Everywhere We Go (BNA, 1999)

Over the past five years Kenny Chesney has become one of the best - and most underrated - male singers in country music, and this, his fifth album, proves why again. The smash hit, "How Forever Feels," is an uptempo, feel-good song that mines the same territory as his past hits, "Fall in Love" and "She's Got It All." Chesney and Skip Ewing wrote the pretty ballad "You Had Me From Hello" after hearing the title line in the movie "Jerry Maguire."

But even though Chesney has built his career on such uptempo love songs and ballads, the midtempo songs shine brightest. In the album's steel-laden opening song, "What I Need to Do," the singer is driving away from his girlfriend, and even though he knows he should turn around, he can't bring himself to do it. "California" is about a girl's attempt to escape the memories of her sexually abusive father. The soft twang of Chesney's voice and his fiddle-and-steel-laden music provide a reminder that there's still good music to be heard on new country radio.