Sheryl Crow

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Sheryl Crow

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After years in the business as a backup singer for a number of big name pop and rock acts, Sheryl Crow hit it big with Tuesday Night Music Club, an album chocked full of catchy, well-crafted, radio-orientated pop tunes. Nothing on that album, though, really hinted at what lay in store for 1996's self-titled album. Crow had become one of those very few artists who has been both lucky and brave with her career. Her years as a backing vocalist had made her industry savvy, and the big success of her debut album gave her enough industry clout that she could assume creative control of her subsequent albums.

In addition to singing and writing or co-writing all of the songs on the album, Crow also produced and plays guitar, bass, and Hammond organ on the disc. She brings to this album, a bigger, noisier, more rock n' roll sound to complement a more accomplished, edgier collection of songs. The guitar sound is somewhere between the Stones of Exile on Mainstreet and early Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Crow's voice is less studio- produced sounding than it was on her previous record, moving from a sweet soul/R&B sound on "Everyday is a Winding Road" and "Hard to Make a Stand" to a harsher, harder-edged, almost Janis Joplin-like buzz on "If It Makes You Happy" and "Ordinary Morning."

"Maybe Angels," "A Change," "Sweet Rosalyn," "Everyday is a Winding Road," "Love is a Good Thing," and "Hard to Make a Stand" round out a great record.

Crow had been around the music scene awhile before becoming an "overnight sensation" with Grammy winner TUESDAY NIGHT MUSIC CLUB. Now it was put up or shut up time for Crow and she responded by taking away production duties from fellow Music Club member Bill Bottrell and twiddling the knobs herself. It doesn't result in a huge change of sound although it seems that Crow is utilitizing multi-tracked vocals of herself quite a bit on her sophomore release.

As with TNMC, she leads with a lower-key track ("Maybe Angels") before digging into the "money" singles (on this one, "A Change","If It Makes You Happy" and "Everyday is a Winding Road"). Nothing's glaringly awful on this one..in that respect, it improves on the debut which had clunkers "The Na Na Song" and "Solidify" among the tracks. But the high points of this one are more of the "great radio pop" variety that sound good at the time but tend to lose their lustre with the passage of time.

HIGHLIGHTS:

"If it Makes You Happy" finds Crow in the shoes of someone trying to "cheer up" someone in the throes of depression. ("If it makes you happy/It can't be that bad/If it makes you happy/Then why the h**l are you so sad?") She's since confessed to her own battles with the illness,making it sound in retrospect a bit autobiographical. "Redemption Day" is Crow's ode to the downtrodden, counting the days until the mighty are fallen. ("What do you have for us today?/Throw us a bone but save the plate") I'd say this is probably the weightiest tune Crow's penned here and it comes off well in comparison to the silly diatribes in TNMC ("G. Gordon Liddy on the table,table,table") Musically, it's a country shuffle that might not be out of place on a Johnny Cash album with some nice banjo for texture. "Everyday is a Winding Road" and "A Change" are catchy pop and sound nice enough while they play, but there's not much "meat" to take away from them. They're snappy radio singles but that's all. The album closes on a good note with crunchy plodder "Ordinary Morning" as Crow lambastes the ennui of her daily existence. ("I'm only sleeping, John, is anybody out there?/Don't the wounded birds still sing?")

LOWS:

"It's Hard to Make a Stand" wants to be a great statement about compassion for the "least of these" in society ("Old James Dean Monroe/Hands out flowers at the Shop-N-Go/Hopes for money but all he gets is fear/And the wind blows up his coat") but it just isn't that affecting in the end. "Love is a Good Thing" wastes some good verses (particularly the controversial "Watch out sister, watch out brother/Watch our children while they kill each other/With a gun they bought at Wal-mart discount stores" which resulted in the mega-chain refusing to stock the CD) and a nicely funky wah-wah guitar part on a simplistic chorus. ("Loooove is a good thing, love is a good,love is a good, love is a good, love is a good thing") There's just no payoff.

BOTTOM LINE:

"If It Makes You Happy" and "Redemption Day" are really the only songs here that continue to stand out. Pleasant and listenable but only a necessary buy if you're already a big fan of Crow's.