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Sheryl CrowAlbums ReviewedTuesday Night Music Club (1993)Sheryl Crow (1996) The Globe Sessions (2003) Tuesday Night Music Club(1993)Sheryl Crow was already the wrong side of 30 when she released her debut album, named after her band's weekly jam sessions. After dating Brad Pitt at university, Crow kicked around as a backing singer for Michael Jackson and Don Henley before launching a solo career as the most unimaginative rock musician to walk the earth. After absorbing her first three albums, I've come to the conclusion that she's not completely talentless, but lacks the vision to create anything truly worthwhile. She does possess the musical faculty to come up with the odd decent guitar riff ('My Favourite Mistake'), and her mainstream pop/rock never really drops far enough down to insult listener's intelligences, but I'm only reviewing these albums because my sister owns them. Her debut is the least likeable of the lot, with a bag full of irritations and another bag full of genericisms. Actually, Tuesday Night Music Club starts off well enough with a history lesson (thanks to Crow, I am now aware that Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, died in November 1963); a mildly anthemic piano ballad that goes on forever, 'Run Baby Run' is arguably the best song on the album. I can't stand Crow's screeching vocals and she manages to kill off 'Leaving Las Vegas' with her sassy rockgirl timbres, while 'Can't Cry Anymore' is another victim of her raspy throat. 'Strong Enough' is one of the more tolerable songs, although the smugness of the concept isn't appealing. She also chucks in an irritatingly little stream of consciousness rap ditty, although that's far from the most worst song on the disc. The first half of Tuesday Night Music Club was hardly original, but the second half raises the genericism to a whole new level. Song titles 'What I Can Do For You', 'All I Wanna Do' and 'We Do What We Can' all in a row raise questions. What is Crow doing? What can Crow do? I sure as heck don't know, but she does drop us a hint with her song title 'No One Said It Would Be Easy'. And if 'I Shall Believe' isn't one of the most hackneyed concepts in the rock lexicon, I don't know what is. The music does vary between balladry, jazziness and breezy pop/rock, but there's nothing particularly revelatory within. I get a feeling that I'm too harsh on mid 90s female artists, since I had to suffer through it on the radio and my sister's album collection, but this really does rub me up the wrong way. Sheryl Crow did improve somewhat through her next two releases, but not to the point where she's on my Christmas card list or anything. 
Sheryl Crow(1996)I keep wanting to deride this album; after all, Sheryl Crow's unimaginative retro rock, whiny vocals and insipid feminist lyrics all conspire to rub my inner man up the wrong way. But despite all of her shortcomings, Sheryl Crow manages to create relatively solid albums, an example to more talented acts such as The Police and Run DMC who managed to fill half their records up with aimless dreck. There's nothing on her eponymous second album that's blindingly innovative, and almost all of the songs drag on for too long, but you have to give Crow some credit; every song here is carefully written, and the sheer work she must have expended on this album is laudable. Her lyrics aren't awkward, but her themes often are; there's a distinctly finite limit to how many stories of repressed womenhood this reviewer wants to hear. Although she's generally associated with the guitar, Crow sticks mostly to keyboards and bass on this album and she does an excellent job; there's lots of nice wurlitzer and hammond organ parts. Despite this, the album largely lives up to its quasi-gothic rock chick cover art; it's tangibly grungier and rougher than her other work. She's not really the arty type, and Crow tends to function better when she goes straight for the jugular of resonance. Correspondingly, 'Hard To Make A Stand' is the best song here, a concise and universal declaration. Her feminist themes are more palatable in the first person narrative of 'Home', possibly because she uses a more pure upper register to good effect. 'If It Makes You Happy', 'A Change' and 'Everyday Is A Winding Road' were all over the radio in 1996; the former started to grate relatively quickly, but the other two are kind of fun. Neil Finn, with whom Sheryl Crow used to tour as a support act, contributes audible backing vocals in the latter. She demonstrates a healthy appreciation of classic rock in 'Ordinary Morning', compressing snatches of Lennon, The Beatles and Pink Floyd into "But when I awoke/The dream didn't end/Now everytime I turn around/I'm only sleeping, John/Is anybody out there?/Don't the wounded birds still sing?" Aided and abetted by Mitchell Froom, Crow pulls out the artiness in 'The Book', with an unsettling orchestral arrangement that provides a respite from the solid rock and roll that dominates the rest of the album. That's not to say all the songs aren't worthy individually; even though too many drag past the four minute mark unnecessarily, Crow inevitably comes up with a catchy chorus or a nice riff that justifies the song's existence. Sheryl Crow isn't not my cup of tea, and the monochromatic incessation of country tinged retro rock coupled with Crow's whining makes it a chore to sit through. This doesn't mean it's not a good album; it just means I don't like Sheryl Crow particularly much.
The Globe Sessions(1998)Crow's material I can take or leave; her melodies are hit and miss, while I'm yet to hear an interesting lyric from her. To review this album, I've had to suffer through the song where she sings "all the rich kids/politicians shake their arses" five times. Her voice isn't particularly startling either; sometimes she whines excessively, like she's figured out halfway though recording that the song she's working on is actually crap. This album is less consistent than its predecessor; when it works it's actually pretty palatable due to a broader stylistic palette and a gentler attitude, but when it doesn't the results are far worse than anything on Sheryl Crow. Songs like 'Resuscitation' (which repeats an ugly riff about twelve thousand times), 'Members Only' and 'It Don't Hurt' simply start, grate then stop. On the other hand, opening track 'My Favourite Mistake' bursts out of the starting gate with a riff so good that it raises suspicions that Sheryl Crow used a time machine to travel backwards in time and nick it off Sticky Fingers. There's a nice Dylan cover ('Mississippi', which eventually popped up on The Bob's Love And Theft), which shows what Crow is capable of when she is given a decent song to play with. Most of the other enjoyable songs are mellow, relying on mood and melody for effect. 'The Difficult Kind' is far too long, but it's still a hundred times better than 'Members Only' and 'Resuscitation' put together. 'Riverwide', and particularly 'Crash and Burn', are even better. There's some good material here, but really, The Globe Sessions is hardly among 1998's most essential releases.
C'mon, C'mon(2002)I can't see this, or anything Crow has released since, getting reviewed in a hurry; my sister developed some musical taste before this came out, so there isn't a copy lying around the house anywhere.
Feedback: from David Dickson |
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Written 2001-2007, Graham Fyfe
