Chris doesn't have any cry in your beer songs save for "5 dollar fine (for whining)".
He has songs that will lift you as high as you want to go, he has songs that will make you cry. Mostly his songs are about the joy of life.
His pre '98 work is much different from his post Garth Brooks "Much to young (to feel this damn old)" mention.
I have over 20 of his albums and every one of them has great songs and the rest are good. He really knew what he sang about and so the there is more feeling in his songs than 99.999999% of the other songs out there.
