Toby Keith

Five years isn't really a long time to generate 12 monster-size hits for a greatest-hits album, but that's exactly what Toby Keith did. From his first album in 1993 to the release of his first greatest-hits package in 1998, Keith has culled some of his best singles from the charts to create a 14-track ode. He includes only two newbies – the deliciously suggestive "Getcha Some" and the achingly troubled "If a Man Answers." Those are the first two tracks on the album, so you can get them out of the way quickly if you want to and move on to the music that makes Keith so good, starting with his very first single that went straight to number one, "Should've Been a Cowboy." And you'll kick your heels all the way through "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action," "You Ain't Much Fun," "Who's That Man," and "He Ain't Worth Missing." It might be hard to recall at first that Keith had so many hit singles in the Top Ten, but with one listen, it'll be hard to forget.

Twenty years into his career, the inevitable happened: Toby Keith started to slide down the charts. He'd had slow patches before – when he moved from A&M to Dreamworks at the end of the '90s, he had trouble getting into the Top 10 – but the success of 2011's Clancy's Tavern and its accompanying hits "Made in America," "Red Solo Cup," and "Beers Ago" wound up seeming like a fluke once 2012's Hope on the Rocks stalled on the charts. Confronted with a possible decline in his fortune, Keith takes action on Drinks After Work, his 17th album in 20 years.

"Drunk Americans," the first single from Toby Keith's 18th studio album, appeared in October 2014 but the accompanying 35 MPH Town didn't show up until a year later, a good indication that the single didn't perform as well as expected. Despite its alcoholic title – something of a tradition for Keith in the new millennium, where all seven singles subsequent to 2011's "Red Solo Cup" bar one have booze on the brain – "Drunk Americans" did suggest Keith was looking to break away from the slight electronic sheen of 2013's Drinks After Work, as it was the work of songwriters Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, and Bob DiPiero, a trio who represented a post-bro country vanguard.

"Drunk Americans," the first single from Toby Keith's 18th studio album, appeared in October 2014 but the accompanying 35 MPH Town didn't show up until a year later, a good indication that the single didn't perform as well as expected. Despite its alcoholic title – something of a tradition for Keith in the new millennium, where all seven singles subsequent to 2011's "Red Solo Cup" bar one have booze on the brain – "Drunk Americans" did suggest Keith was looking to break away from the slight electronic sheen of 2013's Drinks After Work, as it was the work of songwriters Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, and Bob DiPiero, a trio who represented a post-bro country vanguard.