Nash wrote in Stereo Review that the album seemed to focus more on Raven's singing over his songwriting, noting that the album had more of a country pop sound than its predecessors. Raven's tenure with RCA ended with a compilation album titled The Best of Eddy Raven in 1988. In addition to most of his RCA singles, it included three new songs that were all sent out as singles. The first two were "I'm Gonna Get You" (written by Dennis Linde) and "Joe Knows How to Live", which both ascended to the top of the Hot Country Songs charts that year. Both had originally been cut by other artists in 1987: "I'm Gonna Get You" by Billy Swan, and "Joe Knows How to Live" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album Hold On. The final single from The Best of Eddy Raven was "'Til You Cry", which peaked at number four. All of these were produced by session keyboardist and record producer Barry Beckett, who had contacted Raven and expressed interest in producing for him. While Beckett had played on some of Raven's previous albums, Raven said that he was unaware of Beckett's roles as a producer at the time, and agreed to the offer after discovering that Beckett had been a producer on several recordings of which he was a fan. In advance of the album's release, Raven toured the southern United States with then-labelmates Alabama. 1988-1991: Universal and Capitol In 1988, producer Jimmy Bowen founded the independent country music label Universal Records and signed Raven. While the editors of The Encyclopedia of Country Music stated that Raven chose to end his contract with RCA over poor record sales, Raven himself said at the time that Bowen had recruited him for the then-new label after determining that his musical style would fit well among the other artists he had signed. His initial release for the label was a cover of Shakin' Stevens' "In a Letter to You", also written by Dennis Linde. The song was the first release from his only Universal album Temporary Sanity, which came out in 1989. At Bowen's request, Beckett stayed on as Raven's producer. Raven said of the album's sound that he wanted to add influences of Latin and Caribbean music to his sound, noting in particular the inclusion of steel drums and comparing "Zydeco Lady" to the sound of Miami Sound