Jewel, 0304
A sonic shift from her previously acoustic-heavy outings
I can't help but have a soft spot in my heart for Jewel. She helped get me a job. After an interview at eMusic, editor J. Edward Keyes mentioned that he needed to go review a show of hers in Long Island. I mentioned that I loved her work, and after the show I spent the long ride home back to Brooklyn trying to convince him of her relative worth. He wasn't convinced, but I think he realized he could — at the very least — tolerate having me around eight hours a day in an office. As long as I kept my mouth shut about Jewel. I can't blame him. Most people don't want to hear about what makes Jewel great — especially people who take music "seriously." She fancies herself a poet. Her music is resolutely lightweight so as to allow more room for said poetry. And her dyed-in-the-wool fans? Let's just say that they don't often go by "J. Edward" or "Todd L.," and leave it at that.
0304, Jewel's fifth full-length, is the easiest album in her discography to hate. At the time of its release, I obliged. Billed as the Alaskan-born singer-songwriter's dance-pop record, it was a marked sonic shift from her previously acoustic-heavy outings. Working in collaboration with ill-fated-urban-update-producer-to-the-stars Lester Mendez, Jewel offered up the laughable idea that, in the run-up to the Iraq War, people were looking for music that was going to make them feel happy. That 0304 had a direct lineage from big band records from the World War II era. That people that listen to Jewel would "want to crowd into a room and press up against someone and feel young and sexy," as she put it in an interview with Elton John's legendary songwriting partner Bernie Taupin at the time.
As time has proven, like Elton John, Jewel is a songwriter. (Not a folk artist as so many had thought due to the enormous success of her debut album.) And when viewed through that prism, 0304 works about as well as any other album in her catalogue. There are some gems: "Intuition" deservedly soundtracked a commercial and sounded just as phenomenal that fateful night in Long Island sans dance beats, "Doin' Fine" finds room to inject poetry into sugary pop and "Haunted" is a monstrous anthem that finds Jewel unleashing a banshee wail. There are some stinkers: "Sweet Temptation"'s toytronic production gets in the way of its clumsy phrasing, "America" is a song that can only be loved by fans of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "U&Me=Love" is marred by Jewel's hit-and-miss habit of inserting pop culture references into the mix. (Old Spice? Really?) Quite simply, some of this hasn't aged well.
On the other hand, she did get me a job. So I guess I shouldn't complain that much. Thanks, Jewel. Sincerely, Todd L. Burns.
