Kenny Chesney Greatest Hits (2000){2008, Sony Bmg Music, Bna Records 88697 22779 2}

The culmination of seven years' work, Kenny Chesney's Greatest Hits CD is a good overview of his career and also throws in four unreleased tracks and a live version of "Back Where I Come From." His unique blend of traditional country vocal stylings and contemporary, slick pop orchestration is showcased on songs like "She's Got It All" and "All I Need to Know." Among these songs of heartache and loss, there hides a little sunny gem of a song in "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," in which Chesney reveals that his girl is kinda crazy about his farmer's tan and how she brings him a "basket 'a chicken and a big cold jug 'a sweet tea." Greatest Hits stands as a good introduction to one of the most popular country artists of the '90s or a worthwhile addition to the die-hard fan's collection.

The Road and the Radio arrives at the end of a busy 2005 for Kenny Chesney. As the year opened, he followed up his 2004 blockbuster When the Sun Goes Down with the mellow Be as You Are. A few months later, he married movie star Renee Zellweger, and four months after that, she filed for divorce. Two months after that, Chesney returned with The Road and the Radio, the big, splashy proper follow-up to When the Sun Goes Down. Given such a tight, hectic schedule, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that The Road and the Radio sounds rushed, as if Chesney didn't have the chance to properly decide the right course for this album.

Kenny Chesney treats his first-ever live album as a celebration, collecting 29 highlights recorded at some point over the 2010s. By casting such a wide net, Chesney has plenty of room for covers and cameos in addition to the hits, but it's also telling that Live in No Shoes Nation concentrates on all the music he's made following the release of 2001's Greatest Hits. Starting with 2001's No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, he's hit his sunny stride, specializing in mellow beach tunes, slightly sad ballads, drinking tunes, and arena anthems, all of which are featured on this double-disc set. If the crowd noise sometimes seems a bit heavy-handed, the roar underscores how Chesney entertains on a mass scale, and that's perhaps the one revelation of the record: based on this, calling his fan base a nation isn't much of an exaggeration.

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it…