Hits keep on coming for Brad Paisley

o What: Brad Paisley, in concert.

o When: 4 p.m. Sept. 10.

o Where: Sleep Country Amphitheater, 17200 N.E. Delfel Road, Ridgefield.

o Cost: $25-$54.75 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or http://ticketmaster.com.

o Information: 360-816-7000 or http://sleepcountryamphitheater.com.

Nothing signifies the passage of time like a greatest hits collection.

In the long legacy of country, it may seem that Brad Paisley has just recently risen as both a genre-beholden hitmaker (with detail-rich songs such as the paean to his stepfather, “He Didn’t Have to Be”), with his Stetson hat firmly in place, and a subtle dissident able to bring country-rock standards of practice into the new millennium. Carrie Underwood may have been on “American Idol,” but Paisley parodied the show gleefully in 2003’s “Celebrity.” He glorified technological and social advancement in “Welcome to the Future,” singing about video chat in Times Square in the song’s music video alongside a Japanese cover band. Then he skewered the Internet dating world in “Online” and its accompanying video, in which a George Costanza look-alike (played by none other than Jason Alexander, who also directed) misrepresents himself to the eHarmony world (while his father, played by William Shatner, asks just what on earth he’s doing).

“I think songwriting is at its best when it’s a reflection of life, and that’s my goal with my songs,” Paisley said in an appearance on “Austin City Limits.” “Anything that has something humorous in it is because I’ve seen something like that and it tickled me. At the same time, anything that’s serious or deep, it comes from something I’ve been through or observed and wanted to write about it.”

Now Paisley is heading out for his eighth major tour, this time in support of his first greatest-hits package, “Hits Alive,” due Nov. 2. Coinciding with his Nov. 10 appearance as co-host with Underwood at the 2010 Country Music Awards, the album and tour should offer a feast of country hits. Paisley had 10 consecutive No. 1 hits from 2005-2009, known for their hooks, accessibility and tongue-in-cheek political commentary that rivals the Dixie Chicks for relevance, minus the self-seriousness and confrontation.

“It’s a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music,” Paisley recently told London’s The Guardian. “They’re not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grill: it’s a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.”

Paisley should know. Rising through the music industry from small-town West Virginia stardom, he appeared as a regular on country radio show “Jamboree USA,” interned at Atlantic Records and garnered a paid scholarship from the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in the music business from Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. From there, Paisley signed a songwriting contract with EMI and wrote a number of late 1990s country hits before ascending the charts in his own right, scoring a number of consecutive hits from the turn of the millennium’s “We Danced” to 2010’s No. 1 country hit “Water” (detailing the singer’s affection for water, from his childhood swimming to wet T-shirt contests).

It’s as though Paisley knows the country world better than it knows itself. At the same time that his songs can be funny and biting, he knows that the heart of the genre is in heartbreak and love ballads, which he delivers in spades in the post-war breakup drama of “Whiskey Lullaby” (with Alison Krauss supplying vocals and critic’s cred) and the queasily charming “Ticks,” where he offers to check his date for the bloodsuckers after a walk in the woods.

“I don’t want to be one of those artists where someone says, ‘All the songs sound the same,’” he said on “Austin City Limits.” “I want to be one of the artists where people never know what might be coming next. You’re going to write about love and about death and the other big topics, but the fun part is finding a new way to do it — to find a new way to talk about the subjects we all experience or care about.”