Jewel: Pieces of You
Aug. 5th, 2010 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI hadn't listened to Jewel's album "Pieces of You" in years. (For reference, I've really liked Jewel since high school, and it occurs to me that at some point I should hunt up her more recent albums, since the last one I have is "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland".) What was kind of odd, and was part of the impetus for listening to this album again, was that when I think of her earlier music I tend to think more of "Spirit", which was her second album and probably my favorite.
I didn't really recall the reason for that, but the reason is: It's a much, much stronger album. Don't get me wrong, "Pieces of You" is good, but good in that there's a lot of potential in it. There are a bunch of good tracks that she later did better recordings of, and there's the occasional excellent turn of phrase (many of which are repeated on her poetry albums*), but that's most of the strength of the album. The music is fairly lackluster--most of the songs sound the same (they're still mostly "poems set to music" and less "songs") and she uses the breathy-babydoll voice for a number of them. In later albums, her songwriting gets much stronger very quickly and she tends much more towards full-voice singing (which works much better, given that her training is operatic and she's apparently a practiced yodeler). The album just doesn't doesn't hold up against her later work.
And so, "Pieces of You" goes back on the shelf. Makes me want to listen to the rest of Jewel's discography, though.
*Yes, I bought and listened to the CD version of "A Night Without Armor." Wanna make something of it?
I didn't really recall the reason for that, but the reason is: It's a much, much stronger album. Don't get me wrong, "Pieces of You" is good, but good in that there's a lot of potential in it. There are a bunch of good tracks that she later did better recordings of, and there's the occasional excellent turn of phrase (many of which are repeated on her poetry albums*), but that's most of the strength of the album. The music is fairly lackluster--most of the songs sound the same (they're still mostly "poems set to music" and less "songs") and she uses the breathy-babydoll voice for a number of them. In later albums, her songwriting gets much stronger very quickly and she tends much more towards full-voice singing (which works much better, given that her training is operatic and she's apparently a practiced yodeler). The album just doesn't doesn't hold up against her later work.
And so, "Pieces of You" goes back on the shelf. Makes me want to listen to the rest of Jewel's discography, though.
*Yes, I bought and listened to the CD version of "A Night Without Armor." Wanna make something of it?
