Mindy McCready

Your Choice Dwight Yoakam Lyle Lovett Alan Jackson Dolly Parton Garth Brooks LeAnn Rimes Allison Moorer Lee Ann Womack Dixie Chicks Lucinda Williams Trisha Yearwood Anne Murray Faith Hill Shania Twain George Strait Celebs Celebritylink Gary Allan Celebs Doug Sahm

"I'm Not So Tough" Folks buying Mindy McCready albums know what they're getting into. If McCready's far from a devastating singer, she's also far from incompetent, and when she has solid material like Matraca Berg's "All I Want Is Everything," this album's most traditional-country-flavored track, or the road song "Tumble and Roll," she's capable of enough emotional vigor to pull them off. Unfortunately, her third record lacks much in the way of memorable songs, and whereas her previous two outings hinted at a feminist edge, the 23-year-old McCready now strikes a conventional desperate-for-love vulnerability and often a pouting vocal style. Invariably, the weaker the tune, the more she resorts to cloying whispers and chirps. If I'm Not So Tough has any highlights, they're to be found in Glen Duncan and Larry Franklin's soulful fiddle breaks and Paul Franklin's tasty pedal steel, which, to Mindy McCready's credit, are given plenty of room to roam. --Roy Kasten

Customer review from Amazon

Reviewer: peter fitton from London The pigtails are unbecoming of such a rapidly maturing talent. There's an subtle edge to Mindy's voice that gets you, and draws you in to each song on this album.She has a talent that's obvious to anyone who gives this CD more than five minutes, a magnetism that you can't resist. The songs are also strong and the melody lines far more interesting than the usual dreary fare you get on comparable albums.My only criticism is she sounds in a hurry, the pace could be a little less frantic in parts, but no doubt she was keen to get out of a record contract that insisted on 'that look' as fast as possible.Buy this and you'll hear a singer with the potential to fly, whatever genre she decides to categorize herself within.