Label, year: Curb, 1999
Producer: James Stroud, Byron Gallimore, Tim McGraw
Running Time: 54:07
After the excellent Everywhere album, it was impossible not to expect a decent outing this time. A Place In The Sun, luckily for us actually lives up to our expectations, even though it might just fall a little short of achieving the same quality level of its predecessor. By the time you read this, you are probably already more than familiar with immense hits Please, Remember Me (if only songwriter Rodney Crowell got more attention...) and Something Like That. Both songs had "hit" written all over them, but they were far for being obvious choices, as any of the 14 (yes, fourteen) tracks could easily fare well as singles. One such track would have to be "Seventeen" from the writing hands of Bill Luther, Chris Lindsey, and Aimee Mayo, the latter two also being responsible for Lonestar's Amazed. It has a good feel, and is not far away from where Where The Green Grass Grows left off. The moltitude of such potential hits, is, however, the best possible news. In fact, this means you can actually not be too disappointed with the two songs My best friend, again by Luther and Mayo, and Some Things Never Change. I know many will like both, especially Faith Hill fans, but in my opinion are too much on the schmaltzy side and rather unconvincing. But these are the only below-par offers, as we welcome the addition of a strong country Deryl Dodd ballad, She'll Have You Back, a few fun numbers, with the predictable but pleasant Senorita Margarita joning the current single in that department. The title track looks perhaps a little too much towards pop, but is a plain good song, and that's not so common nowadays, while My Next Thirty Years sounds like a Jo Dee Messina number: no surprise here, as it was written by Phil Vassar (Bye Bye, I'm Alright), and Tim produces Jo Dee. Well, if this does not sound like enough, I still haven't said about the two gems, slow numbers Somebody Must Be Prayin' For Me and You Don't Love Me Anymore somehow reminiscent of previous songs Don't Mention Memphis and I Didn't Ask and She Didin't Say.
So, yes, it's not quite as good as Everywhere, maybe, and, yes, it does tend to be a little too edgy on the pop side and a little overproduced, but this is nonetheless an excellent effort and definitely a rare case of quality meeting sales quantity.
