Sony's new "Playlist" series is being marketed as a series that combines an artist's big hits plus some rare and out-of-print tracks in a single, budget-priced disc. Yet this 14-track Tammy Wynette volume contains not a single rare or out-of-print track, just the same handful of hits that have appeared on countless other compilations.

If you don't own any of Tammy's music, this collection is a good place to start. Otherwise, save your money.

Legacy's latest version of the single-disc artist overview has a few novel twists. Rather than a strict chronological recitation of an artist's chart hits, the song selections are meant to gather those tracks a fan might compile for themselves. The 14-track playlists are still hit focused, but don't always provide a full accounting of an artist's chart success. Mono singles, longer album versions, out-of-print and non-hit tracks are sequenced to optimize song-to-song segues and draw out an impression of the artist's overall catalog. The results are intended to deliver a listening experience rather than a hits archive. As a physical disc, Legacy's marketing these as CD-quality alternatives to MP3s, improving on the package's ecological aspects with a plastic-free digipack made of 100% recycled paperboard, and including additional materials (pictures, liner notes, credits, wallpapers) on the disc itself, rather than in a printed booklet.

How well each Playlist volumes live up to the marketing promise differs artist by artist. With over forty hit singles to her name, Wynette's Playlist couldn't possibly capture them all; instead, the selections cherry-pick hits that stretch from 1966's "Apartment #9" through 1976's chart topping "'Til I Can Make it on My Own." All fourteen tracks are notated as identical recordings on 45 and LP, so there's no collector's aspect, and given that the same titles were released in 2004 as The Essential Tammy Wynette, this volume is more of a repackage rather than a fresh appraisal. That said, this is a solid single-disc introduction to one of country music's greatest vocalists. It's not a deep survey or career retrospective, for that you'll need to seek the out-of-print Tears of Fire: The 25th Anniversary Collection. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]