Jewel : Releases >>

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Goodbye Alice in Wonderland >>

Jewel's debut album, Pieces of You, reveals a special voice--strong and focused on both the whispery verses and the hooky choruses. The recording also exposes an unfortunate tendency to present trite, hackneyed sentiments as if they were oracular visions from a young prophet to a jaded world. For the most part, Jewel sings to her own acoustic guitar accompaniment, but she has a lot more in common with, say, the Indigo Girls or Lisa Loeb than with Judy Collins or Nanci Griffith. Despite her soft soprano and pretty melodies, her songs have an iconoclastic edge which make her more of an unplugged alternative rocker than a folkie. Her songs too often betray their origins as written verse in their hard-to-sing meters, unmusical phrasing, and diary-like pronouncements. Nonetheless, a few numbers, such as "Morning Song" and "You Were Meant for Me", show a spark of humor about romance, and hint that Jewel may yet write songs worthy of her remarkable voice. --Geoffrey Himes

Spirit >>

It's time for an update of our image of Jewel, the ingenue who set the music world on fire with her 1995 debut album, Pieces of You. After all, that effort consisted primarily of songs Jewel had written several years before, some of them dating back to her days as a free- spirited waif living in a van on the beach in San Diego. Now, at 25, she's become a sort of guru for self-expression and full disclosure, revealing perhaps too much of herself in see-through dresses worn to awards shows and a critically drubbed (yet bestselling) book of poetry. Spirit makes plain why Jewel's well-intentioned yet sometimes facile lyrics strike a chord with her audience while her poetry lies flat on the page. On songs like "Deep Water", "Hands", and "Down So Long", her words are borne aloft by sparkling melodies and her soaring voice, making even the most cynical observer take a schoolgirl-notebook image such as "your heart like grape gum on the ground" or an unreassuring platitude like "If I could tell the world just one thing / It would be that we're all OK" somewhat in stride. On Pieces of You, Jewel posed the musical question "Who will save your soul?" On Spirit, it sounds like she wants to do it herself. And the truth is, if you don't overanalyse it, the album does act as a sort of balm for wounded psyches or maybe a primer for raising your own inner child. Maybe she's right and we are all OK. Who knew? --Daniel Durchholz

Joy: a Holiday Collection [Us Import] >>

Jewel has concocted an intriguing and at times beautifully inspired holiday album, playing it straight with a big orchestra and backing voices for the first half of the record with standards such as "Joy to the World", "Winter Wonderland", "Silent Night", as well as a lovely rendition of "Ave Maria". Things finally get sparkling in the last half where Jewel does a low-key, kid version of "Rudolph" and sings her own compositions. Her moving "Face of Love" and "Hands" are certain to become holiday standards, capable of being sung in a country, pop, gospel, or R&B vein and deserving of an audience as wide as the nation itself. The record's centrepiece, however, seems to be a six-minute-plus medley that mixes "Go Tell It on the Mountain" with the recent hit "From a Distance" and her own "Life Uncommon". Nonetheless, her stunning adaptation of "Gloria" inspired, in part, by Bach's B-Minor Mass, two tracks later is as powerful and lovely a Christmas vocal performance as you will find anywhere. Produced by the legendary Arif Mardin, Joy is destined to become a holiday classic. --Martin Keller

This Way >>

It's easy to see on This Way that Jewel wants to lighten up. With two previous multimillion-selling albums (and a couple of much-scorned but popular books) filled with earnest, clueless revelations behind her, the singer-songwriter comes a little closer to ground with This Way.

"Give it hell 'til the end," a former compatriot urges her on "Till We Run Out of Road", her version of Jackson Browne's "The Load Out". Could that be a hard-bitten road warrior deep inside the woman who makes a point of pronouncing the "O"'s in the opening line ("Mirror, mirror") of this album's "Serve the Ego"? Maybe. But despite her icky streak's spread to cutesy jokes ("Jesus Loves You"), Jewel hasn't quite abandoned her old judgmental ways (in "I Won't Walk Away", she spies a couple "resisting being one") and ambitions to, you know, really say something, as in the "Desolation Row"-lite "The New Wild West". Still, with some nice, if bland, arrangements set around her, This Way is the Jewel album most likely to appeal to Jewel non-fans. --Rickey Wright

You Were Meant for Me >>

0304 >>

Why pick on a girl for taking a chance? After experiencing flagging sales, Jewel has become proactive and given herself a cosmetic and artistic makeover. But 0304 isn't the winsome songbird's first leap into the unknown. Hiring Shakira producer Lester A Mendez to give her solemn, folksy songs a pop sheen and some dance beats isn't as radical as starring as a Civil War widow in an Ang Lee film. Besides, it's a lot more interesting to hear her squeeze her chaste, malleable soprano around an accordion solo in the futuristic name-dropping fable "Intuition" or voice a beat-driven condemnation of the George W Bush regime on "America" than to see her sashaying on the silver screen in those tight bodices and hoop skirts. Although she has changed the very structure and sound of her songs, Jewel's undeniable talent shines through. She still has a way with words and her voice remains as pure as an Alaskan stream. --Jaan Uhelszki