Reba: Revived Remixed Revisited

Revived Remixed Revisited is an ambitious catalog project where Reba McEntire looks back upon her career and decides to present familiar songs in three new lights. "Revived" finds McEntire delivering old hits in the overblown fashion of her stage show, "Remixed" offers ten dance club-oriented remixes of old recordings, while "Revisited" contains acoustic-anchored rearrangements of ten old tunes. It's a lot to absorb, with "Fancy" being the common thread: the song concludes each of the three discs, illustrating how "Revived" is splashy and melodramatic, "Remixed" is bombastic and slightly tacky, and "Revived" is stripped-down and soulful. There are merits to all three approaches and, when combined, they do give a sense of why Reba McEntire remains a country and pop icon 40 years after her first big hits. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine