A different side of faith.

As a Faith fan, i will say that this is Faith's best piece of work that she has released. She done something that no other country artist has ever done. She made an album that has gospel, country, pop and r&b. This album is not about having fun and love songs it's more about what people goes through every day. This is an album that comes from the heart and speaks from the soul. Faith really puts her all into this album and you can feel it when she sing's "When The Lights Go Down", "Stronger", "If This Is The End" and "Cry." Then there you have her singing uptepo's with "Free" and "One". The only thing left is the most powerful meaning and story behind the song "If This Is An End" a tragic end to a love. The one song that i could live without on this album is "Beautiful."



1.) Free 4/5

2.) Cry 5/5

3.) One 5/5

4.) When The Lights Go Down 5/5

5.) Beautiful 2/5

6.) Unsaveable 5/5

7.) Baby You Belong 5/5

8.) If You're Gonna Fly Away 4/5

9.) Stronger 5/5

10.) If This Is The End 5/5

11.) This Is Me 5/5

12.) Back To You 5/5

13.) I Think I will 5/5

14.) You're Still Here 5/5



Overall: What more could you ask for with this album. Almost all the songs on the album is good you can't get any better than this. It was worth every money that i spent on it. I have over 400 CD's and this is one of my favorites of all time. She couldn't have done it any better than what she did. She get's better with each album.

Album Rating:5/5

Best Song On The Ablum: "If This Is The End"

Problematic Attempt At International Pop Stardom

Though she had probably been going about it from the very start of her career, on her last two albums, 1999's BREATHE, and her 2002 album CRY, Faith Hill has definitely set her eyes on pop, or at least adult contemporary, stardom on a scale exceeded, at least in country music, only by Shania Twain. The fact that she has sold somewhere between twenty and thirty million albums would definitely justify that Faith's way of thinking has been the right way.



Album sales, however, only make up part of the story. Faith has not always been able to avoid being musically controversial (her questionable rendition of Janis Joplin's "Piece Of My Heart" on her debut album still rankles many a classic rock fan, for instance); and on her 2002 album CRY, she takes the pop sound of BREATHE and takes it even further. Where BREATHE still hewed to something of a country aesthetic, CRY is very straight-ahead pop, something that is bound to anger a lot of country music fans who feel as if she has betrayed their trust.



The end result is a very problematic attempt at matching Shania in the international pop/country crossover stardom field. Faith and her producers seem to believe that massive production values (occasional screaming guitar solos, synthetic drumming, big gospel choirs) are the ticket to pop stardom; witness the two big hits to come from the album, the title track and the "important message" song "When The Lights Go Down." As was the case on BREATHE, there are places on CRY, like the just-mentioned two tracks, where Faith's singing is a bit over-wrought.



In the end Faith may have put herself in a very uncomfortable place. With this album, she seems to want an audience that may not have much if any use for her brand of Nashville pop over the long haul; and by having made CRY so pop-oriented, she may end up completely alienating a country fanbase that has supported her from the start. In any case, it is a strikingly uneven album, and points out the fact that her career may not stay stable unless she retools things to be less bombastic.

Why Faint? Why?

This is the worst country cd i have ever bought. I thought "breathe " was already bad, and now this. Ughh...i just got rip off by this no good album. I think Faith has lost her touch as of now. I guess i really bought it because the cover was really nice. But as the old saying goes "Never judge a book or audio cd by it cover! I won't make the same mistake again. So if you love hearing real country, i recommend getting Terri Clark "Pain to kill"!