George Canyon - Decade Of Hits (2014)

It's Canyon's first best-of album, which surprises me, these things are a dime a dozen these days, so it's always nice to see an artist not milking the cow for everything. And just a decade? Well of course Canyon was known to us earlier, with a couple of local Nova Scotia albums out in the 90's. It was his attention-grabbing second-place finish in Nashville Star in 2004 that let the rest of North America in on his charms, and landed him a record deal with Universal Canada. So it's the albums since then, under the Universal banner that we're talking about here.

Still, that's seven albums in this ten year period, including a holiday collection and two sets of covers, Classics and Classics II. Twenty singles too, so some pruning had to be done. And, there are two brand-new cuts among the 17. For a guy who grew up small-town, and lives on an Alberta ranch now, he doesn't push the cliche cowboy lyrics like so many of his Nashville peers, who own far fewer country credentials. He's more about values, whether its being the best father and husband he can (Who Would You Be) or the good ol' glory of love (Somebody Wrote Love). He isn't part of the party crowd, instead he gets to be the one who reminds them all those good ideas the night before don't look so smart the day after (Drinkin' Thinkin'). And he's very, very faithful (I'll Never Do Better Than You).

The two extra cuts look to be strong draws for fans. The recent hit single Slow Dance is here, as well as the new one, Crazy Love, both of them co-written with Cape Breton's Steven MacDougall, lead singer of Slowcoaster. He might seem like an odd writing partner, but MacDougall has been doing a lot of work with Gordie Sampson, Jimmy Rankin and others, honing his more mainstream skills. These are a couple of strong love songs that move the country star just a little out of his comfort zone ("Gonna take the kids to your mom's/Gonna throw some Lionel Richie on"). This set is everything you want in a best-of from a favourite artist.