Sheryl Crow : Releases >>
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Detours >>
Thematically, Detours may not seem like much of a detour to Sheryl Crow fans. Her politics pour out of these songs the way you might expect them to if you caught wind of her epic cross-country bus trip, with the activist Laurie David, to promote environmental awareness months prior to this release. From the quiet, faraway-sounding opener "God Bless This Mess"--a novel in a song--to the catchy but thought-provoking "Gasoline," it's clear that Crow has more on her mind these days than soaking up the sun or having a little fun, à la the Tuesday Night Music Club era. Yet there's not a groan-worthy song on this standout rock/pop/folk/blues album. If the themes are heavy (in addition to the political songs, there's an almost painfully tender lullaby for her son Wyatt and one, "Make It Go Away [Radiation Song]," that touches on her breast-cancer experience), the mood is cathartic, determined, hopeful at times and sad at others. "Now That You're Gone" grabs at clarity through the clouds of a devastating love affair and gets it, and "Peace Be Upon Us" picks apart pettiness and arrives at a wide-minded beauty. George Harrison seems present in some of these songs, especially the more personal ones ("Drunk with the Thought of You," "Love Is All There Is"). And that may be the highest compliment that Sheryl Crow, who seems to admire his gentle soul and shares his big heart, could ask for. --Tammy La Gorce
The Very Best of Sheryl Crow >>
Despite the photographic presence of an acoustic guitar (the rock & roll equivalent of a rubber bullet), the enviably lovely hair and the unassuming knitwear, Sheryl Crow is staring back at us from the cover of The Very Best Of with her chin resting on a fist clenched tightly with white-knuckled defiance. This is, after all, the girl whose wishful thinking led her to sing "All I wanna do is have some fun" while privately preferring to either curl up in bed for a very long time or roll over and die (she's recently come out of the closet with regards to her longstanding battles with depression).
Yes, she's earned herself an armful of Grammys and has been damned with faint praise, but if you go easy on the relatively troublesome second half of Sheryl Crow's 10-year solo career (the poppy optimism of songs like "C'mon C'mon" and "Soak Up the Sun" seems strained), then this decade-acknowledging resumé serves as a reminder of her narrative talents for summarising the pitfalls of burdensome workloads ("Everyday Is a Winding Road") and problematic squeezes ("My Favorite Mistake") within an MTV-friendly pop framework. --Kevin MaidmentCars >>
Cars is a typical Disney-Pixar animated movie in that it deals with an anthropomorphic character (here, a car) and the heartwarming values of family and friendship. (Alas, we'll have to wait a little while longer for the company to take on greed and selfishness.) The accompanying soundtrack is equally typical in that it's split between catchy pop songs and a score by Randy Newman. The clear highlight of the pop tracks is Sheryl Crow's boisterous, huge-sounding "Real Gone" (her best song in ages). Rascal Flatts also cover Tom Cochrane's 1991 hit "Life Is a Highway," while John Mayer rocks out on "Route 66" (Chuck Berry's elegantly lean version is included as well). For his part, Newman continues his distinguished association with quality animation by supplying a nimble score. It's fun to hear him deploy riffs that wouldn't be out of place on a Quiet Riot album on the bombastic "Opening Race," while the bluesy "Bessie" does George Thorogood with a tuba. The CD's overall Southern flavor is emphasized by the frequent use of banjo and slide guitar, as well as by score tracks cantering about, like "McQueen and Sally." And, as usual, Newman delivers a nostalgic, misty-eyed song--in this case "Our Town," performed by that master of sensitive laid-back charm, James Taylor. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
Wildflower >>
Since her 1993 debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, Sheryl Crow has been churning out unassailably appealing CDs in an unassailably appealing voice. Which means, according to the rules of the pop music cosmos, by album six it's about time for a misstep. Natural law, fortunately, will have to keep checking its watch. Wildflower moves Sheryl Crow one step closer to Hall of Fame status as she shunts the established rock star's impulse to get all experimental, but instead sprawls, rambling rose-like, across the substance-spiked pop landscape she helped pioneer. Three ingredients, glistening vocals, flawless production, and catchy songs rub up against one another in all the right places. These ingredients will cause you to hold your breath on the beautiful piano ballad "Always on Your Side." They pop up again on the George Harrison-esque "Where Has All the Love Gone" reminding you that Crow can reflect and reveal as convincingly as she can rock. If there is a ripple that runs through Wildflower, it's a pensive one. On the spacy "Chances Are," she sings of being "...lost inside a daydream." The measure of her talent, ripe and reappraisal-resistant, is her ability to consistently bring us inside the bubble with her. --Tammy La Gorce
Recommended Sheryl Crow Discography
 Tuesday Night Music Club |  Sheryl Crow |  C'mon C'mon |
Hope Floats: Music From The Motion Picture >>
Though it follows a standard movie formula and predictable plot twists, the film Hope Floats is saved in part by the above-average performance of Sandra Bullock, portraying a separated woman who finds her way back to her hometown in Texas, daughter in tow. The soundtrack seems to follow in due course, a collection of country and rock (thanks to the Rolling Stones) acts adding shades of twang to songs that, for the most part, all sound fairly familiar. The duds of the bunch, Bryan Adams's "When You Love Someone" and Sheryl Crow's "In Need," are saved in large part by some surprise keepers, courtesy of Garth Brooks, the Mavericks, and Gillian Welch. The covers are interesting enough. Brooks's take on Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" is modest and pithy and a far cry from the overblown Trisha Yearwood performance of the same tune that codas the collection. --Jason Verlinde
Sheryl Crow >>
Skeptics who attributed the success of Sheryl Crow's 1994 debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, to a combination of Crow's seductive good looks and a shrewd choice of collaborators have been effectively silenced by the range and depth of songs and performances on her self-produced, pointedly self-titled sequel. Playing guitars and keyboards, and building a triumphant, layered vocal style, Crow is tough as nails and drolly soulful on the deft "Change," as noteworthy for Crow's crafty lyrics ("Hello, it's me, I'm not at home/ If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone...") as for its solid, midtempo groove. "Maybe Angels," "If It Makes You Happy," and "Everyday Is a Winding Road" are only the most familiar highlights in a varied and absorbing set that argues Crow is no one's invention but her own. --Sam Sutherland
C'mon, C'mon >>
Sheryl Crow's first studio album in four years shows a woman if not on the verge of a nervous breakdown, then one who has gone a little off the rails and is in the process of pulling herself back on track again. For her past three studio albums, Crow has been known as the quintessential party girl who liked a beer buzz in the morning, but C'mon, C'mon shows her to be much more than that. Breakup, illness, and loss have tempered her good-time persona, and like other life-altering events, both her character and lyrics are stronger for it. This latest offering might not break any new musical ground--again relying on her retooling of '70s country rock--but she displays an honesty and naked vulnerability not witnessed in her earlier work, honing her pain to a fine, lyrical edge. The brooding "Weather Channel" shows a rawboned Crow unafraid to display her emotional bruising, but without losing any of her sly wit: "Just a pill to make me happy / I know it may not fix the hinges, but at least the door has stopped its creaking." Besides songs reflecting her newfound poignancy are a couple of swaggering rockers that recall middle-period Stones, including "You're an Original," featuring Lenny Kravitz, the whimsical and insouciant "Steve McQueen," which finds Crow boasting "I ain't taking shit off of no one," and the deceptively frothy "Soak Up the Sun," which features the long missing-in-action Liz Phair on background vocals. In addition to resurrecting Phair, Crow also has compiled a paparazzo's dream, soliciting the vocal talents of pals Stevie Nicks, Natalie Maines , Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, and inexplicably, the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. --Jaan Uhelszki
Tuesday Night Music Club >>
Sheryl Crow's proper debut--an earlier, slicker record was scrapped in favor of Tuesday Night--occasionally reaches too far in attempting Significance, as when the album opens by name-checking Aldous Huxley. Usually, though, Crow and her band of L.A. session and singer/songwriter collaborators strike just the right tone. The "Stuck in the Middle with You" homage of "All I Wanna Do," the clanking guitar riff of "Can't Cry Anymore," and the funky threat of "What I Can Do for You" meld perfectly with the lyrics, resulting in a peak of mainstream pop-rock. --Rickey Wright
The Globe Sessions >>
For some fairly shallow performers, there comes a time when their craft becomes a chore, when scribbling songs for the big follow-up album turns into a black-and-white deadline. Clever composers can almost disguise this ennui, burying it in a smarmy, sunshine-beaming mix. Key word: almost. Ergo, a trial spin through clever composer Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions evokes the faintest hint of a feeling that grows stronger with each successive listening--there's no sense that the artist intended this material as anything more than tepid album filler. A conversation with your local supermarket checkout girl would prove far more riveting than Crow's pretentious and all-too-casual observations (set to the tune, it must be noted, of some likable, jangly hooks). "Get out the camera, take a picture / The drag queens and the freaks are all out on the town," she purrs over chucka-chucka choogling on "There Goes the Neighborhood," which is probably what any self-respecting drag queen or freak would mutter once Crow moved in, scrounging for her now-patented vicarious cool. The closest The Globe Sessions comes to any palpable sincerity is during an actually-might've-lived-it, whoops-I'm-in-trouble-again "Mississippi." Even then, Crow drowns the moment in perfectly enunciated syllables, more prissy than alleycat-prowling. Crow started out with a credible Tuesday Night Music Club pedigree, surrounded by visionaries such as David Baerwald (For this disc, she relies heavily on ex-Wire Train mainstay Jeff Trott). But they're gone, and things change, to the point where, if you support this silly sycophant with your hard-earned dollars, there's only one question that you'll need to be asked: Do you want paper or plastic? --Tom Lanham
Live from Central Park >>
This is how a live album should sound--full of irony, crackling energy, and stellar guest pairings. Those who looked askance when Sheryl Crow--never a girl's girl--joined Lilith Fair for 1999 may develop a different perspective after hearing Central Park. After all, Lilith allowed Crow to share mascara wands and bond with Chrissie Hynde, the Dixie Chicks, and Sarah McLachlan, and they all dropped in for her concert at Central Park. Hynde makes "If It Makes You Happy" into the ultimate bad-girl song, and when Stevie Nicks takes over on "Gold Dust Woman," you can almost feel the wind whipping through her witchy hair. But while Dixie Chick Martie Seidel's fiddle gives "Strong Enough" an authentic country feel, Natalie Maines's leaden vocal drags the scathing feminist tract down to a greeting-card level. And a grizzled-sounding Eric Clapton serves up a tired version of the Cream's "White Room." But Crow is in peak form throughout the 14 songs, exposing herself as a rocker in sheep's clothing who's more than up to the task of taking on the Mick Jagger role in an edgy version of the Stones' "Happy," with Keith Richards as her sidekick. --Jaan Uhelszki