Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Who Will Save Jewel's Soul?: Damn you, insomnia. Overhearing the Leno repeat through the haze of sleep reminded me of something else I ran across over the weekend: Jewel's performance during halftime at the NBA playoffs. I would've missed it if the Thread aPa chatters weren't mostly sports fans, but it did stay with me once I saw it. Something in (or somebody behind) Jewel has moved her to make the transition from singer-songwriter territory to dance-pop. She's kind of got the pop look (kind of, I must stress), but her approach to the new song is strictly production line. Considering the care she took singing the folk material (the lyrics never hit me in the right place to invest money in her albums), the disconnect in appoach is somewhat unsettling.
The song that is the crux of the whole transition is "Intuition," a mild, if somewhat cynical, empowerment lyric (so at least in that respect it's not a complete break) set to the sort of dire march rhythm that mild empowerment lyrics are set to these days. The thing is I wasn't listening closely enough to actually hear what she was saying the first couple of times; she didn't seem terribly attached to the lyric in either performance I caught, so why should I be?
In fact, I see on the Leo's Lyrics page that, for some people, this is actually a good thing:
This song is so awesome, it sounds cool and i didnt understand the words to the song which i like so i can listen to the song more w/out getting sick of it! This song reminds me of my girlfriend =)
That says volumes about the new audience she's courting, and considering that Jewel has always struck me as somebody who is somewhat attached to words, she's bound to burn out on this new sound in a hurry.
In retrospect, I should've seen the potential for the full-on showbiz sellout coming, since the first time I heard Jewel's folkie bit was in connection with her performance of Dorothy in TNT's production of "The Wizard of Oz In Concert." Her performance was passable-if-bland, but considering the video for "Who Will Save Your Soul" was inserted into every opening in the TNT schedule as a promo for the special, it was a really jarring transition, seeing her shift gears like that.
I suppose in the end, that's how it boils down, to do what it takes to not go back to living in her car. I just hope she doesn't get so far gone that she can't come back to home base.
Considering how I was singing the praises of Hikaru Utada earlier on Sunday, I'm a bit stupefied that I didn't have any thoughts on the topic on the night, but sometimes you have to let these things stew...don't be surprised if I give this a fuller treatment for the website at some point in the next week.
The song that is the crux of the whole transition is "Intuition," a mild, if somewhat cynical, empowerment lyric (so at least in that respect it's not a complete break) set to the sort of dire march rhythm that mild empowerment lyrics are set to these days. The thing is I wasn't listening closely enough to actually hear what she was saying the first couple of times; she didn't seem terribly attached to the lyric in either performance I caught, so why should I be?
In fact, I see on the Leo's Lyrics page that, for some people, this is actually a good thing:
This song is so awesome, it sounds cool and i didnt understand the words to the song which i like so i can listen to the song more w/out getting sick of it! This song reminds me of my girlfriend =)
That says volumes about the new audience she's courting, and considering that Jewel has always struck me as somebody who is somewhat attached to words, she's bound to burn out on this new sound in a hurry.
In retrospect, I should've seen the potential for the full-on showbiz sellout coming, since the first time I heard Jewel's folkie bit was in connection with her performance of Dorothy in TNT's production of "The Wizard of Oz In Concert." Her performance was passable-if-bland, but considering the video for "Who Will Save Your Soul" was inserted into every opening in the TNT schedule as a promo for the special, it was a really jarring transition, seeing her shift gears like that.
I suppose in the end, that's how it boils down, to do what it takes to not go back to living in her car. I just hope she doesn't get so far gone that she can't come back to home base.
Considering how I was singing the praises of Hikaru Utada earlier on Sunday, I'm a bit stupefied that I didn't have any thoughts on the topic on the night, but sometimes you have to let these things stew...don't be surprised if I give this a fuller treatment for the website at some point in the next week.
|| Eric 4:02 AM#
