Spirit - Jewel (CD 1998)

The cool thing about living in a place like San Francisco is that there are lots of neato used record stores. Big ones. And the cool thing about neato, gigantic record stores is that there are big fat selections of super cheap albums that you d have to pay a lot more for, even used, in a lot of other places. And the other cool thing about all of this is that nobody looks at you funny if you decide one day to plunk down 20 bucks for a buttload of chick music. Like, say, 2 Melissa Ethridge albums, 2 Indigo Girls, 2 Jewels, a Sarah McLachlan and a k.d. lang. About a year ago, I was in one of those moods. Just needed me some Lillith Fairies on my cd shelves, and I can t rightly explain why. But I did.

I ve got no problems, theoretically, with Jewel. In fact, I sort of want to like her and sort of do. I think she s super sexy lookin , crooked teeth and all, and I actually like her frail, yodelly voice, a lot. It s the poetry, though, that cancels it all out ... well, and the lousy music ... but mostly the poetry. The woman is a pathetic writer and pretty as she sometimes sounds, her voice is never going to make up for the high school diary confessionals.

She manages to scoot by on her best efforts, like Hands, which is a damn fine song, even if I don t have a clue what it means.

My hands are small, I know / but they re not yours, they are my own, and / I am never broken / Only kindness matters / Only kindness matters

Okay, thanks for that Jewel. Now here s a sack o Patchouli; why don t you go suck on it.

On her not-best efforts for instance, every other song on this album no scooting by will be permitted or acknowledged.

On several songs (e.g. Kiss the Flame ) she sounds remarkably like Linda Thompson, who, for my money, ya know, there just couldn t be anyone lovelier. But Linda Thompson s vocals have the benefit of brilliant, pain-filled lyrics and rich imagery, which render her performances transcendent. I mean, give a listen to I Want to See The Bright Lights Tonight after listening to a little Jewel and you re gonna want to chase down the latter and smack her around with a track shoe. And on the numbers that don t even try to be Linda Thompson-esque, Jewel reveals herself to be not just an embarrassment to the chick music genre, but to her entire home state of Alaska, all of whom, I believe, are hiding behind caribou and waiting for the day when we forget that they failed to lose Jewel on an ice-fishing trip.

Jupiter is particularly indicative of her lyrical weaknesses:

Venus De Milo in her half baked shell / Understood the nature of love very well / She said "A good love is delicious / You can't get enough too soon / It makes you so crazy / You want to swallow the moon

This is the kind of writing that s appreciated by the same fu.cktards who really believe that Jim Morrison was an American Poet:. Smoke a doob. Sell 40 I.Q. points and look for something to rhyme. Ride the snake (bong load) .. uh ... to the lake ... (bong load) .. uh ... come-on yeah!

Fat Boy and Enter From The East are unlistenable, the sort of trash you d expect from someone who actually, honestly. believes they can do no wrong with guitar in hand. If she was a novelist, we would beg her to hire an editor. But these comments are pure compliment compared to what I d like to say about Barcelona. From the opening strains of that song, my speakers were screaming: HERE COMES PRETENSION! But then my ears began to bleed and I was spared.

Do You strives for Sheryl Crow. Perhaps a dubious goal for most artists. But then, most artists aren t Jewel. Neither catchy in a commercial jingle sort of way, nor earnest in a fun, I am woman, hear me shake my a.ss sort of way, Do You is just a forgettable pop-blues dittie, without the pop. Or the blues.

There s a hidden track on the album with some other singer. Ooh, how very Nirvana. And like the hidden track at the end of Nevermind, this one is annoying and unnecessary.

In conclusion, Jewel is a very, very bad songwriter, without wit or intelligence, who managed a short-lived company-sponsored reputation as a sort of pop-folk youngster with potential. As early as her second album, it was clear that that potential would never be realized. And one hopes that her new incarnation as a sexy post-teen pop sexual sex-thing will at least yield some news-making accidental-on-purpose, awards-show Ooops photos of her girly bits. Beyond that, I can t for the life of me figure her purpose.