304

1	Stand
2	Run 2 U
3	Intuition
4	Leave The Lights On
5	To Find You
6	Fragile Heart
7	Doin' Fine
8	2 Become 1
9	Haunted
10	Sweet Temptation
11	Yes U Can
12	U & Me = Love
13	America
14	Becoming

Barnes & Noble

In an unexpected move, alt-folkie Jewel has traded in her image as a sensitive singer-songwriter in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin for a racier one more befitting teen pop tarts Britney and Christina. In addition to giving herself a slick, neon-doused makeover, the Alaskan chanteuse has teamed up with Shakira producer Lester Mendez, who pumps up the grooves in her songs and injects them with quirky nuances, such as the French accordion and zippy strings on the beat-driven single "Intuition" or the muted trumpet threaded throughout the noir-ish grooves of "Leave the Lights On." Surprisingly, the musical diversions suit Jewel, who brings sharp lyrical sensibilities to a genre normally not known for them. Amid the swirling keyboards and driving tempo of "America," she embraces the land of the free while questioning its populace's fascination with shallow pop-culture icons such as the Osbournes and Anna Nicole Smith, and on the ethereal "Haunted," she looks at life from the perspective of a stalker. Likewise, Jewel succeeds when she takes a crack at the Cure-like "Sweet Temptation" or material like the kitschy '60s pop of "U & Me = Love," with its sitar-like guitar runs and doo-wop harmonies. Her creative risk could have culminated in career suicide; instead, with 0304, Jewel Kilcher has created a gem of an album. Dave Gil de Rubio

All Music Guide

Within the liner notes to her fourth album, 0304, Jewel includes a note to her fans, explaining, "This album may seem different to you," which is putting it mildly. For a singer who has been making low-key singer/songwriter albums so unassuming that on her debut the two singles had to be re-recorded for mass consumption, it is a big shock to put on 0304 and hear that she has abandoned folkiness and adult pop to make her dance-pop album, of all things. A move that's even more shocking when you consider that when this was released in June of 2003, the teen-driven dance-pop boom of the late '90s/early 2000s was over, so it doesn't necessarily even sound like part of the mainstream of the time, suggesting that this isn't a calculated effort to ride the latest hip trends. No, the music on 0304 is the wild, weird result of Jewel's desire to create a "modern interpretation of big band music. A record that (is) lyric-driven, like Cole Porter stuff, that also has a lot of swing...that combined dance, urban, and folk music." While the big band and Cole Porter allusions are a stretch -- although it is true that this is as lyric-driven as her previous three records -- with the assistance of producer Lester Mendez, she has managed to blend dance, urban, and folk -- complete with pop overtones, of course -- in previously unimaginable ways. Like Sheryl Crow's eponymous second album, this picks up familiar strands of contemporary pop music and familiar themes in Jewel's own work, but the way they're assembled is disarmingly idiosyncratic -- it has a polished, commercial sheen, but the songs take weird twists and turns in their arrangements, structure, and lyrics (another thing this shares with Sheryl Crow is a predilection for odd pop-culture references and name-dropping). More than anything, it's the weird juxtapositions in the production -- the accordions and dance beats on "Intuition"; the way her protest tune, "America," ends in an electro-crash; the muted jazz trumpets on her Nelly Furtado-styled "Leave the Lights On," to name just a few -- that make this an original-sounding album, something with more imagination than the average dance-pop record. Better still, it sounds more authentic (and boasts a better set of songs) than her previous records, which were either too ramshackle or too self-serious and doggedly somber to really reveal much character. Here, even if it's under the veneer of commercial pop, she puts herself out on the line more than she ever has, and she's come up with her best record, with her best set of songs and best music yet. As she notes in her message to fans, "It's the first record I enjoy listening to. It's fun!" She's completely right on that note -- against all, it's the first album of hers that's a sheer pleasure to hear. Stephen Thomas Erlewine