Tracy Byrd - The Definitive Collection (2007)

This is the fourth hits compilation devoted to the recordings of Tracy Byrd, but it is the first one to contain tracks from both his MCA/Universal and RCA/BNA Records affiliations, which gives it a leg up on MCA's Keepers: Greatest Hits and BNA's Greatest Hits (not to mention the Byrd entry in MCA's discount-priced 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection series). Thus, it spans Byrd's entire major-label career, which lasted from 1992 to 2004. And unlike those earlier sets, none of which contained more than 12 tracks, this one stretches out to 18 songs and nearly an hour. Even better, those 18 selections constitute all of Byrd's Top 20 country hits in chronological order, from the chart-topping "Holdin' Heaven" to "Drinkin' Bone," including his other number one hit, "Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo." This foolproof track list and sequencing turns out to present an excellent representation of Byrd, a talented country singer operating in the same neo-traditionalist realm as George Strait who is equally at home with a sentimental ballad or a honky tonk singalong, with a taste for two-step and Western swing tunes. He isn't particularly original, which may be why the hits dried up after a decade, but this album provides a reasonable portrait of what the more traditional side of country music sounded like from the mid-'90s to the mid-2000s. It is also what it claims to be, the definitive collection of Tracy Byrd.