Sheryl Crow - Detours
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Free Music Notes for Detours
Free Music Review: Back with Bottrell!
Hit: 5 Stars
Sheryl Crow rescues her career by turning to Bill Bottrell, her music partner from her first watershed album, "Tuesday Night Music Club". I've liked a lot of her work since then, but she hasn't produced a CD like that one since she and Bill split in mid-album #2 over what... many people speculate about, and probably only the two of them know.
Bottrell's a producer/songwriter/musician that brings out the best in Sheryl Crow. This collection is without a doubt a return to form for her and one hopes she'll work with Bottrell and produce more of this caliber of music.
The collection is really a coupling of two themes, the political Crow and the loved and lovelorn Crow. There are two songs that are exceptions, and they have a lot in common; they are both emotional outbursts from a woman who allowed herself to be featured as part of an "in love duo" in the tabloids, only to be painfully left behind, and a woman who faced and faced down breast cancer.
The crappy:
These two songs, "Diamond Ring" and "Make It Go Away" are whiny, distracting and unworthy of Crow and the rest of the CD. One is a subtle whine about Armstrong and the broken engagement. Even the voice is whiny. The other is a screechy whine about undergoing radiation. While I admire Crow for the hard work she must have done in her recovery from breast cancer, and her unwillingness to milk it for headlines, I really wish she wouldn't have inflicted this song on the world. Little more needs to be said.
The political:
In her "political protest" mode, Crow gave us 6 songs, which lead off the CD. The reaction to them is varied... if you don't like politically themed songs, you wouldn't listen to Sheryl Crow, in my mind. She gives us a "nation is rotten" song, three songs about the middle eastern conflict, a clever song with a "green" theme, and one ditty about the Katrina aftermath. The best of them?
Crow and Bottrell (and two others in collaboration) took a chance with "Peace Be Upon Us" -- the melody and instrumentation are clearly middle eastern in flavor, and Crow's verses are sung in counterpoint with with the same words in Arabic, as sung by Ahmed Al Himi. The message is simple - a call for peace in both the speech of the Western world and the Middle East. I didn't read much in protest of this song, but 2-3 years ago, listeners would have spurned Crow's effort as traitorous. Today, it's a worthy effort.
Sheryl's obligatory Katrina song is fun and infectious.."Love is Free". It focuses on the spirit of the residents of New Orleans, and it's got lyrics to die for:
"You go to church
And pray to God for no more rain
A Cadillac, a paper sack
Hey there, Jack you want some bourbon for the pain?"
And last but not least at all is the imaginative "Gasoline". Ben Harper joins the vocals for an apocalyptic song about looking back on the Gasoline wars of 2017. Crow wages the wars all over the globe, from London to Riyadh to Tennessee to Argentina. The lyrics are masterful, and it's truly a protest song. My favorite line involves the gangs of Mini Coopers battling in the streets. When you hear a Crow song like this you forget the singing and toast the songwriter.
Despite all the high points in the political tunes, the very best of Crow is still to come in the
"Love and Lovelorn" set of 5 songs (there's also a throwaway song mocking Hollywood starlets called "Motivation"):
"Detours" song 7 on the CD is the song I think of as "The paper-thin heart song", from the refrain. Crow is at her best, questioning a mother (real or imagined) about what to do with the fade to gray that is her ability to fall in love. It's poignant, and lyrics and music are a spectacular match.
The best just might be, "Drunk With the Thought of You"...simple, engaging, a real songwriter's description of the high of being in love...."I know you've melted my heart in two".
She closes strong on her loving themes with:
"Love Is All There Is" -- and this is a song that will stay with you. It asks the question that Crow reportedly has asked herself... "Does Anybody Want You?" and showcases her voice better than any other song on the CD.
And finally, Crow closes with a new door opening in her life, and gives us "Lullaby for Wyatt" (the name of her newly adopted son). It's simple and peaceful and has the characteristic I find in the finest lullabies...lifted from the nursery, it coexists as one of those plain old love songs.
I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this collection by Sheryl Crow and Bill Bottrell, and how much I hope for more. The CD has enjoyed a lot of airplay in the car over the last six months, and I'm sure that Crow is feeling at home with her music again.
Free Music Review: She sounds brave, bold even
Hit: 5 Stars
I've been a fan of Sheryl Crow since Tuesday Night Music Club and while she is definitely a bigger name in the US (these days) than she is here - this new offering entered the Billboard Top 100 at #2 but only managed #20 as an opening position in the UK Top 40 - judging from the turnout at a gig she gave in London recently, she still has enough fans here in the UK to be content with.
This new album to me sounds a lot more low-key as far as production value is concerned. The sound is more acoustic, more organic and has more of a folksy, bluesy feel to it than a rock or pop one. Maybe the fact that she's reunited with Bill Bottrell (hooray!) has something to do with it. The album also sounds very impromptu or spontaneous. It sounds like she just decided to get a few friends together for a fun jam. (Actually, friends like Ben Harper and Rosanna Arquette do sing along on a couple of songs).
That said, Crow seems to have moved on from the days when All she wanted to Do was have some fun or Soak Up The Sun. She doesn't sound angry or bitter but she certainly has concerns and she shares them with us as openly as she's shared personal thoughts in the past. She's a bit more political than I remember ever hearing her though and she covers a wide range of issues including domestic politics (the utterly folksy "God Bless This Mess"); New Orleans and Katrina (the feel-good "Love Is Free"); religious extremism ("Peace Be Upon Us"), the politics of oil ("Gasoline"); hopes for peace in the Middle East (the infectious "Out Of Our Heads") and she doesn't stop there. She sounds brave, bold even. But maybe that's what a very public break-up and a brush with cancer can do for a woman.
I usually take Sheryl Crow albums as a whole rather than a collection of songs but I have to admit that at the moment, "Gasoline", "Out Of Our Heads" and "Detours" are running around in my head more than any of the others. I was also struck breathless by a line in "Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)" where she sings, touching on her experience with breast cancer: "Was love the illness/ And disease the cure?" As someone who has had his own dance with cancer, I know how significant that line is, at least for me. Say the word "cancer" and people you thought loved you run for the hills. At the same time, people you know you love now have to be loved more wisely, primarily because all of a sudden you have to put yourself first - maybe for the first time ever. I'll say one thing for sure: Cancer - if one survives it - can certainly bring clarity and perspective. I never thought I'd ever hear anyone sing about it though.
Another of my favourites on here is "Lullaby For Wyatt", Crow's ode to her new son. Like the title track to her previous album and "Weather Channel" from C'mon, C'mon, I love it when it's just her voice and her guitar, maybe with a bit of piano and some cello. We even get to hear the baby gurgle, which is ever so sweet.
And I must mention how I loved the way she introduced an Arabic verse (sung by Ahmed al Hirmi) on "Peace Be Upon Us". Very clever, very appropriate.
There are no chart-aimed/radio-friendly/TRL compatible tunes here but maybe that's intentional. I think it's called 'adult contemporary' and I'm totally happy with it.
Free Music Review: Cathartic!!
Hit: 5 Stars
"Detours" is Sheryl Crow's sixth studio album. It seems an age since Ms Crow burst onto the music scene with her multi platinum Grammy winning debut "Tuesday night music club" when all she wanted to do was "have some fun" or "soak up the sun". The Ms Crow of 2008 is very environmentally and politically aware, as well as a mother to a young son and lyrically, it shows. However deep she gets, she's still got the knack for writing simple, catchy blues/folk/rock songs.
The album got it's title from the "Detours" Ms Crow's life has taken since her public break up, cancer fight, and adopting a son.
Musically, it's still edgy rock; she's teamed up again with Bill Bottrell (who besides producing her debut has also worked with Michael Jackson). Opening is the distant sounding acoustic folk of "God bless this mess", which leads into the rockier "Shine over Babylon" (nice harmonies). This was an airplay only lead-off single.
Lead-off single proper is "Love is free" which is a sparse but joyful sounding sing-a-long. "Peace be upon us" (with a slight Eastern influence from featured Iranian folk artist Mitra Rahbar) is a gently bluesy number with lyrics like "the world will turn even when we're gone". More upbeat is the, cheery bluesy "Gasoline" (with semi spoken lyrics á la "All I wanna do" telling a futuristic tale about the energy crisis), while "Out of our heads" takes a look at the state of the world with lightly thumping beats and a hippy sounding chorus.
Title track "Detours" is another acoustic folk number with gentle beats, and similar is "Drunk with the thought of you". "Now that you're gone" is a soulful bluesy song (with lyrics expressing joy at the end of a relationship; one of my favourites), while "Diamond ring" is a slowed down retro rocker with raspy fiery vocals (I love it!!). Bringing in a country element is "Motivation". Getting rather cathartic is the tender acoustic "Make it go away (radiation song)" about her bout with breast cancer and it's quite nice, done in a "mommy make the monsters go" style.
Upping the tempo a bit with harder beats is the sunny "Love is all there is", and closing the album is the gentle "Lullaby for Wyatt" which is for her son. "The world could fall apart, but you're my heart my dear" she sings softly in a crystal clear voice to a soft acoustic/violin backdrop. Lovely!
This is such a wonderful collection, nothing lets down the album. The Japanese version has 2 nice bonus tracks; "Rise up" and "Beautiful dream".
Free Music Review: Sheryl's Personal And Political Detour
Hit: 5 Stars
For the fourteen years she has been a power on the music scene, one has always suspected that there was more to Sheryl Crow than just wanting to have some fun or soak up the sun, and such. Though she is of our time, Sheryl also takes a great deal of inspiration from the socially-conscious singer/songwriter world of the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, we come to DETOURS, her newest offering.
Not only is DETOURS a socially-conscious piece from Sheryl, it is also a very autobiographical one, dealing with her recent victory over breast cancer ("Make It Go Away [Radiation Song]") and becoming an adoptive mother ("Lullaby For Wyatt"). There's also the roots-rocker we know and love about her in "Diamond Ring", which has the feel of a classic Emmylou Harris record.
But without a doubt, this is a no-holes-barred political piece through and through. Many of the songs on here were the result of her political activism of the last couple of years, and this included a much-publicized confrontation with Bush brain Karl Rove that clearly (and understandably) left a very bad taste in her mouth (detailed in the scathing "Now That You're Gone"). Much like John Lennon, Sheryl also envisions a Utopian vision of America in songs like "Love Is Free" and "Love Is All There Is." Of course, such a Utopia may be next to impossible to achieve, but to give up on it because of the difficulty would be a travesty.
Of course, Sheryl will be attacked for injecting her personal political views into her music by those on the far-right, those of the "Shut Up And Sing" persuasion who tried to destroy the Dixie Chicks. But it's clear that she will not be deterred. Or "Detoured", as the case may be. For the sheer bravery she displayed in making this album at the height of the most politically charged era in America since the 1970s, DETOURS is already in the running for being one of the best albums of 2008.
Free Music Review: It's Always Tuesday Night Somewhere
Hit: 5 Stars
In late 1993 I went to see the BoDeans at New York's Irving Plaza. The opening act was a singer-songwriter I'd never heard of before, a tall skinny pretty brunette who wore a denim shirt and played rhythm guitar in front of a loose, easy band. I enjoyed Sheryl Crow's opening set so much that night that I went out the next day and bought her record that had just come out, Tuesday Night Music Club (to place this in context, "All I Wanna Do" was all over the radio the following summer.)
She was great, an artist fully formed, and Tuesday Night Music Club is one of those records that manages to capture magic like lightning in a bottle. As much as I like her, it remains her best record.
The Music Club scattered, Sheryl has gone on to have an impressive run of hits (especially in this day and age, when old fashioned Stones/Clapton/Neil Young, 70s-inspired rock'n'roll has fallen so far from fashion. But here, she reunites with Music Clubber Bill Bottrell, who produced, mixed, and engineered, and shares writing credits on 5 of the songs. But let's not get crazy parsing out who does what; Detours has the loose, easy vibe that TNMC had, the feel of music made without any sweat, just flowing naturally. I don't know if there are any hits here and I don't really care. Start to finish, it is her best, most cohesive, easiest-to-listen-to record since the first one.
One thing worth noting is that it sounds great. I liked her last one, Wild Flowers, but the production was a little off for my ears, a little muddled. This sounds clear and bright.
I'm going to guess that some people will criticize the lyrics on some songs; "Gasoline," for example, gets a little political. But not to worry; just do what I do, and don't pay too much attention to the lyrics. Just feel the music, hear the songs, let it seep in and win you over. This one is just spot on.