To get an idea of exactly how many Ronnie Milsap collections are on the market, just turn to the back page of the booklet for RCA/Legacy's 2006 double-disc set The Essential Ronnie Milsap, where it lists other Ronnie albums you might also enjoy. There are ten listed, all but one of them a compilation (that would be his very, very good 2006 comeback, My Life). Which begs the natural question, is The Essential Ronnie Milsap needed? Especially since there is already another compilation called The Essential Ronnie Milsap (dating from 1995), and there already was an excellent double-disc set called 40 #1 Hits released six years earlier? The answer is, yes it is, particularly since 40 #1 Hits has fallen out of print. Of course, it also helps that Essential is an expertly chosen and sequenced collection of Milsap's best work, from 1973's "(All Together Now) Let's Fall Apart" and running all the way to 1989's "A Woman in Love."

Margo Price begins Strays by declaring that she's been to the mountain and back, a proclamation she pairs with a stylized, amorous throb that's equal parts new wave and classic rock. That statement and that sound make it clear that Strays finds Price continuing to wander far afield from the traditional country of her 2016 debut Midwest Farmer's Daughter, developing a distinctive synthesis of a variety of styles that can't quite be pegged as Americana. Sharp, incisive songwriting remains at the heart of her music, allowing Price to weave different sounds and rhythms into her probing, emotionally open songs.

Just like the title says – 17 of Fricke's biggest hits from her the early '80s, including the number ones "He's A Heartache (Looking for a Place to Happen)", "It Ain't Easy Bein' Easy", "Don' Worry 'Bout Me Baby", and "Your Heart's Not In It".

For her third album, Chely Wright switched record labels and teamed up with producer Tony Brown, who helmed the boards for records by George Strait and Reba McEntire, among others. Brown stripped Wright's music down to the core – for much of Let Me In, she's singing over clean acoustic arrangements; only a few cuts are adorned with pop/rock instrumentation. Wright benefits from the spare arrangements, which only emphasize her lovely voice and charisma. The result is her most accomplished and arguably best album to date.

This 2012 box set rounds up Blake Shelton's first five albums – Blake Shelton, The Dreamer, Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill, Pure BS, and Startin' Fires – presenting them as mini-LPs in a slipcase. There are no bonus tracks but this is an easy, affordable, and handsome way to get Shelton's prime.

The electric pianos that kick off "You Look So Good in Love," the opening song on George Strait's third album Right or Wrong, may suggest that Strait is softening a bit, but that first impression is a bit misleading. As soon as that ballad is over, he launches into the Bob Wills standard that gives this album its title and he's as dexterous and as pure country as ever, and the rest of the album follows the lead of its title song, not the opening cut. To be sure, there are other ballads and slightly slicker material here, but the heart of this record is in the pure country of the Bakersfield love tune "A Little Heaven's Rubbing Off on Me," the light, funny "80 Proof Bottle of Tear Stopper," the Merle Haggard cover "Our Paths May Never Cross" and the barroom weeper "Let's Fall to Pieces Together." The overall tone of Right or Wrong is a little bit lighter than his first two albums – the Western swing skips, it doesn't ride the beat hard, the honky tonk numbers don't hit at the gut, they hit at the heart – but that only emphasizes how natural Strait's delivery is, and how he makes it all sound easy, and all sound good. It's another fine album from a singer who was already notching up a lot of them.

Continuing to go her own way on Gospel Plow, Elizabeth Cook is another artist who's too rock for country and too country for rock, although in the music business climate of 2012 she may be too country for country, too. As you might expect from the title of this mini-album, Gospel Plow is a record of sacred music, although it's marked by Cook's own inimitable mix of styles and features at least one track that will surprise almost any country fan, not matter how alt. The songs are mostly familiar, although the arrangements are anything but…

Elizabeth Cook comes to country music naturally; her parents had a working honky tonk band and her first public performance was on-stage with them when she was just a tyke…

Lee Greenwood scored 19 Top Ten country hits on the Billboard charts between 1982 and 1988 while contracted to MCA Records, and 12 of them are included on this midline-priced best-of, including ten of his 12 Top Five hits, among them all seven of his chart-toppers. Especially because country albums tend to be on the skimpy side (Greenwood's 1985 Greatest Hits LP had only ten tracks), this is an unusually good selection for a discount record. Of course, it includes Greenwood's signature song, "God Bless the U.S.A.," which was given a renewed burst of popularity in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This is not a complete collection of all of Greenwood's hits or even all of his MCA hits, but it presents most of his best-known material at a reasonable price.

Walking Away a Winner is the rocked-up/pop side of Kathy Mattea. With records by Mary Chapin Carpenter gathering steam as well as those of Beth Nielsen Chapman, Lucinda Williams getting some notice, and Bonnie Raitt riding the very top of the charts over the previous two years, Mattea took a listen and apparently liked what she heard. There are layers and layers of guitars on the album, and nowhere are they borne out more than on the title track that opens the album. With producer Josh Leo and a deck of tough songs, Mattea showed a side her country audience hadn't yet seen, and one that the adult contemporary and emerging AAA formats could embrace.