Dwight Yoakam - 21st Century Hits: Best Of 2000-2012 - Country - CD

Deluxe Edition includes a bonus DVD.

The title 21st Century Hits: Best of 2000-2012 is likely meant with a wink, as Dwight Yoakam hasn't exactly burned up the charts in the new millennium. He left Reprise after 2000's Tomorrow's Sounds Today (the soundtrack to South of Heaven, West of Hell appeared the next year but it's hard to count that as an official release), then released Population Me on Audium Records in 2003 before moving to New West in 2005, releasing Blame the Vain that year and the tribute album Dwight Sings Buck two years later. That's a total of three albums in a decade -- Dwight returned to the label in 2012 for 3 Pears -- and there were just four charting singles among them: "The Late Great Golden State," "The Back of Your Hand," "Intentional Heartache," and "Blame the Vain," not one of them placing higher than 52 on the country charts. That's pretty thin gruel for a compilation, so 21st Century Hits bends the rules a little bit, adding his rockabilly cover of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" -- his last genuine hit single, but it peaked at 12 in 1999, so it merits inclusion here by appearing on the soundtrack to the 2006 Jennifer Aniston/Vince Vaughn film The Break-Up -- a cut from Tomorrow's Sounds Today ("The Sad Side of Town"), a cut from 3 Pears (the terrific "A Heart Like Mine"), and "Long Goodbye," a previously unreleased duet with Michelle Branch that aims for a crossover and may have gotten there if it had a discernable melody. Its inclusion is nice for the sake of completeness and it also underscores how Yoakam wasn't especially focused during the first decade of the 21st century. He certainly made good music, much of it included here -- this samples nicely from Population Me and Blame the Vain but Dwight Sings Buck deserves to be heard in its entirety -- and one of the nice things about the collection is how it never suggests how it took Dwight a little while to find his footing after he parted ways with longtime collaborator producer Pete Anderson after Population Me. By squeezing a decade or so to 14 songs, 21st Century Hits condenses Dwight's transitional years into a solid little record; anybody who came back aboard through 3 Pears will find it useful. [A CD/DVD version was also released.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Performer	Dwight Yoakam
Music genre	Country, Contemporary Country
Music subgenre	Country
Media format	CD
Original release date	2013
Language	English
Has parental advisory label	N
Number of discs	2
Track listing	The Sad Side of Town, Late Great Golden State, The Back of Your Hand, If Teardrops Were Diamonds, Long Goodbye, Intentional Heartache, Blame the Vain, I Wanna Love Again, Just Passin Time, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Close Up the Honky Tonks, My Heart Skips a Beat, Act Naturally, A Heart Like Mine, Intentional Heartache [Music Video], Blame the Vain [Music Video], The Back of Your Hand [Music Video], The Late Great Golden State [Music Video], Close Up the Honky Tonks [Music Video], [Bonus Material]
Record label	New West Records
Music media format	CD
Is edited	N
Is enhanced	N