The competition that Black faced was now much stiffer than with his earlier albums. According to Black, he and producer James Stroud spent more time putting this album together than either of those preceding and were "a lot more aggressive in the way we cut and mixed the album". Black was also more satisfied with the vocals on this album. Several of the songs on "The Hard Way", including "Burn One Down", were initially reported to be Black's responses to his situation with Ham. Co writer Nicholas refuted the rumors, maintaining that most of those songs were written in the late 1980s. To promote the album, Black launched The Hard Way Tour on June 26, 1992. The tour ran for 11 months. Reviewers noticed that with this album Black presented a "new, sexier image", wearing tighter clothing and in many cases leaving behind his trademark hat. Black commented simply that he was bored wearing the hat all the time. Black's fourth album, "No Time to Kill" was released almost a year after "The Hard Way". The album received mixed reviews. The "Houston Chronicle" noted that Black's duet with Wynonna Judd, "A Bad Goodbye", was "precisely the kind of radio-ready, big-production ballad that record companies tend to force on their artists when they sense that their careers are in trouble...[I]t sticks out like a sore thumb in his body of work." On the other hand, a review in "Time" magazine thought the duet helped Black show his emotions more intensely. Some reviewers also noted that in some of the more serious songs on the album, Black's voice sounded strained. "One Emotion" followed in late 1994. Also a platinum certified album in the US, this album accounted for five straight top five hits. First was the number four "Untanglin' My Mind", a Merle Haggard co-write. After it came the number three "Wherever You Go", three-week number one "Summer's Comin'", the number two title track and finally the number four "Life Gets Away." The latter two were also number one country hits in Canada. In 1996, Black became the fourth country music singer to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later that year, he released his first greatest-hits package. This was led off by the chart-topper "Like the Rain", which spent three weeks at number one. After it came the number six "Half Way Up", his first single since "One More Payment" to miss the top five.