Editorial Reviews

The fifth installment of the ongoing Totally Country series was released the first week of February 2006, but it shouldn't be thought of as a time capsule of the biggest country hits of the previous year. Sure, there are some big hits from 2005 here -- Miranda Lambert's great "Kerosene," Big & Rich's silly "Comin' to Your City," and Lonestar's sentimental "You're Like Comin' Home" -- but there are more songs from 2004 than 2005, and there's a fair share of cuts from 2003, too. So, don't think of this as a yearbook, but rather as a sampler of what was played on contemporary country radio in the mid-2000s. On that level, Totally Country, Vol. 5 is representative, even if it's a little uneven. There's a strong representation of Big & Rich, as performers and producers, for instance, and there are also several excellent neo-traditional cuts from the likes of Lambert, Dierks Bentley ("How Am I Doin'"), and Ray Scott ("My Kind of Music"). There's also some pleasant, occasionally forgettable fodder from the Music City machine, and there a couple of novelties (Cowboy Troy's hick-hop "Cowboy Troy" and Keith Anderson's "XXL") that are either fun or irritating, depending on your point of view. In other words, it's a lot like listening to the radio -- although it actually has more good songs on average than the radio -- and for casual contemporary country fans looking for a sampler of hits, this will suit their needs just fine. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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