Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(72/100)
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
The A.V. Club	C+
Robert Christgau
Entertainment Weekly	A
The Guardian
musicOMH
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Slant Magazine
Stylus Magazine	B

Taking the Long Way is the seventh studio album by the Dixie Chicks, an American country music band. It was released on May 23, 2006, in the U.S. and on June 12, 2006, worldwide. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. It sold over 2.5 million copies in the U.S., being certified 2x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America as of July 11, 2007. It won 5 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year in February 2007.

The first song released from the album was the charity single "I Hope" on September 2005. The song received its debut performance on the Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast telethon on September 9, 2005 and was later made available as a digital download single with proceeds to benefit the Hurricane Katrina relief.

The first physical single from the album, "Not Ready to Make Nice", was released in March 2006. On May 18, 2006, the whole album was leaked onto various file sharing media.

Taking the Long Way was the first studio album the band released since the controversy that erupted over them in 2003 following Natalie Maines' remarks critical of then-United States President George W. Bush. The controversy and the Chicks' reaction to it is the major theme at the first tracks of the album.

The first track is "The Long Way Around" which is a manifesto to non-conformity, presented with allusions to The Byrds' "Wasn't Born to Follow" as well as the Chicks' own "Long Time Gone" and "Top of the World." The song also included a direct reference to the backlash and subsequent fall from the charts they experienced during the 2003 Top of the World Tour. The second track is "Easy Silence", a testimonial to the protagonist's husband, who affords her an island of quiet companionship and love in the midst of turmoil. The third track, and first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice", offers an angry statement of purpose and resolve, and makes direct reference to isolated incidents the Chicks encountered following Maines' comments. The fourth track "Everybody Knows" is a return to the classic Chicks sound, but enmeshed in an aura of vulnerabilities and ambivalences.

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Wikipedia