Sheryl Crow has made a name for herself by writing music in her unique way. Refusing to conform to the modern standards of pop and rock, Sheryl Crow has written her own brand of folk/pop/rock/country just because all she wants to do "is have some fun."
Sheryl Crow's latest album, "C'mon, C'mon," is similar to her earlier efforts. She acknowledges this in the first song on the album, "Steve McQueen": "I wanna rock and roll this party. I still want to have some fun." "McQueen" is actually one of the better songs of the album due to its classic guitar lick. The track rocks out while criticizing pop-culture.
The next song on the album, "Soak up the Sun," was the first single off the album. An easy-paced rock song, "Soak" is perhaps the most fun song on the album. As she does on the first track, Sheryl writes like a woman enjoying herself on "Soak."
The guest appearances on this album are impressive. In the case of the third song, "You're an Original," the guest is Lenny Kravitz. Fresh off his own release, the voices of Crow and Kravitz complement each other beautifully. The song, another tongue-in-cheek criticism of pop culture, is also one of the better on the album. "Hole in my Pocket," sounds suspiciously like "Original," without the good lyrics and guest vocals.
Crow also tries a few ballads, mostly about lost or forbidden love. These are some of the weaker songs on the album, the strongest probably being "Safe and Sound." A song about lost love, the track is of the most passionately sung on the whole album, although Crow's weak soprano doesn't hold the melody convincingly.
The other two slow songs, "Abilene" (with Natalie Maines) and "Weather Channel," are wholly weak and uninspired. Both songs are sung without conviction and make the listener not even want to listen to the lyrics.
The poorest tracks on the album are "It's So Easy" (with Don Henley) and "Over You." The two songs are out of place on Crow's album. With cheesy melodic lines and predictable chord patterns, both songs, especially 'Easy,' sound like early '90s love songs by Celine Dion or Whitney Houston. Even the lyrics are sickeningly familiar and reek of clich: "It's so easy holding you near/ I could melt in your arms and disappear/ loving you baby is breaking my heart tonight./ It's so easy but it isn't right." "Over You" isn't nearly as bad, but is still disappointing.
Like the two songs just mentioned, "Diamond Road" (with Stevie Nicks) and "It's Only Love" (with Gwenyth Paltrow!!?) are a bit too familiar. However, both guest vocalists add a dimension to the songs that both "Easy" and "Over You" lacked. In fact, "Over You" comes out as one of the best songs on the album melodically and musically, although lyrically it is not quite as rich as some others.
The title track is the culmination of everything on the album. While allowing Crow to exhibit her mastery of words and music, the song falters in the same places that the album does: in places the melody is a bit recycled and the lyrics are a little too sugary. In spite of this, the song comes out strong.
One of the best aspects of the album is that Crow, like always, manages to say something meaningful. Flying in the face of popular music's insistence on meaning absolutely nothing, even in her love songs Crow writes about things that matter, at least to her. This is most clearly exemplified in her commentary on pop culture.
On Steve McQueen, Crow comments, "We got rock stars in the White House,/ all our pop stars look like porn,/ all my heroes hit the highway,/ they don't hang out here no more."
"You're an Original," too, is a song (ironically sung with Lenny Kravitz)"all about the malaise of pop music and culture: "You're an original, baby./ Turn around and you're looking at a hundred more./ Caught you in a pose that everybody knows./ We thought you had something special."
Perhaps most stinging is "Soak up the Sun," in which she sings, "I'm going to soak up the sun/ while it's still free."
Another theme of the album that is related is that of Crow's independence. On 'McQueen,' she shouts, "I ain't takin' shit from no one; baby that was yesterday. I'm an all American rebel making my big getaway." Similarly on "Soak up the Sun," she belts out, "don't have no master suite, I'm still the king of me."
Just like all her previous albums, "C'mon C'mon" exhibits Crow's mastery of musical form. Sometimes she gets carried away and sometimes lazy, but overall, Sheryl Crow manages to put together an album that sounds about as tight as it gets.
CD courtesy of the Dartmouth Bookstore.
