The video for Jewel’s new single ‘Intuition’ caused a fair few folkie folk to choke on their granola: here was the darling of the jet-trash strumalong set cavorting about in a cheerleader’s outfit, joyfully getting in touch with her inner tart. Then came the news that the new album would be handled by Shakira/Santana producer Lester A. Mendez and that she was sharing compositional chores with pop mechanics like Guy Chambers (World Party/Robbie Williams) and Rick Nowels (Kylie/Ronan Keating).
Me, I’m right behind her: there’s a lot more enterprise in go-go boots and foxy halter-tops than in learning how to make an American quilt. So, kudos to Ms Kilcher for wriggling out of the trailer park chastity belt and writing tunes to order for artists as diverse as Santana (the flirty ‘Yes U Can’) and Holly Valance (the disco dandruff of ‘U & Me = Love’), then deciding to keep them for herself.
It’s a strategy that works about half the time. Mendez is no William Orbit, but a lot of these tunes evoke the diluted pop-electronica of Appleton or Madonna’s disappointing American Life. Jewel is a pleasing if somewhat bland vocalist, but for an artist who cut her teeth on the professional-confessional circuit, she’s no great writer of lyrics. The closing ‘America’ attempts a state of the nation address but ends up stating the bleeding obvious, while ‘Stand’ has tantalising hints of Dre’s magic in the music but the words are a sort of attention deficit rewrite of Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ set in the mid west.
Still, there are some infectious tunes on here, the best by far being the aforementioned ‘Intuition’, which mates café accordion with peachy urban beats and a cute little French maid’s outfit of a chorus; the pure pop of ‘Sweet Temptation’; and ‘Leave The Lights On’, a smouldering torch tune masquerading as uptown R&B.
The bizarre upshot of all this is that Jewel, having won the approval of peers like Bob and Neil, has now opted for a shot at pop stardom. However, she might find it an altogether tougher job to compete with Christina’s funk, Britney’s front, Shakira’s gusto and Pink’s guts. 0304 is what happens when an albums artist discovers the difficulties of mastering the three-minute art.