Shine (CD)

In this day and age of overproduced, digitized music, its very refreshing to see artists like Martina and Allison Krauss, who use their god-given talents in such a way that it makes you appreciate how great it is to listen to GOOD music. Martina always gives all out performances in her cd's and in person also, and this is no exception. She sound great, the songs are first rate and the musicians are all top notch. Martina just seems to get better and more confident with every cd she puts out. In this one, she sounds like she's having a blast and so will you when you listen to it.

This album is a definite must-have! I believe it's her best album, probably since Emotion or Evolution! Martina McBride is truly one of the greatest singers...ever, and she shows that through this album. Each song is different yet each song merries well with another and provides for one great album! My advice: GET OUT THERE AND BUY IT!

This is Martina's best CD in quite sometime. Buying it online at Walmart is even better.

Martina McBride has one of the strongest, purest voices in the history of recorded music. In the 1990s--when I first heard her on radio--her warm tone, hearty delivery, and the eagle-soaring quality of her voice really impressed me. I'd never encountered a richer, more exciting, or capable female voice in the country music genre. Since then, further exploration of Martina's music has rewarded me occasionally--the albums EVOLUTION (1997) and TIMELESS (2005); the songs "Where Would You Be" (2001) and the glorious "Anyway" (2007)--but more often I've been disappointed by the wedding of her voice to some of the most mediocre, hackneyed, and limited-interest lyrics ever written AND by the pop gloss that removes so many of her songs so far from the sincerity and intimacy that distinguish traditional country music. SHINE, Martina's 2009 release is the biggest disappointment of all. And for those very reasons. And especially in the wake of the heartfelt grandeur and simplicity of WAKING UP LAUGHING's "Anyway." Martina likes songs that tell stories, but in SHINE she repeats her career-long artistic misjudgment of restricting--not broadening--a song's appeal through the overuse of detailed, delimiting lyrical portraits of a person or group of people to which only a few listeners can possibly relate. (In SHINE this flaw is especially evident in "I Just Call You Mine," "What Do I Have To Do," "You're Not Leaving Me," and "Wild Rebel Rose.") Martina also likes life-affirmative songs--even though "Lies," the best "confessional" song on the album, is anything but uplifting. But such would-be-happy songs like "Sunny Side Up," "Don't Cost A Dime," and "Ride" afford no extraordinary expression for her gifted voice. Great vocal art in music requires that singer and song be worthy of one another. In Martina's career, this commensurability has been the exception, not the rule. It's no wonder that Martina's best albums, every track, remain EVOLUTION and TIMELESS. The former, ambitious and dazzling, remains true to traditional country music's spirit; musically and often lyrically, it challenges--without departing from or betraying--the genre's distinctive boundaries. The latter features passionate interpretations of traditional country favorites, each one of which fits Martina's voice like a glass slipper. In 2005, in the liner notes for TIMELESS, country legend Buck Owens wrote "[o]ur kind of music, present and future, is in good hands. Martina McBride's hands!" Based on the evidence in Martina's career--before and since then--it ain't necessarily so. Demand more from Martina, country fans! Why accept less?