Personnel includes: Faith Hill (vocals); Damon Johnson (acoustic, electric & slide guitars); Marti Frederiksen (acoustic & electric guitars,

percussion, background vocals); Tim Pierce (acoustic & electric guitars); Dean Parks (acoustic guitar); Michael Landau, Bryan Gallimore (electric guitar, background vocals); Suzie Katayama (violin); Jim Cox (piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Jamie Muhoberac (keyboards); Paul Bushnell. Leland Sklar (bass); Vinnie Colaiuta (drums); Bekka Bramlet (tambourine, background vocals); Eric Carter, Frank Macek (programming); Erik Lutkins (loops); Doug Moffet, Lisa Gregg, Lisa Cochran, Crystal Taliefero, Chris Rodriguez (background vocals).

Producers: Byron Gallimore, Dann Huff, Marti Frederiksen.

CRY was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Country Album. "Cry" won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

This is a DVD-Audio disc. The DVD-Audio content can only be read by a DVD-Audio player. The Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks provided on this disc will play on a standard DVD player.

Lavishly produced and packaged, Cry marks the continued ascent of Faith Hill from the lowlands of down-home authenticity to the heights of pop superstardom. Though plenty of Nashville A-team players back her up, the sound they churn out has almost nothing to do with country music. Riding a tide of massed synthesizer textures, sweeping orchestral strings, thundering drums, rock guitar licks, and melodramatic dynamics, Hill strives for the biggest possible gestures in her performance. The results are the kind of glitzy fireworks normally associated with Star Search or American Idol, in which the lyrics take a backseat to raw exhibitionism, and only the most cursory nod is made toward country lyrical convention. ~ Robert L. Doerschuk

Lavishly produced and packaged, Cry marks the continued ascent of Faith Hill from the lowlands of down-home authenticity to the heights of pop superstardom. Though plenty of Nashville A-team players back her up, the sound they churn out has almost nothing to do with country music. Riding a tide of massed synthesizer textures, sweeping orchestral strings, thundering drums, rock guitar licks, and melodramatic dynamics, Hill strives for the biggest possible gestures in her performance. The result is the kind of glitzy fireworks normally associated with Star Search or American Idol, in which the lyric takes a distant backseat to raw exhibitionism and only the most cursory nod is made toward country lyrical convention. (The nod is particularly schizoid in "This Is Me," as Hill proclaims, "I try to love Jesus and myself...yeah, yeah.") Beyond the general issue of taste, this approach raises twofold problems for Hill in particular, in that her established skills as a song interpreter are lost in all this sturm und drang and her voice, while undeniably powerful at its peak, doesn't have the range that allows most singers in this style, from proto-diva Barbra Streisand to flameout icon Mariah Carey, to at least milk the material at some superficial level. With all this in mind, it may be significant that Tim McGraw, a guest on previous Hill albums, makes no appearance here. Perhaps there's no room for country credibility, or even for a spouse, when one's career trajectory is as hot as Hill's. ~ Robert L. Doerschuk

Listening to the opening track "Free" on Faith Hill's CRY, one might be momentarily thrown; is this the Nashville country-pop siren we've come to know, or has the new Christina Aguilera album been mistakenly packaged in this jewel case? Come to think of it, the album cover might prompt the same question. While the electronic, pumping dance-pop rhythms of "Free" are far from what we think of as the Nashville sound, even in the 21st century, expectations are put back on track with the next track. The title song is closer to the Garth Brooks-meets-Pat Benatar power ballad sound commonly associated with Hill. The rest of the album walks a tightrope between the two styles, darting back and forth on either side. While the likes of "Stronger" and "You're Still Here" are ballads close to Hill's country-pop beginnings, many other tracks here utilize ultra-contemporary dance-pop production techniques in a seeming attempt to push Hill to maturing Britney-lovers. Since Hill has never exactly been what anyone would call "rootsy," this shift in stylistic emphasis is not too tumultuous, and is unlikely to disturb her (huge) hardcore fanbase.

DVD Features:

Region 0

Super Jewel Case

Audio:

MLP 6-Channel - 192 kHz

MLP 6-Channel - 96 kHz

Dolby Digital 5.1

DTS Surround 5.1

Additional Release Material:

Featurettes - 1. Behind-The-Scenes

2. Photo Shoot

Entertainment Weekly (10/18/02, pp.110-11) - "...Hill's ability to nail a decent song...feels like an old-fashioned godsend..." - Rating:B