Woman Enough: 20 Reasons to Take the "O" Out of Country
1. Elizabeth Cook, "Sometimes It Takes Balls to be a Woman" (from Balls, 31 Tigers)
2. Lori McKenna, "Unglamorous" (from Unglamorous, Warner Bros.)
3. Lauren Lucas, "Riverstone" (from If I Was Your Girl EP, self-issued)
4. Taylor Swift, "A Perfectly Good Heart" (from Taylor Swift: Deluxe Edition, Big Machine)
5. Wendy Newcomer, "Killing the Blues" (from Wendy Newcomer, Directly)
6. Laura Bell, "Texas" 4:19 (from Longing for a Place Already Gone, the LAB)
7. Carrie Underwood, "Just a Dream" (from Carnival Ride, 19)
8. Rissi Palmer, "Country Girl" (from Rissi Palmer, RCG)
9. Miranda Lambert, "Gunpowder & Lead" (from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sony BMG)
10. Tammy Cochran, "As Soon as I'm Over You" (from Where I Am, Shanachie)
11. Deana Carter, "You Ain't Woman Enough" (from The Chain, Vanguard)
12. Sunny Sweeney, "Next Big Nothing" (from Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame, Big Machine)
13. Gretchen Wilson, "Pain Killer" (from One of the Boys, Epic)
14. Carolyn Dawn Johnson, "Got a Good Day" 3:55 (from Love & Negotiation, Angeline, Canada)
15. Sarah Johns, "If You Could Hold Your Woman" (from Big Love in a Small Town, BMG)
16. The Wreckers, "Damn That Radio" (from Way Back Home: Live From New York City, Warner Bros.)
17. LeAnn Rimes, "Nothing Better to Do" (from Family, Curb)
18. Kellie Coffey, "It" (from Walk On, Duet)
19. Sarah Buxton, "Stupid Boy" (from Almost My Record, Lyric Street)
20. Dolly Parton, "Better Get to Livin'" (single, Dolly)

As I write this, the Billboard country Top 20 sports only six female voices, and one of them belongs to Miley Cyrus (delivering dad and duet partner Billy Ray's biggest hit since 2000—this kid is owed some serious Christmas loot). Modern mainstream country is entirely dominated by men because the modern mainstream country audience is entirely dominated by women, who apparently would rather be serenaded by a dude.

This gender inequity is one reason country radio is such a bore at the moment. It's increasingly difficult to tell one guy singing about how proud he is to be a redneck from some other guy singing about how proud he is to be a redneck, even for someone like myself whose business it is to parse these fine distinctions.

My mix CD is meant as an argument that women, unbound by the expectations placed on men to hew to a set of non-negotiable country clichés, are producing more interesting work in mainstream country than their bepenised counterparts. A few of the year's best country albums were made by guys, but women cornered the market on the kind of emotional complexity that has always been the genre's most underappreciated resource.

Some of these women are internationally famous, and some are obscure. Some lean toward the pop-country end of Music Row, while others hew squarely to the traditional. But they all have something country could use more of right now: balls. Hence, our overture.

1.. Musically, Florida native Elizabeth Cook is grounded firmly in traditional country (she made more than 100 appearances on the Grand Ole Opry before releasing her first album). Even this cheeky tune sounds old-school—check out the priceless way the line, "She makes a mean lasagna," is followed by a cheerful "Mmm!" from the background singers.

2. Lori McKenna's major-label debut was co-produced by country superstar Tim McGraw, and the friction between the intimacy of her detail-oriented songwriting and the propulsive sheen of the sound makes for compelling listening. The title track celebrates the ordinary joys of family life with more authenticity and warmth than any of the endless number of recent country hits that attempt to do the same.

3. Lauren Lucas's self-released debut EP is bursting with songs that could be hits with some marketing muscle, but "Riverstone" isn't one of them. That's because it's a worthy addition to the great country tradition of murder ballads, which the genre has rejected in favor of fetishizing blameless death (preferably that of a child, ideally from cancer). But the lyrical image of a naked woman with a Bible in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other? As a wise man (well, David Allan Coe, anyway) once sang, "If that ain't country, I'll kiss your ass."

4. This is a bit of a cheat—it's one of three new songs tacked onto the new "deluxe edition" of 18-year-old Taylor Swift's 2006 debut. But this tale of first-time heartbreak perfectly illustrates the reason she's attracted an army of fans in her age bracket—while teen singers usually pose as either prodigy or jailbait, she writes honestly and straightforwardly about how it feels to be a young person learning about the world.

5. Roly Salley's "Killing the Blues" is a magnificent little slice of melancholy that was finally given a wider public hearing when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss recorded it for their recent Raising Sand album. But Wendy Newcomer had already beaten them to it, and her version simmers and sways with a solitary ache their version (lovely as it is) can't touch. Every time she reaches up for that last "swingin' the world by the tail" my heart breaks all over again.

6. Broadway star Laura Bell Bundy made her first country album this year (apparently misplacing her last name in the process), and she brings an intriguing approach to music that's quite a ways from her day job in the onstage version of Legally Blonde. The loping, Bobbie Gentry-ish "Texas" is playfully sensual in a genre lacking in both playfulness and sensuality.

7. The days of Toby Keith's war-boosting "boot in your ass" are long gone even in country music, replaced by more contemplative fare like this impressionistic, elliptical portrait of a military funeral. "Just a Dream" works so well because it never tells you what to feel—it just paints a sad, sorry picture and lets you do the rest. Plus Underwood sings the almighty hell out of it, which always helps.

8. Rissi Palmer recently became the first African-American woman in two decades to appear on the country chart when "Country Girl" eked out a No. 54 placing. Does this mean country's long, shameful aversion to minority inclusion is ending? Nah, probably not. But she's only one of many young, talented black singers right now whose love for country music has yet to be returned in kind. Anyway, this is one catchy-ass song.

9. Remember what I said earlier about modern country's abandonment of murder as a narrative device? Another exception is Miranda Lambert, who threatened immolation on "Kerosene" and now depicts herself waiting around to blow her abusive beau's head off as soon as he gets out of jail on "Gunpowder & Lead." Is it just me, or is there something sexy about a woman willing to use deadly force?

10. Tammy Cochran is another major-label refugee who now has to bust ass just to let her old fans know she has a new album out. Where I Am focuses mostly on the sort of ballads that were her specialty during her brief hitmaking period ("Angels in Waiting," "Cry"), but "As Soon as I'm Over You" is a cool mid-tempo groover in the Dusty in Memphis vein.

11. Deana Carter rethinks Loretta Lynn's 1966 hit, casting its protofeminist (post-feminist? anti-feminist?) lyric in an undeniably modern setting with just the lightest dash of hip-hop. Drum machines have infected country music to ill effect, but Carter uses hers to make a point.

12. You know how every waiter in L.A. is really an actor? In Nashville, every waiter, diner, bartender, hostess, and busboy is a singer and songwriter. Hell, the hobo outside the restaurant probably has a demo in his pocket. "Next Big Nothing" is a wry commentary on the near-total certainty of obscurity in a place like this—something Sunny Sweeney thankfully seems likely to avoid. Extra points for squeezing three syllables out of "Opry."

13. Gretchen Wilson's 2004 debut, Here for the Party, was a quintuple-platinum blockbuster that seemed destined to usher in a new golden age for women in country. Didn't happen. The female acts inevitably signed in a rush after her breakthrough mostly have faded already, and Wilson's own follow-ups have offered diminishing returns both commercially and artistically. One of the Boys is a leaden disappointment overall, but the soulful "Pain Killer" (sadly, not a cover of the Judas Priest song of the same name) and a couple of other tracks offer a reminder of why she once sounded like the genre's savior.

14. Carolyn Dawn Johnson is still a star in her native Canada, but she appears to have hit a wall in the States—her label is in no rush to release her third album, Love & Negotiation, south of the border. That's a shame, because Johnson has a terrific knack for crafting catchy, smart pop-country tracks like this effervescent number.

15. Sarah Johns is a hardcore honky-tonk girl from the wilds of Kentucky, but little of her natural flair came across on her oddly restrained debut album. Big Love worked best in small doses, like this memorable gripe about a time-honored country-music quandary: the difficulty of loving a drunken asshole.

16. Michelle Branch abandoned pop stardom and defied skeptics to pursue a country career as half of the Wreckers, and it worked out splendidly—two Top 10 hits, platinum album, the whole deal. Now it appears they're already splitting, a shame given the way their debut, Stand Still, Look Pretty, injected country tropes with pop hooks and tart lyrics. "Damn That Radio," one of three new songs on their somewhat premature live souvenir, suggests the formula wasn't exhausted just yet.

17. LeAnn Rimes seized an unprecedented (for her) level of artistic control on Family, and it turns out she can do just fine for herself—it's easily her best album yet, and by far the most coherent. "Nothing Better to Do" is a jaunty ditty so infectious you might miss its knock-around storyline: Girl meets boys while hitchhiking, boys steal beer for girl, boys fight over girl, girl steals car.

18. Nashville is fickle as hell. Kellie Coffey's debut was a big hit, but when the leadoff single from her planned sophomore effort stalled at No. 24, the album never saw the light of day. Five years later she returns on her own label—and, defying the common image of the artist whose artistic sensibilities are stifled by corporate suits, the album she made on her own doesn't sound too different from the album she made for a division of the mighty Sony BMG empire. "It" is a charming, chugging number that's a little more up-tempo than Coffey usually dares.

19. I had convinced myself that Keith Urban's cover of Sarah Buxton's "Stupid Boy" (recorded after hers, but released before it) was superior to the original, by dint of a whip-ass guitar solo and a nifty gender-switch perspective change from third-person to implied first-person. But I take it all back—this is better. Buxton's voice is a grit-and-grace wonder that elevates everything she sings, and I'll gladly trade off that guitar solo for the little "So . . . " she inserts before the second verse.

20. After more than a decade establishing herself in the bluegrass field, one of America's greatest songwriters (and canniest businesswomen) now sets out to reconquer mainstream country. Like several other women here, she's doing so on her own record label; unlike the others, she has a gazillion dollars to make it work. "Better Get to Livin'" is the kind of reflexive meta-narrative only someone as universally recognized as Dolly Parton could get away with—when she sings about herself, everybody knows who she's talking about. Don't miss that "Dolly Lama" joke, by the way.

Chris Neal is the Nashville-based music editor for Country Weekly magazine and a regular contributor to Performing Songwriter, The Nashville Scene and American Profile, among other publications.