Universal Music Group’s “catalog” series of budget compilations is called ICON: The Best Of (replacing “20th Century Masters” (we are a decade into the 21st century, after all) and while it primarily focuses on repackaging albums from long gone artists who once recorded for the group of labels, they are also showcasing some current artists who’ve had enough hits to warrant such a release. And since “Greatest Hits” aren’t necessarily on the radar of most of the current stars, they can serve a great purpose in this digital age, particularly in country music where fans still buy CDs. This brings us to Billy Currington’s Icon: The Best of Billy Currington, an album which covers the years 2002-2009.  This means while the most recent studio album Enjoy Yourself isn’t covered here here, every other single released to radio before that album is, including the non-album single “Tangled Up.”

Billy’s debut single “Walk A Little Straighter” showcased a young man who wants his dad to stop being the messed up guy to stop ‘leading’ the son towards the same problems. Yet, late in the song we learn that the narrator of the song hasn’t actually followed in his father’s footsteps, something he’s thankful for, so his kids won’t have to witness the same thing. The other song from Billy Currington that appears on Icon: The Best of Billy Currington is his first Top 5 hit, “I Got A Feelin’.”

The three singles from sophomore Doin’ Something Right are the title track “Must Be Doin’ Somehing Right,” a song that became Billy’s first #1 and showcased his ease at singing R&B flavored tunes. After this tune, Billy released “Why, Why, Why” to country radio and it hit the Top 15 but it was the first time in his short career that he failed to hit at least the Top 10 with a single, a trend which would happen again in the future. Rather than ‘punt’ the album after two singles, Billy released the Luke Bryan-penned “Good Directions,” and proceeded to have the biggest hit of his career to that point. It also proved to country radio that Billy Currington could deliver another big hit.

The previously mentioned “Tangled Up” was released as the lead single from Billy’s third album but when the single faled to hit higher than #30 on the charts, the label moved on to a new song and that was“Don’t.” Like “Must Be Doin’ Somethin’ Right,” Don’t found Billy Currington showing off the soulful side to his personality with the romantic single.  It hit #1 on Radio and Records and #2 on Billboard. The following single “People Are Crazy” with the famous refrain “God is good, beer is great, and people are crazy,” has to, to this date, been Billy Currington’s biggest hit. It’s his only Platinum selling digital single while the song helped Little Bit of Everything get certified as a Gold-selling (500,000) album. It is a great traditionalist story song while “That’s How Country Boys Roll” found Billy returning to #1. It’s the final hit on this collection.

Icon: The Best of Billy Currington rounds itself out with a couple non-album tracks in “Swimmin’ In Sunshine” from Little Bit of Everything and “She’s Got A Way With Me” from Doin’ Something Right. It makes the album a lean collection of mostly the hits but we can’t help but wonder why “Party For Two,” the Top 10 hit duet with Shania Twain from 2005 wasn’t included on this collection. Shania records for the same record label, even. We also wonder why one or two other good songs like “Off My Rocker” from Billy Currington or the fantastic cover of “Lucille” from Little Bit of Everything wasn’t included here.

Still, given the budget price of between $7-8 at stores like Walmart, Target, Best Buy or digital stores like Amazon and iTunes below, it’s hard not to find value in this record as a great introduction to the first decade of Billy Currington’s career, or as something that helps bring more recent fans of Billy Currington up to date.

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