The Essential Joe Diffie

1	Home 3:21
2	If You Want Me to 3:44
3	If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets) 2:46
4	Is It Cold in Here 3:47
5	Not Too Much to Ask / Mary Chapin Carpenter 3:23
6	Ships That Don't Come in 3:41
7	Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die) 3:46
8	Honky Tonk Attitude 3:48
9	John Deere Green 4:32
10	Pickup Man 3:36
11	Third Rock from the Sun 3:05
12	So Help Me Girl 3:32
13	Bigger Than the Beatles 3:58
14	This Is Your Brain 3:36

Barnes & Noble

In the '90s, Joe Diffie had little competition when it came to putting a contemporary spin on traditional honky-tonk, a fact abundantly evident on The Essential Joe Diffie, a hit-packed retrospective of his work in that decade. An expressive male baritone crooner in the style of Frizzell-Jones-Haggard and his contemporaries Randy Travis and Alan Jackson, Diffie exhibits an immaculate sense of the song in his interpretive choices, whether the tunes require a straightforward expression of longing, as on the gentle ballad "Home," or some lighthearted philosophizing, as on the lively western swing two-step "If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)." A weeping pedal steel sets the mood on the devastating "Is It Cold in Here," as Diffie relates the scathing details of love coming apart, his voice climbing from a whisper to an anguished cry. Diffie and Mary Chapin Carpenter exchange vows of trust and commitment on the classic country (and Grammy-nominated) duet "Not Too Much to Ask," backed by a honky-tonk piano, a romantic Spanish guitar, and soaring pedal steel lines. On the rowdy side, drinkin' songs don't rock much harder or get more sensible than "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)," whereas "Honky Tonk Attitude" is a Brooks & Dunn–style dance-floor scorcher and "John Deere Green" blazes a southern rock trail for Diffie, who belts out a jubilant story of small-town love. Joe Diffie's got a lot more good music in him, but The Essential puts a big exclamation point on the important body of work he laid down during the '90s. David McGee

All Music Guide

Epic/Legacy's 2003 collection The Essential Joe Diffie weighs in at 14 tracks, just two less than the 2002 collection 16 Biggest Hits, with which it shares a whopping 12 tracks. Given that considerable overlap, it's not surprising that the two collections are essentially interchangeable, but 16 Biggest Hits has the edge, not just because it has two more tracks, but because the four songs unique to that collection are stronger than the two unique songs here (for the record, they are the Mary Chapin Carpenter duet "Not Too Much to Ask," which has never appeared on a Joe Diffie album, and the modest hit "This Is Your Brain"). That said, The Essential Joe Diffie is hardly a bad album -- after, it's pretty much the same album, down to identical sequencing for the first three cuts -- and it is also an effective overview of the peak of Diffie's career. 16 Biggest Hits may be slightly stronger, but that's all it is: a slight difference. On its own terms, The Essential Joe Diffie is a first-rate collection. Stephen Thomas Erlewine