Hillybilly Deluxe (2005)

On Hillbilly Deluxe, their first LP pairing with producer Tony Brown (George Strait, Lyle Lovett), Brooks & Dunn take it all back to the honky-tonks in perfectly drawn vignettes of Saturday-night sin and swagger. Ronnie Dunn, the king of neon soul, hot-wires the tension between heartache and hooking up, especially on ''Play Something Country.'' That megahit, like the rest of the album, reinforces the duo's position as the premier practitioners of the sawdust serenade.