Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam's Greatest Hits from the 90's

Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Greatest Hits from the 90's Dwight Yoakam Label: Warner Bros / WEA Release Date: 5/18/1999 Cutout Date: 4/9/2009 UPC: 093624738923 1 Turn It on, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose - 3:24 2 You're the One - 4:01 3 It Only Hurts When I Cry - 2:35 4 The Heart That You Own - 3:10 5 Suspicious Minds - 3:54 6 Thinking About Leaving - 3:55 7 A Thousand Miles from Nowhere - 4:29 8 Ain't That Lonely Yet - 3:20 9 Fast as You - 4:47 10 Pocket of a Clown - 2:56 11 Sorry You Asked? - 3:25 12 Nothing - 3:55 13 I'll Go Back to Her - 3:31 14 Crazy Little Thing Called Love - 2:22

All those folks who contemptuously dismiss today's mainstream country and wish they could have been around for the heyday of Lefty Frizzell and Buck Owens are missing the boat. Right now, right in front of us, the Frizzell-like George Strait and Owensesque Dwight Yoakam are quietly assembling two of the great careers in country music history. Further evidence is now available in the form of Yoakam's second greatest-hits package (the first, Just Lookin' for a Hit, collected his 10 best singles from 1986-89). The new collection gathers 11 of his 13 Top 40 country hits from 1991-96 (strangely omitting "Nothing's Changed Here" and "Try Not to Look So Pretty") and adds three new songs. The new ones are good ones--Yoakam gives the ballad "Thinking About Leaving," cowritten with Rodney Crowell, a striking low-note guitar riff; he makes Waylon Jennings's "I'll Go Back to Her" even more traditional than it was; and he lends Queen's rockabilly romp, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," an authenticity it never had. Yoakam is living proof that it's still possible to combine commercial success and artistic achievement in country. --Geoffrey Himes