As the world's biggest Jewel fan, I was excited when I read on the Jewel e-mail listserv that her new album, This Way, would be hitting record stores this holiday season. In fact, to say I was excited would be an understatement. I jumped up and down on my bed and screamed loudly with high-pitched yelps of joy. I clutched my hands to my chest, looked upward, and let the words "Finally! Finally! Finally!" fly up into the ether.
Jewel has given meaning to my world and purpose to my life. I could not wait to add yet another element to my Jewel collection. I have been yearning for her deep, insightful words, her fresh perspective, her quirky approach to life, and her bold, empowering confidence for longer than I'm willing to admit.
Oh, Jewel! Jewel, Jewel, Jewel, you are the poet of my generation, the voice of our era and for that, you deserve my everlasting thanks.
But did you have to suck it up so much? Did your latest album have to succeed so well in embodying words like "blehhh" or "achhhh?" I can't figure you out. After all of the love and support I have offered you and your art by playing your music over and over for hours, days, on end, you have to go ahead and create something like this. I don't get it. Is it folk music? Maybe folk rock? Country rock? No, wait, it's pop? Easy listening, perhaps? Suddenly you have lost your voice. Suddenly you sound like Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Enya, Joni Mitchell, all of the Dixie Chicks, all of the Bangles, and Trisha Yearwood combined. But not yourself; you do not sound like yourself.
I'm sorry, my love, my Jewel, you are beautiful in every sense of the word, but your tunes reek with the stink of a confused musician, one stretching for the powerful and complex, but ultimately pulling up and finding herself drowning in a shallow wading pool of over-produced ballads and effects-heavy rambling.
Listen up, J. I loved your music because it was fresh and alive. You felt genuine, like a true folkster, a latter-day hippy without being too crunchy or socially conscious, a confident passionate feminist. You possessed a witty, self-conscious hipness that transcended the industry in which you were forced to create your art. But now, I fear, your music feels anything but genuine. You have become the opposite of edgy.
Most of this album sounds like background music, with bland drum beats and sweeping vocals that go nowhere, leaving the listener more agitated than inspired. This is the kind of music they play from the ceiling vents in Target, the kind of music that is supposed to keep me happy while I shop for a blender or, perhaps, shelving. But, alas, it does not make me happy. It makes want to leave Target and go to WalMart in the hope that they have better taste in music. Your song about that city, "Cleveland," was confusing and bizarre. It did not make me want to visit Ohio at all, not in the way your song "Barcelona" made me want to go to Spain.
And I had trouble understanding your words: "Daffodils and roulette wheels and rusty automobiles/Somewhere our things share the same windowsill." All I can tell you, dear Jewel, is that sitting upon my windowsill, next to my bed, is your image - your long flowing blond hair, your deep piercing eyes, your slight teasing smile - and lately, as I have gazed at you upon waking, I have felt a bit ill. Where have you gone? What have you done? With This Way, you have lost your way and I can only hope you find it again, and quick.
I remember watching that music video, watching you stand there playing your guitar all cool and smooth, standing proudly in that bathroom stall, singing "Who Will Save Your Soul." And I said to myself, "Good question: who will save my soul? This Jewel really does know me." You spoke to my heart and to my soul. And from that moment, that single transcendent moment, I was forever a Jewel fan. Listening to the music, reading the book of poetry, paying eight dollars three times to see you in the 1999 romantic comedy Ride With The Devil co-starring Tobey Maguire and Skeet Ulrich.
I have dedicated myself to Jewel, but this latest offering has made such a task more difficult than I would like. It hurts, damn it. I want so desperately to love my dear Jewel, but certain things in this world, I have learned, are just plain impossible.
At this point, I would much rather toss her first, most wonderfully perfect album Pieces of You into my CD player, stand upon my bed, and bounce my pain away, forgetting the reality of This Way for good.
