Faith Hill : Releases >>

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"The Hits" >>

Faith Hill finally has her first greatest-hits album after 6 successful albums. The Hits spans the superstar's career by bringing together seven number one hits like "This Kiss," "Breathe," and "Mississippi Girl" plus more fan favorites.

Practical Magic: Music From The Motion Picture >>

How do you put together a soundtrack for a comedy about witches--'90s style? Well, if she's young and her name is Sabrina, you compile an album of relentless teen pop and R&B hits. But if your witches are a little more mature (and, perhaps, suburban), as in Practical Magic, you use a different formula. And the brew found here is actually a good mix: Faith Hill gets as much play (one track) as Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell. Mitchell's "A Case of You" is simply great, and Bran Van 3000's "Everywhere" fits the folk-pop mold nicely, as does upstart Michelle Lewis's "Nowhere and Everywhere." The guys are the oddities here: Elvis Presley's "Always on My Mind" and Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" give this disc some fun quirks. --Jim Young

Breathe >>

From the suggestive series of photos in the CD's packaging to the aerobicized dance-floor workouts within, Faith Hill refuses to concede an inch of crossover dominance to Shania Twain. Except for a seductive duet with husband Tim McGraw on "Let's Make Love" and an occasional pinch of fiddle or steel guitar, there's little here to characterize Hill as a country artist. As pop, the results range from pretty ("Breathe," "Love Is a Sweet Thing") to pretty slight ("I Got My Baby," "If My Heart Had Wings") to borderline inane ("Bringing Out the Elvis," the voyeuristic twist of "The Way You Love Me"). Though Hill's version of Bruce Springsteen's "If I Should Fall Behind" is admirably understated, too much of the album substitutes surface dazzle for emotional depth. --Don McLeese

Fireflies >>

It's hard to imagine a more schizophrenic album than Fireflies, but Faith Hill, the comely pride of Star, Mississippi, had a lot of different factions to please. There's the country set, furious about the L.A. excess of 2002's Cry, as ravaged a pop album as ever made. Then there's the club set, which actually mistook Cry for music, and wanted more. Finally, there's Hill herself, still bruised from the critical drubbing the last album got, and obviously feeling the need to prove herself anew, going brunette to show her transformation. The bad news about Fireflies is that the all-out country songs--the autobiographical "Mississippi Girl," which practically begs forgiveness for Cry, and the cartoonish "Dearly Beloved," a hoedown ditty about a shotgun wedding--are embarrassing attempts to show that the Dixified diva hasn't gotten above her raising. Then, two other offerings--Darrell Scott's preachy protest number "We've Got Nothing But Love to Prove" and the beautiful torch ballad "Paris"--are both lyrical head-scratchers, and find the artist floundering as to who she is and what she's about. Where Hill knowingly flexes her muscle is in tackling three complex, literate songs by alt-folkie Lori McKenna--the title track (about the power of dreams), "Stealing Kisses" (about reevaluating life choices), and "If You Ask" (about living with a substance abuser). Hill gives these performances nuanced readings that say buckets more about her own life than "Mississippi Girl" could ever convey, and point to an emotional reservoir Hill is just beginning to tap. Here's hoping she goes back to that well again and again. --Alanna Nash

Have Some Faith

Cry	Breathe	Faith
It Matters to Me	Take Me as I Am	There You'll Be

There You'll Be: The Best of Faith Hill >>

After immeasurable success in the U.S., Faith Hill finally comes to Europe, and There You'll Be is a sort of catch-up for the best bits we may have missed along the way (or, in other words, a greatest hits collection for the uninitiated). A dozen songs which map the path of the Georgia singer, it includes the massive hit for which she has come to be known over here--"There You'll Be," from the Pearl Harbor soundtrack--together with some pop anthems like "The Way You Love Me (Love to Infinity Mix)." However, the style she delivers most convincingly is that of her roots in country, with "Let Me Let Go", "Piece of My Heart," and "You Give Me Love" from the earlier albums being the clear highlights of this collection. --Gunther Matejka

The Hits (Special Edition) >>

After six multiplatinum albums and ten #1 Country singles, and after selling 30 million albums worldwide, Faith Hill finally has her first greatest-hits album. The Hits spans the superstar's career by bringing together several of those #1s from This Kiss and Breathe to her latest, Mississippi Girl and fan favorites The Way You Love Me the #1 Adult Contemporary Cry. For one of the most popular music stars in America, the day has come for The Hits.

Faith >>

That Faith Hill would increase the pop elements of her music doesn't come as a surprise. After all, she's a youthful, vivacious woman plenty capable of gaining the mass appeal mined by fellow female country artists Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and Deana Carter. What is surprising about Hill's fourth album is how she brings new depth to her songs as well as a fresher, more pop-based sound. Instead of trying to out-sing Rimes or out-dance Twain, she works with producers Dann Huff and Byron Gallimore to create a distinctive country-pop style that is as mature as it is entertaining. As her massive crossover hit "This Kiss" proves, Hill and her collaborators know how to make the most of her limited voice and exuberant personality. The album has plenty of songs that use her talents, including the initial smash hit. --Michael McCall

It Matters to Me >>

Cry >>

Faith Hill finally owns up to what we knew all along. She may be from deep-dish Mississippi, but she isn't a country singer, and never has been. This babe's a diva now. And, as she says in her best Diana Ross voice on "Free," "There ain't nothin' I can do about it." But what she could exercise some control over, as the coproducer of her fifth studio album, is the quality and style of her particular brand of über-pop, which on Cry considerably ratchets up the noise factor from 1999's Breathe. The songs, many written by tunesmiths long working in Nashville, often come stocked with meaningful messages, i.e. the emptiness of addiction ("If You're Gonna Fly") or the momentary connection with a loved one who has passed on ("You're Still Here"). Yet Hill and company (longtime producers Byron Gallimore and Dann Huff, in conjunction with Marti Frederiksen) obviously think the best way to make an R&B/pop record is to build a huge, airless production around screeching guitars, wall-rattling drums, and Big Mama choirs. The singer herself may be, indeed, turning out her best vocals ever. But the album itself is a self-conscious mess--a big, wallowing cacophony of sound that leaves the listener numb. In the end, it's a miserable failure. This chanteuse's R&B just ain't got no soul. --Alanna Nash