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MUSICBOX: Out of steam
Brace yourselves as another artist recklessly sacrifices a carefully constructed career at the altar of cosmetic glitter. Jewel has displayed a noteworthy flair and desire to make it big in the past couple of years. She proved that folk-pop, her forte, was an economically viable genre. However, somewhere along the line she strayed from the straight and narrow and fell prey to bland commercialism. While she may be diversifying her panorama by incorporating elements of rock and dance, nevertheless, the price she paid for her experiment is a heavy one. Undoubtedly, the legions of Jewel devotees will be disappointed because of her uncomfortably numb swing of genre and uneasy dip of mood.
0304 is the fifth album by the multi-platinum-selling singer and it is in every way a departure from her signature style. Co-produced by Lester Mendez (who has also worked with artists like Enrique Iglesias and Shakira), the album comes across as a rejected airline jingle. Her exclusive lyrical style fails to rescue 0304 from its devastating free-fall. Jewel’s down-to-earth voice fails to manifest itself as the saving grace of the album because of the monotonous sounding tracks. It appears as if the singer is at the crossroads of her career, but she has made a complete mess of things by shoving everything she could lay her hands on into the musical cauldron. Her metamorphosis remains incomplete.
Intuition, a supposedly upbeat track, flaunts the new self-importance that the artist has acquired and reflects Jewel’s aims to become a hot, marketable product. In Haunted, a track accompanied by not-so-subtle drums, the blonde-haired Aleutian sings in a slow, throaty voice but fails to make an impression.
On U & Me = Love she croons, “I’m no Barbie doll for your fantasies and all.” However, the image that she has tried to cultivate in 0304 seems to suggest otherwise! She points her bland arrows at George W. Bush. Whereas otherwise it is a commendable effort, it certainly lacks the new-world bravado and zeal of American Life by Madonna or the Dixie Chicks’ country pop activism.
This is a glamorized, artificial and over-produced album. The verdict: Jewel has lost her shine!—-Taimur Saleem
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No one changes names more frequently than rappers. Nineties chart-topper and ‘It’ man Snoop Doggy Dogg has just released a comeback album under his new, fresh persona Snoop Dogg. Since hip-hop mogul Puff Daddy was able to reclaim glory when he reinvented himself as P. Diddy, it’s understandable that the sinking Snoop Dogg would try a similar tactic. The result? Bow-wow wonderful? That just may be.After the mediocre quality of his previous albums, it was doubted that Snoop would ever reclaim his top dog position in the charts. With his latest disc Paid Tha Cost To Be Da Bo$$, however, he’s workin’ it. The smoothly balanced disc includes soulful ballads, hardcore beats and even the currently en vogue ’70s funk sound. While Jennifer Lopez’s sound weakened as she infused more and more of the ’70s vibe, Snoop’s West Coast lazy drawl works the bell bottom generation’s groove well. A partial Neptunes joint, the famous producers elevate the doggy sound, while guest appearances from pros including Ludacris, Pharrell Williams, Redman and Charlie Wilson give a smooth flavour to the disc. Although this is his sixth album, Paid Tha Cost is the first to be released on his own Doggystyle label.
First single From The Church to Da Palace is overly repetitive but simply infectious. With a standard Neptunes sound, it’s slightly more mainstream then the rest of the disc. Another hot number is East Coast flavoured The One and Only. Produced by Premier, it’s got some cool scratches and a sweet beat. Other dope tracks include the funky Hourglass, the wicked, flute-driven Lollipop with Nate Dogg and Jay-Z and the tongue-in-cheek Batman and Robin with Lady of Rage.
Unfortunately, none of the tracks – Neptune or not – have the wow factor of his career-making disc Doggystyle. The funky sounds on Paid Tha Cost are somewhat hardcore and underground, so one doubts Snoop will regain his mainstream fame, but at least he’s got his old magic back and has reversed his career nose-dive. Maybe other former celebrities should also change their names.—T.U. Dawood
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