Live Like You Were Dying

How Bad Do You Want It?
by: julie oehme

Having viewed McGraw's last album, Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors, as having a sound more appealing to the masses while managing to uphold the fundamentals of country music, I feel Live Like... is an album that will appeal more to the true country music fan verses a "cross over" fan, with tracks like "Do You Want Fries With That" and "Back When". It is in finding the fun and intended humor in songs such as these that allow for virtually anyone to appreciate them in some way. (Who can't find the humor in the lyrics "back when a hoe was a hoe and a screw was a screw"?)

What makes McGraw such a phenomenal performer, country fan or not, is his ability to take a simple lyrical composition and, in the delivery of it, burn it beautifully into your memory before you even realize what's happened to you. "Blank Sheet of Paper" and "My Old Friend" are both simple songs that McGraw makes warm and memorable and are tracks that you will play over and over again. Of course, the album would not be complete without the huge hit "Live Like You Were Dying". It is an amazing song that will make you want to live and love more, even if for a moment.

I am giving this album a 3 out of 5, not because it isn't a solid collection of songs, but because it does not match the magnitude of appeal and longevity of his last album, which I still haven't taken out of my most-played rotation of disks. 06-Oct-2004 9:13 PM