Brandon's Buzz

One of the most consistently fabulous voices in country music belongs to the peerless Martina McBride, whose chops are on full display in her new CD/DVD set Live in Concert. Taken from a September 2007 stop on her Waking Up Laughing tour, the set list for Live hopscotches recklessly across the thrilling breadth of McBride’s catalogue, from her first big hits “My Baby Loves Me” and “Wild Angels” to her classics “Independence Day” and “Broken Wing” to her newer smashes like “This One’s for the Girls” and “Anyway.” She also closes the DVD with a pair of daring covers, one of Pat Benatar’s milestone “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (which brings to mind the terrific 2003 installment of CMT’s “Crossroads” the two women shared) and the other of Journey’s iconic “Don’t Stop Believin'” (on which McBride turns in a surprisingly mean facsimile of the one and only Steve Perry).

A continues to foolishly insist that he detests country music, yet I’ve had pretty decent luck thus far in exposing him to Miss Martina and her innumerable charms. Armed with that, I’ve decided it’s time to press my luck and offer him a deeper exploration of McBride’s rich, bountiful career.

1. “That’s Me” (from The Time Has Come) — — the best single from her ancient-sounding 1992 debut album. Knowing how dramatically McBride’s sound has evolved over the years, it’s quite striking to return to page one and realize how hilariously retro she was back then. May I posit that, if she were to take another stab at this terrific track — the old canard about the woman watching her true love marry another — today, it would be a smash?

2. “Independence Day” (from The Way That I Am) — — the ’94 Gretchen Peters-penned classic that put McBride on the map. Some still question the wisdom of releasing a tune about spousal abuse leading to murder (however subtly it’s implied) in the same summer that Nicole Brown Simpson was killed, but it nonetheless became her signature and established her as a commercially viable risk-taker. (Oh, and the fact that she sang the living hell out of the refrain didn’t hurt nothin’.)

3. “Phones Are Ringin’ All Over Town” (from Wild Angels) — — true enough, the story is a teensy bit fatuous and overblown. Deal with it, boys: this chorus is a riveting sing-along stunner.

4. “Valentine” (from Evolution) — — a sweet, simple collaboration with pianist Jim Brickman becomes one of the ’90s’ great love songs.

5. “I Love You” (from Emotion) — — the effervescent blast of brilliant froth that, owing to its huge pop crossover, propelled McBride to the A-list in 1999.

6. “Love’s the Only House” (from Emotion) — — McBride kicks off a new century with a new creative peak (one, incidentally, she has yet to top). The deft way she navigates the verbal twists and turns in the latter verses is nothing short of breathtaking.

7. “Love Land” (from Waking Up Laughing) — — despite the clumsy way she manages to rhyme the phrases “Thomas Edison” and “modern medicine,” McBride keeps the treacle to a blessed minimum on a story song that could have been sticky-bun sweet.

names dropped with reckless abandon: A, Gretchen Peters, Journey, Martina McBride, Pat Benatar, Steve Perry