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Clint Black is often an amazing songwriter with one of the best pure voices in contemporary country music. However, since his impressive debut, Killin' Time, Black seems to have grown increasingly more attached to clever word play and abstract ideas than he is to emotion and narrative. And when the songs are as awful as "A Bad Goodbye" (an overwrought 1993 duet with Wynonna), who cares how good his voice is? The Greatest Hits collects, seemingly at random, 14 of his Top 10 hits released between 1989 and 1996, plus an album track and a live Eagles cover. However, it omits at least 10 singles from that period that were every bit as popular and, unfortunately, most of them were from his superior earlier years. Still, any album that includes "A Better Man" (a modern country masterpiece), "We Tell Ourselves" (an idea song that works), and "Put Yourself in My Shoes" (as good a male vocal performance as Nashville has heard in 15 years) can hardly be called bad. But it sure can be called disappointing. --David Cantwell