Music Review- Now That’s What I Call Country Classics 90s (2020)

While recently shopping at Walmart, I wandered into the music and movie section of the store. The music section at the Walmart I shopped at is now tinny compared to the size it used to be when the Walmart opened in the late 1990’s, but most of the music in the section are country music. Country music is probably one of the most popular genres of music in the area, so I wasn’t surprised there was many albums from country music genre. While looking at the CDs, I found a few albums I didn’t own and some I seriously considered buying but never did. One of the albums is Now That’s What I Call Country Classics 90s.

I listened to the Now That’s What I Call Music CDs since they were first introduced back in the late 1990’s, but, thanks to my focus on other things and my own lack of interest in modern day music (Sans a few songs and artists), I stopped buying them and listened to my old CDs. I thought about buying this version of the Now album series, but I ultimately didn’t. After looking at it again, I decided to buy it. After listening to it, I thought it would be a good album to write a review post about.

This album was released in June 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The album is a collection of country classics from the 1990’s and contains 18 songs on one CD. The dates of the songs range from 1990 to 1999, but no songs from 1996 and 1998 are included in the album. The album includes some of the best known songs from the decade, including Lonestar’s Amazed, Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine, and Reba McEntire’s Fancy. There are also songs from well known country singers that began to become known in the 1990’s including Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney.

The track list for the album is as follows…

1. Achy Breaky Heart- Billy Ray Cyrus
2. Independence Day- Martina McBride
3. She’s in Love With the Boy- Trisha Yearwood
4. Don’t Rock the Jukebox- Alan Jackson
5. Ain’t That Lonely Yet- Dwight Yoakum
6. Boot Scootin’ Boogie- Brooks and Dunn
7. Fancy- Reba McEntire
8. Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)- Travis Tritt
9. Strawberry Wine- Deana Carter
10. Should’ve Been a Cowboy- Toby Keith
11. No Doubt About It- Neal McCoy
12. Meet in the Middle- Diamond Rio
13. I Still Believe in You- Vince Gill
14. Any Man of Mine- Shania Twain
15. Maybe it Was Memphis- Pam Tills
16. She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy- Kenny Chesney
17. Carrying Your Love With Me- George Straight
18. Amazed- Lonestar

For me, it was nice to listen to 90’s country again. I really don’t like modern day country music, but I made a few exceptions every now and then. Despite this, I really do miss the sound and the singing from the 90’s. Listening to the music was a pleasant music vacation for my ears.

The music selection is very nice as well. The CD contains many songs I would normally listen to on YouTube or bought as a digital download. My favorites are Deana Carter’s Strawberry Wine, Trisha Yearwood’s She’s in Love With the Boy, Pam Tills’ Maybe it Was Memphis, and Lonestar’s Amazed. The song choices are very well done and includes songs that were very popular back then from artists that are not as well known as others are today. These artists include Pam Tills and Deana Carter’s songs, which, ironically, I don’t hear played on country radio stations very often, if at all.

I really enjoyed the album, but I am disappointed there are other country artists that are missing. Some of the artist I thought would be on the album are Tim McGraw and Garth Brooks. Also, I thought there would be different songs chosen for certain artists. Even though those problems aren’t very important and don’t detract from the album, they are the reasons why I passed over the CD months before I purchased it.

I really enjoyed the album, the songs, and artists on it. The songs are the same audio quality and every song is the same volume as the previous one, something that other collective albums do not do but Now That’s What I Call Music does. Although this album isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re not a huge fan of buying CDs or already own most of the music on this album, it is a really great addition to a CD collection. Also, the album is available for digital download and there is a vinyl version of the album (As of the writing of this post, it is currently unavailable on Amazon.com) which would be a great option for anyone who wants to own a copy of the album but not in CD form.

I highly recommend this album to anyone who wants to listen to 90’s country but doesn’t know where to start listening. Also, this album would be a great CD (Or vinyl) for anyone who wants to own a copy of most of the songs on the track list but doesn’t want to buy them individually or buy the album of each artist in order to own a copy of the song.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!