Drive

The 10 songs on Steve Wariner's 15th album are all tasteful country-pop numbers with pleasant melodies, well-sung and well played, but without anything distinctive to remember them by. Wariner never lapses into bad taste and embarrassing corniness as George Jones and Dolly Parton frequently do, but neither does Wariner tap into the uninhibited honesty and one-of-a-kind eccentricity that inspire Jones's and Parton's best moments. The album's first single, "If I Didn't Love You," written by Jon Vezner and Jack White, is a clever song that starts out by describing the freedom the singer would enjoy if he didn't love his wife and ends up admitting how empty that life would be if he didn't have her. When Wariner sings that the next time he's crying from a broken heart "It Won't Be Over You," he delivers none of the gleeful vengefulness that this put-down song desperately needs. The album's best songs are the final two, which tilt the pop-country balance heavily in the direction of pop. --Geoffrey Himes