Joe Diffie Pleased With Latest Musical Effort

The way Joe Diffie figures it, there’s no reason why each music effort shouldn’t top the last.

That’s the way it has worked out for him - and he started out with a bang.

He was the first country singer whose debut single hit No. 1. The song was “Home,” and the year was 1990.

Since then, each time a new Diffie album is released, sales of previous albums double, signifying renewed interest in his whole body of work.

So then, logically, he believes his next album, “Twice Upon a Time,” just released on the Epic label, is even better than his previous six.

“I’m really happy with it,” Diffie said in a phone call from his home in Nashville. “We spent a year picking out songs and working with them.” The first single from the new album, “This Is Your Brain on Love,” is out now.

He did confess he listens with a different ear.

“Very few people actually listen to it like I do. When I listen, I think, ‘I love this guitar lick,’ or ‘I hear the curl I missed.’ Most people just use it for background music. Sometimes we put too much emphasis on that stuff.”

Diffie wasn’t putting down his fans; he was underscoring his own tendency toward perfectionism.

“I’m Mr. Critical when I listen to other people’s stuff,” he said.

He’s disappointed when what he hears shows little musical stretching on the part of the artists or when an album sounds like someone else’s.

“That sheep deal - they didn’t have anything on us,” he said. “We already had a start on the cloning process. These days, there isn’t much that makes you want to turn the radio up.

“We’re settling for mediocrity,” he said, by way of criticizing the listening public. “We’re a fast-food society.”

And record companies, he said, are playing along.

“We look at the surface more than the substance,” Diffie said. “We say, ‘Let’s find a good-lookin’ guy in a cowboy hat and put him out there.”’

At 37, Diffie, a native of Oklahoma, is well beyond the twentysomething median age of most new singers whose careers are just beginning.

Yet his sales figures continue to climb while other singers his age are being left in the dust.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “I’m your average-looking old guy who happens to sing pretty good. I think it boils down to the songs.”

He gets a lot of help from longtime partner Johnny Slate, who constantly listens to songs and makes compilation tapes of ones he likes for Diffie to review.

As Diffie listens, he applies four questions to each song:

Do I like it?

Will radio play it?

Will fans like it?

Will I enjoy singing this song five years from now?

The latter consideration is a toughie, he confessed.

“When I first heard ‘If the Devil Danced in Empty Pockets,’ I didn’t like it. But when it became No. 1, I liked it a lot.”

Soon, Diffie will hit the road for what he calls the Mud and Dust Tour of fairs and festivals. He’ll also be a guest on TNN’s “Prime Time Country” on Tuesday, and a part of a TNN’s “Buck Owens Tribute” to be aired May 7.

And, as he becomes more computer-literate, he spends some time answering e-mail from fans on the Internet. His address is http:/ /www.joediffie.com