Consumer Guide Album

Reba McEntire: The Best of Reba McEntire [Mercury, 1985]
I'll take this benighted distillation over what we've heard of her kind of country, mostly because it's a distillation (from 1980-1983, when she was on her way to neoclassicism). Donna Fargo at her cheeriest couldn't get away with the keynoting "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven," the Platters cover would be useless even without the strings, and "My Turn" is sexy-gal at its most repulsive ("You have reached the woman in me through the man in you," she notes as she offers the guy a blow job). But songs like "I Don't Think Love Ought to Be That Way," "I'm Not That Lonely Yet," and "You're the First Time I've Ever Thought About Leaving" group around the same sexually self-possessed persona and would stand out on any album she has in mind. Jerry Kennedy rarely overdoes the schlock. And though the voice has less character, it's also less sedate. B+