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People Helping People - Nov. 23
After 30 years at the helm of Akron Children's, Considine still looks to future
Matsos bottling a dressing that’s selling in 25 states
Home Run for Homeless is Thursday
People Helping People - Nov. 22
People Helping People - Nov. 21
Most Read Stories
Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)
Victim of beating in Kent last week is declared dead at Akron hospital
Akron man killed in crash on his street
Browns find another way to lose
Can DNA tests free ex-Akron captain?
After 30 years at the helm of Akron Children's, Considine still looks to future
Dad accused of forcing son into field, killing him
Man found dead in North Akron home is identified
Blogs:
Pets:
Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens
The Heldenfiles:
Sunday Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
Browns sick after sick loss in Detroit
Akron Zips:
Zips advance to Sweet Sixteen
Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
Cleveland Browns:
Post-game defensive quotes
Kent State Sports:
Kent State defeats Rochester College, 63-44
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight
All Da King's Men:
The Onion, By Any Other Name…
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (70) Savings in Medicare Advantage
See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic
Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Faye Dunaway to be Evicted?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Monique asks how to get tickets for the Polar Express.
Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
Personal Rant – You are All Wrong About Jobs, or the Lack of Jobs, Being the Reason People Do Not Live in NEO
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Published on Sunday, Jun 08, 2008
PERFECTLY CLEAR
Jewel
Valory Music Co./Big Machine
That Perfectly Clear, Jewel's strong seventh album, is her ''country'' record is of course ludicrous; she's been country for years. She describes her father as a ''poetic cowboy.'' Her longtime boyfriend is the rodeo champion Ty Murray. She is a host of Nashville Star, country music's American Idol. And it is just a short, mournful-fiddle-assisted hop from the coffeehouse folk with which she made her name to Nashville's more contemplative wing.
And so the ways in which Perfectly Clear is more country than her 1995 debut album Pieces of You are small, more a function of gestures and nods than of wholesale conversion. Jewel wrote or helped write every song here save one, and the producer John Rich (of Big & Rich) has done little to hammer down her well-worn eccentricities: wordiness; imperfect rhymes; a sharp, assured voice that collapses for effect.
The title track shows just how far Jewel, 34, hasn't come. ''The doorway frames you,'' she sings, ''a picture-perfect silhouette/blue sky of regret/enough to hang you.'' It could have been on her debut album. (To be fair, it was written when she was 18.) Two Become One also appeared, in different form, on her 2003 album 0304. (The dance-floor flirtation on that album was Jewel's true genre experiment.)
Still, her brand of country is gentle; making her a genre star will require adrenalizing it. And while the most blatant attempts at shoring up Jewel's credibility should be the least successful, the opposite is true. On Loved by You (Cowboy Waltz), she yodels, compellingly (it's a skill she often displays live). Anyone but You boldly revisits country's early-'70s pop moment, in the manner of Lee Ann Womack's recent There's More Where That Came From; Jewel is lovely on it, her voice breathy and bittersweet.
And Till It Feels Like Cheating recalls the blues-inflected sound of Julie Roberts. (One of the song's writers, Lisa Carver, wrote Roberts' excellent post-breakup dissection, Wake Up Older.) It's the best song here, and the likeliest hit. But it is no coincidence that it is the one Jewel did not write — and that it sounds the least like Jewel.
— Jon Caramanica
New York Times
PERFECTLY CLEAR
Jewel
Valory Music Co./Big Machine
Get the full article here.
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