Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow
(A&M)
On this self-titled disc, Crow does her best to prove that she's not Linda Ronstadt--an attractive gal with a big voice whose every move is carefully choreographed by string-pullers behind the scenes. She's banished David Baerwald (who gave her debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, at least a modicum of heft), and while three ditties were co-written by Tuesday vet Bill Bottrell, he's been shoved onto the shelf, too. Moreover, she's written lyrics that read like achingly earnest pleas for respect: Upon hearing the lines, "It's buried in the countryside/It's exploding in the shells of night/It's everywhere a baby cries/Freedom" (from "Redemption Day"), you half expect Tracy Chapman to order this makeup-wearing white girl off her turf. That said, Crow is no dolt. While hardly an original thinker, she's got a good sense of what to steal; "Hard to Make a Stand," for example, manages the neat trick of ripping off Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones in the same song. She's also enough of a modernist to have employed Tchad Blake to give the album's mix a comparatively quirky twirl. And despite her declaration of independence, she doesn't shy away from accepting the assistance of numerous worthy collaborators, including Mitchell Froom, Jim Keltner, Neil Finn and Steve Berlin. In the end, Sheryl Crow winds up seeming neither as retro nor as dumb as the vocalist's detractors might wish. Still, you get the feeling that "okay" is as good as Crow is going to get. If that meets your requirements, belly up to the bar. If not, there are plenty of singer-songwriters out there with a hell of a lot more to offer.
Van Halen
Best of: Volume I
(Warner Bros.)
I come not to bury David Lee Roth but to praise him. He may be tough to take in large doses, but he's got a sense of humor (a rarity in this genre), and he's not embarrassed at the thought of making an ass out of himself (an even scarcer commodity). Sure, Eddie Van Halen's flying fingers helped make the first six Van Halen recordings go, but Roth made them entertaining: "And the Cradle Will Rock..." (from 1980's Women and Children First) is a pretty good tune in and of itself, but the moment at which the music drops out and Roth asks, "Have you seen Junior's grades?" like a heavy-metal Ward Cleaver is what sticks in your mind. Which is why Sammy Hagar's phony, passionless scream and his generic delivery of the line "Here it comes/That funny feeling again" (from 1986's "Why Can't This Be Love") lets you know that the album's next section will be a stone drag. Hagar has always been a hack, and he proves it each time he opens his mouth. His anonymous yelping helped produce hits, sure, but it also allowed bandmates Eddie, Alex and Michael to devolve into mere craftsmen--players who were instrumentally skilled but more than a little bit dull. (It was no surprise when "Right Now" became a successful television commercial; it sounded like one to begin with.) The last Hagar recording here--"Humans Being," cut this year--is, if anything, even lamer than the material that preceded it: No wonder the Van Halen boys gave him the sack. And while neither of the numbers cut with Roth are any great shakes, at least they display signs of life: "Can't Get This Stuff No More" finds Roth boasting about dating a supermodel with such buffoonish sincerity (he hasn't had too many pairings like this lately, I'll bet) that it's rather charming. It's also Roth's last Van Halen hurrah; after announcing a new tour with their original lineup, Eddie and the boys showed Dave the door and named some poofter from Extreme as their new lead vocalist. That announcement implies that the two Best cuts on which Roth appears were made merely to sell copies of the album, an enterprise that already smacks of greed. (The package includes three of the first four songs from the act's 1978 debut but excludes the smash version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." Since the cover-dominated Diver Down platter is the only Van Halen studio album not represented here, it suggests that the boys didn't want royalties going to anyone other than themselves.) David may not get the last laugh--he's probably hanging out near Howard Stern's studio right now, hoping that someone takes mercy on him. But at least he has the satisfaction of knowing that Hagar's in the same boat--and that no one cares.
