predecessors. Like those records, it's a safe blend of pop ballads, mild rockers, and polished honky tonk, all delivered in Walker's twangy tenor. Even if the ballads occasionally touch on adult contemporary (witness "Once in a Lifetime Love"), it's considerably more country than, say, Tim McGraw, but the music doesn't show enough imagination and isn't organic enough to stand apart from the neo-traditionalist pack. That said, it's hardly bad -- the material may be uneven, but "She's Always Right" has a good sense of humor and "Lose Some Sleep Tonight" is quite good, while the title track is an amusing twist on Faron Young's "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young," a calypso-ish number that is designed for yuppies into hat music. Ultimately, Live, Laugh, Love drags a bit too much to rank among Walker's best, but it has its moments. Stephen Thomas Erlewine