by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
March 29, 2003 Issue Date:
March 29, 2003

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Name: WORLD
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The Top 5 best-sellingcountry CDs for the week ending March 15, according to Billboard magazine

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1 HOME Dixie Chicks

27 weeks on chart

STYLE Unplugged country with bluegrass roots.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None, Natalie Maines having saved her anti-Bush rant for when she was away from Home.

WORLDVIEW "More love, I know that's all we need ... / To take us and hold us and lift us above / If there's ever an answer / It's more love" (sentiments with which Saddam Hussein no doubt concurs).

OVERALL QUALITY Much higher than the overall quality of Ms. Maines's ill-timed political insights.

2 UP! Shania Twain

15 weeks on chart

STYLE Disc 1: All-things-to-all-men pop; disc 2: disc 1 with steel guitars.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL Relatively immodest booklet photos.

WORLDVIEW "She flies an airplane-she drives a subway train / At night she pumps gasoline / She's on the council-she's on the board / She's a politician-she praises the Lord" ("She's Not Just a Pretty Face").

OVERALL QUALITY Two nearly identical 19-song discs amounting to overkill.

3 LIVE FROM THE ASTRODOME George Strait

3 weeks on chart

STYLE Good-natured, gentlemanly country.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL Possibly "The Fireman," country's version of "Handy Man."

WORLDVIEW "Me and my family were real fortunate a few years ago. We got a call from President and Mrs. Bush, and they invited us to come up to Camp David and spend the weekend.... I'll remember that forever...." (from the introduction to "Love Without End Amen").

OVERALL QUALITY Enjoyable though bland when not vice versa.

4 THE DANCEHALL DOCTORS Tim McGraw

14 weeks on chart

STYLE Contemporary country.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None (not even "Red Ragtop," in which premarital sex and abortion lead to sorrow).

WORLDVIEW That the "politically correct" who say "Don't pray in school but ... have safe sex" probably live in L.A. and may not have souls ("Who Are They").

OVERALL QUALITY "I may not be the best of singers / There's better guys I've heard" ("I Know How to Love You Well").

5 AMERICAN IV Johnny Cash

17 weeks on chart

STYLE Acoustic, rough-hewn, genre-unifying folk.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None (not even the gallows-defiant "Sam Hall," its "Damn your eyes!" refrain making it a dramatic foil to the gallows-penitent "I Hung My Head").

WORLDVIEW Your old men shall dream dreams (about a Bible-quoting Queen Elizabeth II, to be specific) and write songs based on them (the title cut, about Christ's second coming).

OVERALL QUALITY The performance moving, the genre unification brilliant.

Arsenio Orteza

Arsenio is a music reviewer for WORLD Magazine and one of its original contributors from 1986.

@ArsenioOrteza

Bestsellers

The Top 5 best-sellingcountry CDs for the week ending March 15, according to Billboard magazine

Full access isn’t far.

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