Martina McBride Martina

Bargain Audio CDs & Priceless Collection (series)

Personnel: Martina McBride (vocals); Biff Watson, B. James Lowrey (acoustic guitar); J.T. Corenflos (electric guitar); Paul Franklin (steel guitar);

John Mock (whistle); John Hobbs (piano, hammond B-3 organ); Tony Harrell (synthesizer); Glen Worf (bass); Lonnie Wilson, Matt Chamberlain (drums); David Huff (percussion, programming); Bryan Sutton, Vince Gill (background vocals).

Recorded at The Money Pit, Black Bird, Paragon Studios, Nashville, Tennessee; Skagg's Place, Hendersonville, Tennessee.

"This One's For The Girls" was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

The sound of mainstream contemporary country hits you square in the face with no apologies on MARTINA. As on her earlier, massively successful albums, Nashville belter Martina McBride (you thought maybe the title referred to the tennis player?) continues in the style that garnered her a huge audience in the second half of the 1990s. The album is full of gently anthemic pop/country songs sporting simple lyrics full of positive messages. "She's a Butterfly," for example, sounds like it could have been the alternate theme for DAWSON'S CREEK, and the forthright "City of Love" seems tailor-made for an urban-renewal campaign commercial. Not that McBride doesn't speak directly to her audience--it's hard to get more direct than a shout-out like "this is for all you girls about 25" (from "This One's for the Girls," it changes to 42 in a later verse). Presumably, her message of standing tall against adversity is received loud and clear by those for whom it is intended.