FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Ten: Sheryl Crow
___________
WHEN I was considering who should be…
in this week’s A Buyer’s Guide, I was listening to Sheryl Crow and noticing how great her albums are! I love her brilliant albums from the 1990s (and those afterwards for that matter!), and so many of the songs from them soundtracked my school days. Her last album, Threads, from last year may well be her very last. It is a shame but, since her debut in 1993, Crow has given the word some truly magnificent music. I really dig her lyrics and storytelling; her voice carries so many emotions and is instantly recognisable, and she can pen an epic chorus when she needs to! To honour one of the greatest artists of her generation, I have put together the Sheryl Crow albums that you need to own, the one that, to me, is underrated, and her latest record – in addition to a useful book that one should get a hold of. This is a tip of a cap to an artist who has given me…
SO much pleasure through the years.
_______________
The Four Essential Albums
Tuesday Night Music Club
Release Date: 3rd August, 1993
Label: A&M
Producer: Bill Bottrell
Standout Tracks: Run Baby Run/Leaving Las Vegas/What I Can Do for You
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Tuesday-Night-Music-Club/master/90311
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7dC6axVAeBDpRMmNtRbpwU
Review:
“Sheryl Crow earned her recording contract through hard work, gigging as a backing vocalist for everyone from Don Henley to Michael Jackson before entering the studio with Hugh Padgham to record her debut album. As it turned out, things didn't go entirely as planned. Instead of adhering to her rock & roll roots, the record was a slick set of contemporary pop, relying heavily on ballads. Upon hearing the completed album, Crow convinced A&M not to release the album, choosing to cut a new record with producer Bill Bottrell. Along with several Los Angeles-based songwriters and producers, including David Baerwald, David Ricketts, and Brian McLeod, Bottrell was part of a collective dubbed "the Tuesday Night Music Club." Every Tuesday, the group would get together, drink beer, jam, and write songs. Crow became part of the Club and, within a few months, she decided to craft her debut album around the songs and spirit of the collective. It was, for the most part, an inspired idea, since Tuesday Night Music Club has a loose, ramshackle charm that her unreleased debut lacked. At its best -- the opening quartet of "Run, Baby, Run," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Strong Enough," and "Can't Cry Anymore," plus the deceptively infectious "All I Wanna Do" -- are remarkable testaments to their collaboration, proving that roots rock can sound contemporary and have humor. That same spirit, however, also resulted in some half-finished songs, and the preponderance of those tracks make Tuesday Night Music Club better in memory than it is in practice. Still, even with the weaker moments, Crow manages to create an identity for herself -- a classic rocker at heart but with enough smarts to stay contemporary. And that's the lasting impression Tuesday Night Music Club leaves” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: All I Wanna Do
Sheryl Crow
Release Date: 24th September, 1996
Label: A&M
Producer: Sheryl Crow
Standout Tracks: A Change Would Do You Good/Home/If It Makes You Happy
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Sheryl-Crow/release/442516
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/49fcfLcicBYSqitKzXDJpN
Review:
“Crow’s voice sounds more assured when she’s sober. The critically-hailed singer took full-reign of the production duties, partially in response to suggestions that she was a mere puppet to her all-male Tuesday Night Music Club. As such, there’s a palpable, fear-driven ambition to the album. Her drive paid off and not only did Crow avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, but Sheryl Crow is easily her greatest achievement. The album’s lead single, the crunchy rocker “If It Makes You Happy,” was both a retort to the criticism she received as well as a fatigued reflection on two years of fame and touring (which included a stint at Woodstock ‘94, specifically referenced here). While the structure of the single is fairly straightforward, other tracks are filled with quirky, stream-of-conscious lyrics (pop-culture references abound: to Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Ouija boards, etc.) and a collage of drum loops, organs, and layered voices. Songs like “Ordinary Morning,” with its lazy piano figures and raw blues vibe, are cushioned comfortably next to loopy tracks like “Maybe Angels” and understated folk ballads like “Home,” in which Crow recounts the emotional strains of a deteriorating marriage.
As always, Crow’s lyrics take a decidedly moralistic stance but never sound preachy. “Hard to Make a Stand” touches on abortion clinic terrorism while “Love Is a Good Thing” sees the solution to the world’s problems in the same four-letter word so many other rockers have enthusiastically endorsed over the years. Crow makes subtle references to the Beatles’ “Love Is All You Need,” but not before giving us a dose of modern reality: “Watch our children while they kill each other/With a gun they bought at Walmart discount stores.” This is certainly not the same hippie mentality of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and one can’t help but think that Crow is a tad less confident with her miracle product than, say, Lennon ever was. “These are the days when anything goes,” she sings on the buoyant “Everyday Is a Winding Road,” and the sentiment speaks for both the song’s playful optimism and the album’s sonic adventurousness. Crow has had some other great moments (“Leaving Las Vegas,” “My Favorite Mistake”), but none of her other full-length albums have been as consistent, immaculately produced or distinctly modern” – SLANT
Choice Cut: Everyday Is a Winding Road
The Globe Sessions
Release Date: 21st September, 1998
Label: A&M
Producer: Sheryl Crow
Standout Tracks: There Goes the Neighborhood/The Difficult Kind/Mississippi
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-The-Globe-Sessions/master/130301
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/08enrSAkHTYkQwhRlKXQgB
Review:
“Since her dense, varied, postmodernist eponymous second album illustrated that Sheryl Crow was no one-album wonder, she wasn't left with as much to prove the third time around. Having created an original variation on roots rock with Sheryl Crow, she was left with the dilemma of how to remain loyal to that sound without repeating herself on her third album, The Globe Sessions. To her credit, she never plays lazy, not when she's turning out Stonesy rockers ("There Goes the Neighborhood") or when she's covering Dylan (the remarkable "Mississippi," an outtake from Time Out of Mind). However, she has decided to abandon the layered, yard-sale production and pop culture fixations that made Sheryl Crow a defining album of the mid-'90s. The Globe Sessions, instead, is the work of a craftswoman, one who knows how to balance introspective songs with pop/rockers, one who knows how to exploit her signature sound while becoming slightly more eclectic. In that sense, the album is a lot like a latter-day album from her idols, the Stones -- it finds pleasures within the craft and the signature sounds themselves. That means that there are no surprises (apart from the synthesized handclaps, of course). The Celtic homage "Riverwide" may be new, but it's not unexpected, much like how the whiplash transition in "Am I Getting Through" isn't entirely out of the blue. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, since The Globe Sessions has a strong set of songs. Since it lacks the varied sonics, humor, and flat-out weirdness of Sheryl Crow, it's never quite as compelling a listen as its predecessor, yet it is a strong record, again confirming Crow's position as one of the best roots rockers of the '90s” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: My Favorite Mistake
Feels like Home
Release Date: 10th September, 2013
Labels: Old Green Barn/Sea Gayle Music/Warner Bros. Nashville
Producers: Sheryl Crow/Justin Niebank
Standout Tracks: Shotgun/Callin’ Me When I’m Only/Homecoming Queen
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Feels-Like-Home/master/600820
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5LYNsXNQUGSZlHnjw7K01s
Review:
“Sheryl Crow is nothing if not versatile: A former Michael Jackson backup singer who mixes pop, country, R&B and classic rock, she’s built a career as an outspoken singer-songwriter and a Grammy-friendly go-to collaborator. Her eighth LP digs deeper into country tradition than she’s ever gone before. The results are uneven, but never feel forced or faked. The ultimate stylistic diplomat, Crow makes every twang her own. It helps to have major Nashville songwriting firepower: Luke Laird, Brad Paisley, Shane McAnally and Chris DuBois help Crow serve a half-century’s worth of styles without sounding like a history teacher. The lushly orchestrated, tear-jerking Paisley-co-write “Waterproof Mascara” and the Loretta Lynn/Bobbie Gentry-style “Drinking” (about getting “shitfaced” on a Wednesday night, instead of rolling “a big fat one and watchin’ Nashville alone”) update vintage countrypolitan and honky-tonk sounds. “Shotgun” and “Easy” are smart, airbrushed ’00s mainstream contenders in the spirit of Miranda Lambert and country’s tough new radio sweethearts. Crow still sounds most at home on the rockers – especially the steel-laced “Callin’ Me When I’m Lonely” and the Bad Company bow “Nobody’s Business.” But this set suggests the Opry crowd might want to keep her on speed dial” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Easy
The Underrated Gem
Wildflower
Release Date: 27th September, 2005
Label: A&M
Producers: Sheryl Crow/Jeff Trott/John Shanks
Standout Tracks: Good Is Good/Lifetimes/Always on Your Side
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Wildflower/master/130310
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1MhK8H2ZRTgCIljAz2EzFM
Review:
“Whether she’s pondering the afterlife in ”Letter to God” or blandly wondering ”Where Has All the Love Gone,” Sheryl Crow clearly wants Wildflower to be a bit more somber and reflective than her recent, interchangeable albums. But while there’s no denying the craft in the yearning ”I Don’t Wanna Know” or the sternly devotional ”Lifetimes,” her fondness for overblown L.A.-rock clichés undercuts the intimacy she’s after; the music sounds homogenized. Crow has become like my General Electric oven: dependable, reliable, and not very exciting” – Entertainment Weekly
Choice Cut: Perfect Lie
The Latest/Final Album
Threads
Release Date: 30th August, 2019
Label: Big Machine
Producers: Steve Jordan/Sheryl Crow/Jeff Trott
Standout Tracks: Prove You Wrong/Redemption Day/Border Lord
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/Sheryl-Crow-Threads/master/1598632
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1pJGYnd7uAJe5Behy75EK1
Review:
“Someone who definitely is not shunted into a secondary role is Johnny Cash, who sings a “duet” with Crow on “Redemption Day,” a song she wrote and recorded for her second album and which he covered as part of his latter-day run with Rick Rubin. Her remake of the song is so startlingly good and haunting — with not much more than a piano backing and some striking chordal changes that render it even more melancholy — that it almost seems like gilding, or interrupting, the lily to suddenly have Cash’s voice come in from the afterworld. But his autumnally vulnerable and sweet voice and her unshakable one sound so good ‘n’ sad together that you may override any biases you harbor about grave-spanning collaborations and embrace this one as the spooky triumph it is.
No doubt Crow means it when she says this is it for her as an album artist — she’s been saying it for the couple of years that she’s been promising “Threads.” But will she stick with it, or is declaring that you’re abandoning making music in the supposedly passe album form the modern-day equivalent of going on your first “farewell” tour? “Threads” is strong enough that we should probably all agree now not to shame her if she goes back on her word” – Variety
Choice Cut: Everything Is Broken
The Sheryl Crow Book
The Words and Music of Sheryl Crow (Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection)
Author: Christopher Gable
Publication Date: 6th September, 2016
Publisher: Praeger
Synopsis:
“Offering commentary, musical analysis, and detailed interpretation of her songs' lyrics, this book examines the qualities of Sheryl Crow's music that have served to establish the artist's success and popularity. * Presents an in-depth and complete listening guide to all of Crow's songs, including B-sides and rarities * Features insightful commentary with song analysis * Includes a glossary of musical and technical terms for the non-specialist” - Abe Books
Buy: https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781440831287/Words-Music-Sheryl-Crow-Praeger-1440831289/plp