Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/03/2003
Within the liner notes to her fourth album,
0304,
Jewel includes a note to her fans, explaining, "This album may seem different to you," which is putting it mildly. For a singer who has been making low-key
singer/songwriter albums so unassuming that on her debut the two singles had to be re-recorded for mass consumption, it is a big shock to put on
0304 and hear that she has abandoned folkiness and
adult pop to make her
dance-pop album, of all things. A move that's even more shocking when you consider that when this was released in June of 2003, the teen-driven
dance-pop boom of the late '90s/early 2000s was over, so it doesn't necessarily even sound like
part of the mainstream of the time, suggesting that this isn't a calculated effort to ride the latest hip trends. No, the music on
0304 is the wild, weird result of
Jewel's desire to create a "modern interpretation of
big band music. A record that (is) lyric-driven, like
Cole Porter stuff, that also has a lot of
swing...that combined dance,
urban, and
folk music." While the
big band and
Cole Porter allusions are a stretch -- although it is true that this is as lyric-driven as her previous three records -- with the assistance of producer
Lester Mendez, she has managed to blend dance,
urban, and
folk -- complete with
pop overtones, of course -- in previously unimaginable ways. Like
Sheryl Crow's eponymous second album, this picks up familiar strands of
contemporary pop music and familiar themes in
Jewel's own work, but the way they're assembled is disarmingly idiosyncratic -- it has a polished, commercial sheen, but the songs take weird twists and turns in their arrangements, structure, and lyrics (another thing this shares with
Sheryl Crow is a predilection for odd pop-culture references and name-dropping). More than anything, it's the weird juxtapositions in the production -- the accordions and dance beats on
"Intuition"; the way her protest tune,
"America," ends in an
electro-crash; the muted
jazz trumpets on her
Nelly Furtado-styled
"Leave the Lights On," to name just a few -- that make this an original-sounding album, something with more imagination than the average
dance-pop record. Better still, it sounds more authentic (and boasts a better set of songs) than her previous records, which were either too ramshackle or too self-serious and doggedly somber to really reveal much character. Here, even if it's under the veneer of commercial
pop, she puts herself out on the line more than she ever has, and she's come up with her best record, with her best set of songs and best music yet. As she notes in her message to fans, "It's the first record I enjoy listening to. It's fun!" She's completely right on that note -- against all, it's the first album of hers that's a sheer pleasure to hear.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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