Jewel
Who Will Save Your Soul
(Atlantic)
"She's on the front of Rolling Stone, and the coverline reads: 'How did Jewel
do it?'. The subtext of this might be: 'We hardly know either'. Jewel, y'see,
has gone triple platinum in the US with an album that's oddly out-of-kilter
with the prevailing mood; an Alaskan girl trilling and picking the strings
of her acoustic, a bit Michelle Shocked, even a throwback to Joan Baez and
the ancient coffee house scene around New York's Fourth Street. Maybe she's
got the Counting Crows fans on her side or something, because this is
unremarkable."
STUART BAILIE
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