Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Looks at this Lady February 6, 2010
OLD but not DEAD (Houston)
If you can not see the beauty in this lady you gotty be BLIND And she can Sing
chely wright-collection December 22, 2008
terry e.chandler,jr. (woodstock,ga. u.s.a.)
great collection of songs,and it's remastered!sound is clear as a bell! wow her voice is so beautiful!20-stars
Includes all of Chely's non-duet singles July 14, 2007
James E. Bagley (Sanatoga, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chely Wright is one of the most underappreciated country artists ever. Possessing very strong pipes (sort of a country Pat Benatar) and a lot of personality, she has undeservedly never risen above the second tier of country artists.
This collection captures all of the singles she charted between 1994 and 2005 as a solo artist (the omitted tracks were the "Hard To Be A Husband, Hard To Be A Wife" collaboration with Brad Paisley from 2000 and the 2003 "Scary Old World" pairing with Radney Foster). Chely's first two albums WOMAN IN THE MOON in 1994 and RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT in 1996 were for Mercury subsidiary Polydor and - as shown on the enclosed singles "Till I Was Loved By You," "Sea of Cowboy Hats" and "Listenin' To The Radio" - their music was high octane honky-tonk, with lots of fiddles and steel guitars.
While fun, none of her Polydor singles reached the country top 40. The albums also sold poorly, so she moved to MCA Records in 1997 to work with producer/label President Tony Brown. The first couple of MCA singles "Shut Up And Drive" and "I Already Do" from the LET ME IN cd cut back on the instrumentation, allowing Chely's stellar voice to shine amid the sparse settings (they also finally brought her some top 20 success at radio). The follow-up cd, 1999's SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, was Chely's true commercial breakthrough, spawning the catchy number one title track and the midtempo top-tenner "It Was."
Those gems found Chely's music going in a more pop-oriented direction, an approach that was even more pronounced on 2001's NEVER LOVE YOU ENOUGH. It's two singles - the lush yet torchy title track and the rip-roaring "Jezebel" - surrounded Chely with loads of orchestration but stalled outside the top 20. This setback was surprising, since Martina McBride has been a staple in the country top 10 with loads of power ballads like the former and Terri Clark had been quite successful at the time with footstompers like the latter.
After the chart underperformance of those two engaging singles, Chely Wright and MCA parted company. She signed with Jeff Huskins' Vivaton label in 2003 and released the top 40 "Back Of The Bottom Drawer" to radio the following year. A disagreement over the direction of her music caused Wright to leave Vivaton and she ended up putting out the single on 2005's The METROPOLITAN HOTEL album which was released on her own label Painted Red, along with the touching hit follow-up "The Bumper Of My SUV, a Wright composition based on a true story. These two singles were licensed from Chely.
Hopefully, there will be more hits in Chely Wright's future. She is an extremely gifted singer and songwriter.
The Definitive Singer May 25, 2007
David Jones (North Wales, United Kingdom)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
In my view, Chely Wright is one of the best singers in music in any genre. I have every album she's made, including an autographed copy of this, The Definitive Collection and an excellent retrospective to showcase her talent. Chely has been on the Country Music scene since 1994's Woman on the Moon, and since then has made Right in the Middle of It (1996), Let Me In (1997), her breakthrough album Single White Female (1999 - RIAA certified Gold), Never Love You Enough (2001) and something I personally consider to be a masterpiece of songwriting, vocal delivery and musicanship, 2005's The Metropolitan Hotel. She is also currently working on another album.
If you're interested in buying this "best of", then do so, as it is a great place to start. Chely has a wonderfully unique voice. She sings in alto and, I think, makes every phrase a portrait of perfection.
Chely works with a whole host of excellent songwriters and is also an accomplished songwriter in her own ... wright, as Back of the Bottom Drawer, among others, will show. This CD also shows how her musicality has grown. In the first couple of tracks from her debut album, they are undeniably country, but then go into soft ballad territory in the songs from Let Me In, like "Just Another Heartache" and "I Already Do". One of my favourite songs by any artist "The Love That We Lost", is also here. We then go into Country Pop waters with "Single White Female", which sees Chely putting an ad in the paper: "I'm a single white female/Lookin' for the perfect lover/To put it in a nutshell/A one woman man who doesn't want no other".
And we also touch ballads again with the gentle "Picket Fences", which is another Chely wrote herself. "Never Love You Enough" takes us further into pop: "I could kiss you in the rain forever/Turn all of your pain to pleasure/Fill up all your days with sunlight/Make the passion last every night."
And then we reach "Back of the Bottom Drawer", the lead single to The Metropolitan Hotel, in which she plays a woman who keeps old mementoes of past, mildstone relationships in the back of her drawer.
"A napkin that is stained with time
Has a poem on it that didn't quite rhyme, but it made me cry
In a 'Dear Jane' letter from a different guy
He broke up with me and he told me I'm not always right
And a stolen key from an old hotel room door
In the back of the bottom drawer"
The last song is the famous "Bumper of My SUV", which Chely wrote after a woman past her in the car, saw a sticker saying United States Marines and derided Chely, assuming she knew the patriatism and pride which made Chely put the sticker there in the first place. The song, which Chely performed while entertaining American troops in Iraq (something she has done repeatedly since - on the front line) was never initially planned to be a single, but through word of mouth, drifted over the Atlantic and was played on radio so much that it eventually became yet another hit for Chely.
This is The Definitive Collection, from who I consider to be The Definitive Singer, Chely Wright.
 A very good cd March 28, 2007
Ive been listening to this CD for about a week and I like it so far. No, its not truly great music, but most of the songs are pretty good. A few are catchy, and Chely Wright does a great job selling them. This music will never be considered "classic" but its definitely worth repeated listens.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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