We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
The official Sheryl Crow thread; New album "Be Myself"
Topic Started: Jan 13 2008, 11:08 PM (2,400 Views)
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Oh! Nice shot! Good to see she's still gorgeous.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

She's looked exactly the same for ages!
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
That is a gorgeous cover.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
johnnox
Member Avatar
Pensioner
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
riverwide and I first bonded over the Crow.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Aw.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
THE BILLBOARD Q&A: SHERYL CROW

The Acclaimed Artist Talks New Album, New Baby And New Life In Nashville
Ken Tucker, Nashville

A lot of has happened since Sheryl Crow's fifth studio album, "Wildflower," hit stores in September 2005. Her very public relationship and engagement with champion cyclist Lance Armstrong came to an end in early 2006, and soon thereafter Crow was diagnosed with breast cancer.

And just weeks before "Wildflower" was released -- to mixed reviews and sales well below those of her past efforts -- Hurricane Katrina wrought its lasting damage upon New Orleans and the surrounding area. Crow's thoughts on the aftermath of that tragedy as well as the ongoing war in Iraq, politics and the environment are all addressed on "Detours," her new A&M album due Feb. 5. First single "Love Is Free" is at radio now --it's No. 17 on Billboard's Triple A chart.

But the new set is not just about the past. Indeed, it also represents new beginnings and the return of an old friend. In the spring of 2007, Crow became a single mother when she adopted a 2-week-old baby boy, Wyatt Steven. Just months earlier, in October 2006, she had moved to a 150-acre farm 45 minutes outside of Nashville, in the rolling hills of Williamson County.

Occasionally cradling a cup of coffee as she sits with Billboard, Crow shared her candid thoughts about her music, her life and the world around us.

Why did you move to Nashville?

Sheryl Crow: I wanted to live here for a long time. I moved to L.A. in ‘87 and always felt like there was a purpose in my being in L.A. even though I was really there because I was always on the road. As I got older and wanted to slow down a little bit [I wanted to move here]. My family is all within three hours of here, my sister actually lives here. And I like this part of the world -- it’s very reminiscent of where I grew up. I like lots of farmland and I like the people here and the music that comes out of here. Actually my last three records I finished in Nashville. I’d come here and hang out with my sister and work at Ocean Way [Studios].

You’ve appeared on a Brooks & Dunn record, recorded with Vince Gill and Willie Nelson. Are you becoming part of the Nashville music community?

Sheryl Crow: I guess. It’s a weird time now. Way back when I wanted to move here, pop wasn’t moving into the country scene. I see why it’s happening now. [It's] because there is no room for people who are just singer/songwriters or who are in between rap, dance and straight-up country. I have great friends who live down here like Emmylou [Harris] and Steve Earle’s always been so great, and Vince [Gill] and Willie [Nelson], even though he doesn’t live here. I feel like I am beginning to be a part of a musical community, but I wouldn’t say I’m a country artist because I wouldn’t want to invalidate anybody else or to even begin to be so preposterous as to think I can just skate into town and get some fans.

Would you ever record a country record?

Sheryl Crow: I feel like my music kind of stems from this part of the world. I feel like there’s a very strong tie to Americana and lyrically to troubadour/country kinds of music, but in the tradition of old country. I couldn’t begin to understand how to make a new country record. I don’t even know what that is now. But, yeah, I would love to make a straight up old country record, which would probably never get played [laughs].

What music are you listening to?

Sheryl Crow: There’s great stuff out there, it’s just a little harder to find. I love Feist. I love this band Margerie Fair that opened up for me two summers ago. I love the Feeling, they have some good stuff. There are so many obscure bands who are doing cool stuff. I have a nephew who’s on MySpace and he’s always sending me stuff that’s not signed. There’s good stuff out there, it’s just not the commercial stuff.

With piracy and lagging sales, are there other models that the record industry should be trying?

Sheryl Crow: Absolutely. We are where we are for a lot of karmic reasons. The CD came out and they slapped $18.99 on a piece of material that cost no more to manufacture than a cassette. They made all the money and there’s a karmic retribution that goes along with that kind of greed. The consumer’s not stupid.

We have to get to a business model where it’s fair to the artist; it’s 50/50. We share in the profits and then it escalates where once you’re paid off then you make even more of a percentage. The prices need to be lowered to something that’s consumer based. We’ve got to do away with CDs completely because until we do that people are just going to bootleg. I say let the system completely bottom out so we can get on with solving the problem.

Would you ever consider doing something like Radiohead did?

Sheryl Crow: I really appreciate the fact that they tried to do that and I understand what they were going for. I was disappointed with what the answer to their experiment was. Ten or 15 percent paid $6 or something like that. On the other end of the spectrum, though, they can do that because they have a big fan base. They go out and tour and make a lot of money. Young artists can't do that and it sets a weird, wacky precedent. You shouldn't have to do that. The message isn't clear. For you to tell me what my art is worth to me is missing the mark. To artists who are starting out who don't have a fanbase, who are touring and don't draw people because people don't know their music, I don't think that's the way to go. I don't think giving away the music is the answer to people thinking that they shouldn't have to pay for art when art is really what is going to get us through the worst of our times. Music, art, writing - it gives us a sense of who we are, a sense of our history, a sense of our future and it should provide some kind of comfort. It's not just entertainment for entertainment's sake, it's an investment. So while I appreciate what they did I don't think the message was clear cut.


Tell me about the song, “Love Is Free.”

Sheryl Crow: I think [it] actually came about after I was reading in the New York Times about Brad Pitt and what he’s doing [in New Orleans] and reflecting on my time down there. I spent three or four months working on the self-titled record there. It was such a great time because it was one of those moments in my career when I felt everyone was against me. My first record had done really well. Then [there was] all this backlash about how I didn’t write it, a bunch of men wrote it and they’re all mad and I can’t even play or sing. To be down in New Orleans, where there’s already that spirit of grit and voodoo and black magic, and just being able to kind of slink around the city and [be] like a kid, like a bratty teenager trying to prove myself, was such an exciting time. The inspiration for that song was thinking about that and seeing what it looks like now. It just breaks my heart.

“Gasoline” has a futuristic revolutionary theme to it. What is the story behind it?

Sheryl Crow: It’s like a science fiction song about looking back and proposing what it would have been like if people were really, really awake and took it to the streets. [It’s saying] we will not be oppressed by these oil prices dictating how we’re going to live our lives. It’s fantastical but at the same time hopefully it’s thought-provoking.

“Does Anybody Want You” has an ELO/George Harrison vibe to it. How did that happen? I know Bill Bottrell worked with ELO at one point.

Sheryl Crow: I kind of err on the side of George Harrison, I always have. He’s my favorite artist of all time and I just can’t help myself. I’m a sucker for it.

It’s interesting that on “Now That You’re Gone” you talk about being able to finally breath, and then “Drunk On the Thought of You” you say you can’t stand the freedom. Is that a paradox of love?

Sheryl Crow: What can I say, I’m a mixed up chick. [laughs] Everyone can attest to the fact that when you are newly out of a relationship, you just feel so immobilized by the pain of it. When you finally start waking up and you don’t feel sickened by all that pain, you feel like “I’m finally breathing deep again.” That’s what it's about; it’s not so much even about the person. It’s about finally being through the worst of the sorrow and the grief and that deep, deep pain.

“Drunk On the Thought of You” is that propensity that we all have to jump right in with believing in love, which is the motivating factor in life. You believe in the purity of love and the possibility. That song is just all about possibility, to really love somebody again.

How did “Peace Be Upon Us” come about and how did Mike Elizondo come to play on it?

Sheryl Crow: I play bass and so does Bill, but I don’t play like Mike. On the song “Now That You’re Gone,” both Bill and I were like “we need a real bass player on this.” We called [Mike] and he brought down two pieces of, like little germs, of music and one of them was this little figure for “Peace Be Upon Us.” I started working on melody for it and lyrics and kept getting hung up.

In the morning when [my son] Wyatt’s up really early, that’s when I found I could kind of be clear. I started singing a bunch of syllables that just sounded great and I told Bill I wish I could just sing these syllables and he said “well, why don’t you? I said I don’t want to waste it and then it occurred to me that maybe it should be a different language. It became “what if the song’s about peace,” because it already had a Middle Eastern feel.

Will you tour this year?

Sheryl Crow: We’ll do a package in the summer, but we don’t know what that is yet. Hopefully we’ll be able to go to some [places] we haven’t been to in a long time, like Australia, Asia and South America. We’re getting ready to go to Europe to do some promotion in February. It’s a new frontier out there, it’s the wild west. We’ll continue to investigate new ways to get our music in front of people like all this
YouTube stuff—that’s new to me. We’ll just keep trying to stay current and stay little bit ahead of the game and get it all out there.

Fifteen years is a long time in this business. To what do you credit your longevity?

Sheryl Crow: Stubbornness [Laughs], that pathos that I will not be driven away. I laugh about that, but that is part of it. Part of it is I love what I do and I feel compelled to go out and play because there’s a lot of freedom in that for me and in that communication. I find a lot of joy just going out and playing for people.

But also I would say I’m really lucky. I would not be doing what I’m doing if I had to come up through the ranks the way you do now. I wouldn’t be able to do it. In fact, I wouldn’t even make the audition for “American Idol.” So I was lucky I got in at a time [I did]. I was at the tail end of the idea of being a troubadour, of being able to go out and hone your craft. I got to grow as an artist. There’s no denying that looking back to the first record to now, I’ve grown as a songwriter and as a musician and as a producer and as a performer. It’s wonderful I’ve gotten to do that. Today’s artists go out and you’re perfect and you’re choreographed and you can lip-synch with the best of them. I had the luxury of falling down a few times and picking myself up as a stronger version of myself.

Source: Billboard.com
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Great cover, great article. I'll have to pick up a copy if I can find one.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Cool review, although it's hopefully the first and last time I'll ever see the words "The Globe Sessions" and "disappointment" in the same sentence. :manson:

[REVIEW] DETOURS - SLANT MAGAZINE

By Sal CInquemani

Though her track record as an album artist isn't as unblemished as some, including the Recording Academy, would have us believe (though not bad, The Globe Sessions was a disappointment following its self-titled predecessor, and C'mon C'mon was MOR pap at its most painful), Sheryl Crow remains a consistently impressive singles artist. From her charmingly belligerent debut, "Leaving Las Vegas," to 2005's lush, quietly contemplative "Good Is Good," Crow hasn't released a lead single I haven't loved. That streak, it seems, would be broken by the singer-songwriter's hippy anthem "Love Is Free," which chugs along like a well-oiled parade float but is a little too cute-n'-bouncy for its source material (the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina), if not for a technicality: The single was preceded by the airplay-only "Shine Over Babylon," a more sobering take on current events that is sonically closer to "If It Makes You Happy" than "Soak Up the Sun."

What both songs have in common, however, is a roots-rock foundation and musical palette that harks back to Crow's Tuesday Night Music Club, an obviously decided move given that Detours reunites Crow with producer Bill Bottrell for the first time since her debut. The reunion was well worth the 15-year wait, as many of the songs on Detours rank among Crow's best. Bottrell's playful guitar melody dances beneath and between Crow's lead vocal on the sweet "Drunk with the Thought of You," while the tight, multi-part harmonies of the title track hint at the country record Crow has threatened to make. There's a grittiness to the music and a scratchy, lived-in quality to Crow's vocals that's been missing from her last couple of albums, and the rough edges are becoming.

References to the current political climate inform the first half of Detours, with barbed jabs at the Bush administration both obvious ("The president spoke words of comfort with teardrops in his eyes/Then he led us as a nation into a war based on lies," Crow snaps on the opening song, "God Bless This Mess") and slightly more veiled ("Freedoms etched on sacred pillars…Can lead to madman oil drillers," she sings on "Babylon"). Crow imagines a not-so-distant future where dissent is commonplace and gasoline is free ("Gasoline") and she makes it known how she feels about our nation's privileged slackers ("Motivation"). But "Out of Our Heads" is the record's keynote address, a thumping rally cry with a fervent vocal, a singsong choir chorus, and a message of hope that's genuine and affecting; the anthemic song would be a good fit for the Obama campaign.

On their own, the political songs would render Detours Important, but Crow has managed the nearly impossible: recording an album that's as intensely personal as it is fiercely political. If love resulted in Wildflower, her most extraordinarily beautiful—and extraordinarily slept-on—album, then credit the dissolution of that love for what could be Crow's most heartbreakingly personal work to date. Her break-up with Lance Armstrong shades much of the album's second, even stronger half, most overtly on "Diamond Ring," which gives listeners a startlingly frank glimpse into the couple's unraveling: "I blew up our love nest/By making one little request." Then, at song's end, she admits plainly: "Diamond ring fucks up everything." "Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)" paints a portrait of a woman taking stock of her life while laying on a table and awaiting radiation treatment, with the specter of Madam Butterfly—a character who unknowingly, tragically entered into an impermanent union—overseeing the procedure. "Was love the illness, and disease the cure?" Crow asks. That her connection to Armstrong deepened and expanded upon learning she had breast cancer shortly after they split only deepened and expanded the scope, honesty, and profundity of her work.

Rating: 4 stars out 5

Source: slantmagazine.com
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

I had a difficult time sleeping last night, only hours before having to go to work, and all I did within that time period was watch Sheryl Crow videos/interviews/live performances. Not sure what prompted it, but the woman's such a talent.

And what's that reviewer speaking of? "The Globe Sessions" is a really tight set. Nearly, if not as good, as the self-titled.

Anyhow, while I don't care for the first single, I'm excited to hear more music from her. And am willing to give "Wildflower" a second chance.

Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
The new album can now be streamed at www.sherylcrow.com!!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Out of Our Heads is very different for her but VERY good! Drunk With The Thought of You is cute as well...
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Yeah I agree! I like how there's a bit of variety in the production. I think it's sounding pretty good so far actually!

I'm currently making mp3s out of the streams for our aural pleasure. :wink:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
I can't get "Out of our Heads" out of my head!!! (no pun intended) It's such a fantastic wee tune. So different for her too.

The album as a hole is utterly *superb*. She's never had a bad one, but this is right up there with her best. I am *loving* almost every single track. One fantastic melody after another, and the production/tempo is varied. I officially adore this woman again.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Entertainment Weekly give the album an A in their next issue. :clap:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Riverwide
Jan 29 2008, 05:10 PM
Entertainment Weekly give the album an A in their next issue. :clap:

WOW! Very good!
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
:clap:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I listened to the teaser snippets, but I'm abstaining. :(

I want need to experience the album start-to-finish in perfect quality with the booklet in hand. I've ordered the Japanese pressing with the two original bonus tracks. Japan always gets the best version of Sheryl Crow's albums, all the way down to the ink used on the discs themselves.

If the import hasn't arrived by the 5th I'll be snagging a copy of the US pressing, so one week to go, maximum.

*downs screwdriver*
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Riverwide
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Oh yes, I'm very much looking forward to the CD copy too. You're in for a treat anyway. It's full of wonderful songs!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mattress
Teenager
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
WEE!

Looks like I'll be buying 2 copies of Detours anyway.

Japan Edition with two bonus tracks, the session outtakes "Rise Up" and "Beautiful Dream".

"Target Exclusive" US Edition features bonus DVD with 30 minute documentary The Making Of Detours, plus the music video for "Shine Over Babylon".

Then there are the iTunes bonus tracks, covers of Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" and The Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" (the latter previously released on the Bee Movie soundtrack.) I'm in hopes that the otherwise unavailable "Doctor My Eyes" will be available for download separate from Detours.

*much excite*
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums with no limits on posts or members.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Music Discussion · Next Topic »

Theme by Sith of the ZBTZ and Outline