I'm gonna make a bold statement: Robbie Fulks is one of the greatest songwriters alive today.

There. I've said it. Now you think about it. That puts him alongside Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Ray Davies, Bob Dylan, and probably at least ten or twenty other solid picks for that same distinction. Worldwide superstars who have sold bazillions of records, seminal figures who have helped shape the history of popular music, prolific poets who mumble classic songs in their sleep. And elbowing his way into their ranks, Robbie Fulks, a wiry balladeer who can spin from humor to black drama within the same phrase, a stylistic chameleon who moves from country to bluegrass to pop without breaking a sweat, a songwriter of such effortless brilliance that you'll drip into spasms of joy upon hearing his better tunes for the first time.

Tough words to justify? Perhaps. You go out and buy The Very Best of Robbie Fulks and see if you don't agree. Its title is a wry reference to Fulks' small catalogue--he's only released three full-length records, so he can't quite release a best-of comp yet--and at the same time, the title is apt, because these are some of his very best songs. And some of his very best songs are some of the very best songs you'll ever hear.

All of the styles Fulks has mastered are on parade on Very Best, infused with the same energy and wit that dominates Fulks' lyrics. He's been pigeonholed into the "alt-country" camp in the past, but this record should dropkick him out of that constricting subgenre and into the ranks of simply amazing performers who are known to thrive in any genre. There's pop, country, bluegrass and more on this album, and it's all great.

That's not to say he isn't masterful when working in the traditional country idiom, though. On the contrary, what might be the very best song on Very Best is a country ballad with a classic sound and dark overtones, "I Just Want to Meet the Man." It's a song George Jones might have sung if he were Elvis Costello, the story of a broken man who has waited outside his ex-lover's home all night in an effort to "acquaint" himself with the new beau in her life. That description just barely suggests this character's abject desperation, so let's let him speak for himself: "I just want to see his face/So that I can see who's in my place/I just want to know the stranger who/Has put his poison inside of you." Vicious, chilling and beautiful.

If Fulks had woken up one morning, stumbled into a recording studio somewhere with a guitar, recorded "I Just Want to Meet the Man" and then gotten hit by a bus (perish the thought), he'd still deserve those big words at the top of this review. But he didn't--as those TV pitchmen are fond of saying, "Wait--there's more." "Jean Arthur" is a lilting guitar number paying tribute to the screen actress of the same name, "Love Ain't Nothin'" is Fulks' denial of that crap that allegedly makes the world go round, and "That Bangle Girl" is a fluffy delight in which the singer confesses his love for Susanna Hoffs. He even rips apart his own biggest fans on "Roots Rock Weirdoes"--let's hope those weirdos who buy his records and go to his shows have a good sense of humor.

You know Robbie Fulks is a genius. I know Robbie Fulks is a genius. Yet he's not famous, he's not rich and he deserves to be both more than anyone I can think of, with the lone exception of myself. That's the biggest low down dirty shame I've ever heard.

If you own all his records, you have amazing taste. If you don't, what the fuck are you waiting for? Go buy The Very Best of Robbie Fulks right now, and while you're at it, why not pick up all his other records too, Country Love Songs, South Mouth and his lone major-label effort for Geffen, the woefully underappreciated Let's Kill Saturday Night. Take them home, crack open a fifth of Jack Daniels, get royally shitfaced and play those records until you pass out. If you don't wake up the next morning with a hangover the size of Cleveland and ten tunes floating in your head, flush with your love for one of the most brilliant musicians on the planet, then may God have mercy on your soul.