What If It's You

by

Reba McEntire

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After the critical, radio, and commercial dissapointment of "Starting Over," Reba stunned critics and fans alike with this straight-forward, crisp and up beat album. Regaining her position as Queen of Country Radio, this album garnered the two #1 hits, "The Fear of Being Alone," and "How Was I To Know." Following up those singles were the Top 10 Hits "I'd Rather Ride Around With You," and the title track. Two other great songs on this album are "It Don't Matter," and "State of Grace." Reba described this album as a crisp mountain stream as opposed to the "ocean" of Starting Over, and it's an accurate description. Taking the reigns as lead producer, this album was entirely self-contained. It was the first album recorded in Reba's studio, with the staff engineers, played by Reba's tour musicians, and contains several songs from Reba's publishing company. These elements give the album a fresh, exciting feel. You can really tell that everyone involved on this project truely loved doing it. A fresh start for country's diva.

A lot of the songs on this CD aren't bad. Its the arrangements that make them bad. The electric guitars are so loud and the background singers nearly drown Reba out on a lot of them. THe fast songs all sound alike even though I really like "I'd Rather Ride Around With You". There is one song that is really good and that one is called "Close to Crazy". But I also like the title track and wonder why it wasn't released as a single because its really good too. But you can have the rest of the songs. LIke I said, they aren't bad songs but I wonder what this would have sounded like if they had made it a "real traditional country album" with "traditional" arrangements. It could have been done and if it had, Reba would have had another winner here. Get rid of the electric guitars and the loud drums please!!!!