The Top Tens- Best Dixie Chicks Songs

It has been 11 years since The Dixie Chicks first burst onto country music radio and onto the album charts with their debut album, “Wide Open Spaces”. Comprised of Martie Maguire, Emily Robison and lead singer Natalie Maines, the group already sold over 30 million albums in the United States alone, making them the best-selling female group in the country.

How big were the Dixie Chicks a decade ago? In 1998, the Dixie Chicks sold more CDs than all other country music groups combined. Here is a look one critics view of their top ten songs and how each song shaped a career in process.

10. “There’s Your Trouble” – The song became the band's first No. 1 single on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in August 1998. In doing so, it became the first chart-topping song on SONY's newly resurrected Monument Records label. In 1999, the Dixie Chicks were awarded a Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group for their performance of “There’s Your Trouble”.

9. “Ready to Run” – While not in the movie, this tune is the theme song for Julia Roberts in the movie Runaway Bride. This song stresses the importance of knowing when you aren’t ready for marriage and when fun means freedom.

8. “Goodbye Earl” – This song sparked controversy back when it was released because many people felt that it encouraged violence with its lyrics, “Earl had to die / Goodbye Earl”. The song, arguing the negative effects of domestic violence, attempted to be lighthearted and got shot down in the dark- most people against it missed the irony and humor.

7. “Without You” – This was a great ballad of longing. Another number one hit from 1999, this music video was beautiful and controversial in its own right. Directed by Thom Oliphant and Maines' husband Adrian Pasdar, almost every shot was of a nude person against a completely white background, be it the three Chicks (from the shoulders up), a muscular African-American male, a very pregnant woman, another woman, or a baby.

6. “Cowboy Take Me Away” – What young woman wouldn’t want to be swept off her feet by a hot, dreamy cowboy? “Oh it sounds good to me/ Yeah it sounds so good to me/ Cowboy, take me away.” Starting with a quiet opening, the record ramps up to a mid-tempo country-pop groove and features violin breaks from Seidel as well as an exuberant outro. Maines was praised for a "sincere" vocal that escaped the clichés of some of Nashville’s music-factory tearjerkers.

5. “Landslide” – The Dixie Chicks covered the Fleedwood Mac tune "Landslide" on their 2002 Home album. This rendition, featuring the group's trademark two- and three-part harmonies and country phrasings, was very popular, reaching the Top 10 of both the pop (#7) and country charts (#2) as well as several other charts. It became the Dixie Chicks' only #1 single (to date) on the adult contemporary chart. Lead singer Natalie Maines said she was attracted, in part, to the song because she was then the same age that Nicks was when she performed it. A deluxe edition of Home contained a remixed version of "Landslide" produced by singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow. The Dixie Chicks created another arrangement of the song using inverted harmonies for performance on their 2006 tour Accidents & Accusations.

4. “Travelin’ Soldier” – The song has the distinction of being the one that the Dixie Chicks were promoting when lead singer Natalie Maines said that the band is ashamed that the (then) United States President George W. Bush is from Texas. "Travelin' Soldier" was at #1 on the Country singles chart the week that Maines' comments hit the press. This caused the song to drop significantly in airplay over the next week, falling to #3 on the March 29 chart before disappearing entirely. Forty-two stations owned by Cumulus Media also pulled the song at the same time.

3. “The Long Way Around” – in their earlier albums, the Dixie Chicks had a target demographic of young women in love and heartache. “The Long Way Around”, from the latest album of the same name, caters to an older demographic of young women who don’t believe in adhering to the social pressures of settling down until they are darn good and ready! “Well I never seem to do it like anybody else /Maybe someday, someday I’m gonna settle down / Takin’ the long way around”.

2. “Wide Open Spaces” – This song was the title track on the Dixie Chicks’ 1998 debut album, paints a picture all too familiar to many parents. In 2001, the RIAA placed "Wide Open Spaces" at number 259 on its 365 Songs of the Century list. In 2003, CMT named it number 22 in its 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music list. The song gained the girls Nashville respect, as it was named the Country Music Association Awards Single of the Year in 1999 and also won Gibson the American Songwriter Professional Country Songwriter of the Year award in early 2000.

1.“Not Ready to Make Nice” - The Dixie Chicks’ latest release, Through the aftermath of the much-publicized George W Bush comments, this release gave their side of the story through song. It’s best said through the artists own words what this song meant to them:

Emily: "The stakes were definitely higher on that song. We knew it was special because it was so autobiographical, and we had to get it right. We've all gone through so many emotions about the incident. We talked for days with Dan before putting pen to paper, and he really helped get inside our heads and put these feelings out. And once we had this song done, it freed us up to do the rest of the album without that burden."

Martie: "We had reached a point where we were laughing a lot about it, and people didn't really know how far it had gone. I realized I had suppressed a lot about the death threat. It all came flooding back in the process of writing this song, I think we all realized just how painful it had been for us.."

Natalie: "We tried to write about the incident a few times, but you get nervous that you're being too preachy or too victimized or too nonchalant. Dan came in with an idea that was some kind of concession, more 'can't we all just get along?' and I said, nope, I can't say that, can't do it. And we talked about it, and he said, what about "I'm not ready to make nice?" From the outside, normal people really weren't aware of how bizarre and absurd it got. Dan was really good at cluing in to that, saying something that didn't back down, but still had a vulnerability to it. This album was therapy. To write these songs allowed me to find peace with everything and move on."