Country music, slickly packaged

McGraw's latest: Good music, needless frills

Tim McGraw

Tim McGraw
"Set This Circus Down"
EMI/Curb
(release date: April 24)

By Mary Jo DiLonardo
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- By his own admission, Tim McGraw is hardly the world's best singer. But country music's reigning male vocalist knows how to make you believe in what he's singing.

His newest record is what you'd expect. It's filled with all the bells and whistles that have worked so many times before -- slick orchestration, overproduction, big ballads, catchy toe-tappers -- and it will no doubt sell millions of copies and spawn at least a handful of No. 1 hits.

With all that fancy wrapping paper, you'd think you could lose McGraw somewhere in the mess. But somehow his plaintive vocals and heartfelt delivery manage to rise above the bountiful rock guitar solos and polished harmonies.

AUDIO "Things Change" WAV sound/352K "Smilin'" WAV sound/320K "Grown Men Don't Cry" WAV sound/336K

Just listen to the record's first release.

The poignant "Grown Men Don't Cry" has become the fastest-rising single of McGraw's career. It's sappy, though not as bad as McGraw's saccharine "Don't Take the Girl." But it's believable, a song with a simple message: Guys get teary-eyed once in a while, too, especially when their little girls tell them they love them when they're tucked into bed.

Not an official release yet, "Things Change" became an online hit months ago when a Web version of the song circulated after McGraw performed it at last year's Country Music Association awards show. The song tsk-tsks those who have lambasted "new" country as being too pop or too non-traditional. (Maybe it's in defense of cover-girl wife Faith Hill, who has conquered the pop and country charts will equal zeal.)

Faith-less tunes

Other highlights include the moving "Angel Boy" and the infectious "Smilin'," a perfect roll-down-the-windows-and-belt-it-out number.

There are no mushy duets with Hill this time out. In fact, she only makes an appearance providing harmony vocals on "Angry All the Time," a sorrowful story about heartbreak and broken romance.

There is some traditional country music here -- the opener "The Cowboy in Me" is a perfect example - but McGraw tries his hand at all sorts of styles. He adds some Latin spice with the low-key salsa-flavored "Let Me Love You" and rocks out a bit with "Telluride," a testament to a short-lived romance on the slopes.

But McGraw, in the end, is country. You can gussy him up with all the smooth orchestration in the world, but he's still going to sound country to the core. Maybe that's why he's so popular.

With 15 No. 1 hits on his resume and somewhere around 20 million albums sold, McGraw's obviously doing something right.

Too bad he didn't do it this time around with fewer bells and whistles.

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May 6, 1999

Tim McGraw - official site
Curb Records

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