Clint Black - The Greatest Hits

Clint Black

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 24, 1996)
• Original Release Date: September 24, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B000002WUF
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,792 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Clint Black is often an amazing songwriter with one of the best pure voices in contemporary country music. However, since his impressive debut, Killin' Time, Black seems to have grown increasingly more attached to clever word play and abstract ideas than he is to emotion and narrative. And when the songs are as awful as "A Bad Goodbye" (an overwrought 1993 duet with Wynonna), who cares how good his voice is? The Greatest Hits collects, seemingly at random, 14 of his Top 10 hits released between 1989 and 1996, plus an album track and a live Eagles cover. However, it omits at least 10 singles from that period that were every bit as popular and, unfortunately, most of them were from his superior earlier years. Still, any album that includes "A Better Man" (a modern country masterpiece), "We Tell Ourselves" (an idea song that works), and "Put Yourself in My Shoes" (as good a male vocal performance as Nashville has heard in 15 years) can hardly be called bad. But it sure can be called disappointing. --David Cantwell

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good -not great- overview of a talented artist's first phase, April 23, 2003

By	James E. Bagley "Jim Bagley" (Sanatoga, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Clint Black arrived on the country charts in 1989, a great year for new talent in country music, with Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and Travis Tritt also releasing debut albums. As hard as it may be to believe now, Black's debut Killin' Time established him initially as the biggest of the new stars with hits like "A Better Man," "Nobody's Home," and the title track.

These songs effectively displayed Black's clever wordplay amid fairly traditional honky tonk arrangements and a Haggardesque vocal style with a dash of quiver. While it wasn't long before Black was surpassed in the sales and award arena by Brooks and even Jackson, his music continued to captivate - as this Greatest Hits shows.

All of his first five albums are represented on Greatest Hits, but strangely, only "A Better Man" and "Killin' Time" are here from the first album, with the lone entry from his second, Put Yourself In My Place, being its title track. Any collection calling itself Black's Greatest should have included the aforementioned "Nobody's Home" (now available on Greatest Hits II) and the sumptuous "Loving Blind."

By the time Black released his fourth and fifth albums (which have a combined seven tracks included here), his music had begun to lack some originality. The melodies for "We Tell Ourselves" and "No Time To Kill" are pretty much interchangeable and "Summer's Comin'" sounds like a knockoff of Jackson's megahit "Chattahoochee" (and even if it's not, Black's lyrics have never been so uninspired).

Still, there were always plenty of highpoints, like the uptempo "Life Gets Away" and "A Good Run Of Bad Luck," plus his spinetingling pairing with Wynonna, "A Bad Goodbye." About the only big hit missing from albums 3 through 5 is the logistically-challenged yet irresistible "When My Ship Comes In" from The Hard Way (also available on Greatest Hits II).

Greatest Hits added four new recordings intended to appeal to the Black fan who already has everything else. "Like The Rain" is a haunting departure for Black that is truly among his best work. Likewise, "Cadillac Jack Favor" offers a nice change of pace in the form of a story song: the true saga of rodeo champ Favor who was framed for murder but eventually found innocent.

Less memorable are Black's downbeat "Half Way Up" and a live version of Desperado" with clumsy phrasing that never threatens to rival the Eagles' original version. These last two tracks are the exception rather than the rule, however. Greatest Hits is a consistently entertaining (if not fully comprehensive) set of highlights from the first phase of one of country music's most gifted singer-songwriters.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not excellent, but still great, December 20, 1999

By	Ken Schoonover, Jr. (Springdale, AR United States) - See all my reviews

I could have given Clint Black's The Greatest Hits album five stars, because musically, it is great. The newer songs on this record, "Like The Rain", "Half Way Up", and "Cadillac Jack Favor", are among Clint's best. I also like Clint's live version of the Eagles' classic song "Desperado", which Clint originally did for the "Common Thread" Eagles tribute album. However, although Clint and his co-producer, James Stroud, put together a strong collection of songs, I think Clint overlooked some songs from early in his career that in my opinion are classics. "Lovin' Blind", "Where Are You Now", and "When My Ship Comes In", all #1 hits, are very good songs, yet they don't even appear on The Greatest Hits. Nevertheless, Clint still put enough of his hit songs on this record that it's truly a high quality collection. "A Better Man", "Killin' Time", "Put Yourself In My Shoes" and "Summer's Comin'", all among my personal favorites, are on here, along with eight more of Clint's classic hits. The Greatest Hits lives up to its name.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not an excellent "Greatest Hits" collection, but still great, February 10, 2002

By	Ken "KC Music Fan" (Olathe, KS, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

I could have given Clint Black's The Greatest Hits album five stars, because musically, it is great. The newer songs on this album, "Like The Rain", "Half Way Up" and "Cadillac Jack Favor", are among Clint's best songs. I also like Clint's live version of the Eagles' classic hit song "Desperado", a song that Clint originally did for the "Common Thread" Eagles tribute album. However, although I think Clint and James Stroud, his co-producer, put together a strong collection of songs, I also think Clint overlooked some great songs from early in his career. For example, "Nobody's Home", "Lovin' Blind", "Where Are You Now" and "When My Ship Comes In", all classic #1 hits by Clint, are very good songs, yet none of these songs appear on The Greatest Hits. Nevertheless, Clint still put enough of his hit songs on this record that I believe it is truly a high quality collection. "A Better Man", "Killin' Time", "Put Yourself In My Shoes" and "Summer's Comin'", all among my personal favorite Clint Black songs, are on here, along with eight more of Clint's classic hits. The Greatest Hits lives up to its name.