Consumer Guide Album

Dwight Yoakam: Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam's Greatest Hits from the 90's [Reprise, 1999]
Whenever I ponder this multithreat singer-songwriter, honky-tonk ideologue, Hollywood role-player, published author, and hunk-if-you-like-your-meat-lean, I remember what Sharon Stone said about the prospects for their reunion: "I'd rather eat a dirt sandwich." Normally with country music you swallow the male chauvinism and figure guys feeling sorry for themselves is what makes it go; with Yoakam, so talented and so conscious, you expect a little movement within the paradigm, and conclude that he chose neotrad because movement was the last thing on his mind. But even if his most romantic moment is the Waylon cover where he goes back to his old lady because his new lady was playing games, he's sung and written his way into the male chauvinist canon. His best song of the '90s, for its heartbroke melody: 1990's "The Heart That You Own." Latest rock cover: the finale, Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." He "just can't handle it," "must get 'round to it," etc. Right, Dwight. Or is that just Dirtbag? A-