EveryDay Angels Forum - A Jewel Message Board
Jewel => Jewel News => Topic started by: Administrator on August 23, 2015, 04:34:19 PM
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It was just over 20 years ago that an Alaskan songwriter named Jewel made her debut with Pieces of You, a record that carved out a perfectly confessional, coffeehouse niche between the decline of grunge and the rise of the slinky pop princess. And on September 11th, the "Who Will Save Your Soul" singer will release Picking Up the Pieces, Rolling Stone Country can exclusively confirm, her first collection of new material since 2010 and a follow-up, of sorts, to that breakthrough LP in both subject and spirit.
Jewel produced the 14-song collection herself in Nashville, recruiting an A-list session band including 2014's ACM Guitar Player of the Year Rob McNelley and frequent Neil Young collaborators like drummer Chad Cromwell as an ode to Ben Keith, with whom she worked on Pieces of You and was a staple figure in the Young world before his death in 2010.
Any self-referential notes in Picking Up the Pieces are fully intentional: After giving birth to her son, divorcing her husband and dabbling in both children's music and country, Jewel wanted to return to the signature stripped-down folk-pop that gave her one of the best-selling debuts of all time.
"It's really a time capsule," Jewel told Rolling Stone in a 1997 cover story about Pieces of You. "When I recorded it, I thought, 'No one's gonna hear it. I'm just going to be honest and put it down on tape.' I didn't really clean up all the edges." It's since been certified 12x Platinum.
Though evocative of her earliest years, Picking Up the Pieces is still also true to her country side, with "My Father's Daughter," a collaboration with Dolly Parton that tells the story of Jewel's father and grandmother, the later whom emigrated from Europe and was an aspiring opera singer. Jewel released her first country album, Perfectly Clear, in 2008, and played June Carter Cash in the Lifetime TV movie Ring Of Fire. And she's got one heck of a mountain yodel.
Picking Up the Pieces will include new songs (“Love Used to Be,” “Mercy") as well as unrecorded tracks that have long made the rounds at Jewel's live shows like “Carnivore” and “Boy Needs a Bike," both of which she's been playing since the mid-Nineties and are pure Lilith Fair-era wandering folk narratives with her signature balance of gritty growl and sweet whisper.
"My focus for this CD was to forget everything I have learned about the music business the last 20 years and get back to what my bones have to say about songs and words and feeling and meaning," Jewel writes on her blog. "I let go of genre, radio, trend, current events, and clever strategies. I let go of it all — which was no small feet as those voices are so deeply penetrating after 20 years of doing this professionally. It took real effort to clear my thoughts and have no rules and just create."
Jewel will also release her memoir, Never Broken, on September 15th. Picking Up the Pieces will be available September 11th, via Sugar Hill Records and is now available for pre-order here (https://store.jeweljk.com/picking-up-the-pieces).
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jewel-returns-to-folk-roots-on-picking-up-the-pieces-album-20150728#ixzz3jgTma6HH
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miWIzUygkBM
WOW - post the Youtube url ONLY and the whole video pops up - neat mod!!
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Download available with pre-order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPcs9_BXuQ
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Jewel’s Picking Up The Pieces tracklist:
1. Love Used To Be
2. A Boy Needs A Bike
3. Everything Breaks
4. Family Tree
5. It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now
6. His Pleasure Is My Pain
7. Here When Gone
8. The Shape of You
9. Plain Jane
10. Pretty Face Fool
11. Nicotine Love
12. Carnivore
13. My Father’s Daughter (feat. Dolly Parton)
14. Mercy
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Official Press Release:
http://www.jeweljk.com/articles.html?n_id=2674
07.28.2015
JEWEL RETURNS TO HER ROOTS WITH PERSONAL NEW ALBUM PICKING UP THE PIECES
Folk-influenced LP out Sept. 11 on Sugar Hill Records, offers fans 14 new tracks; Available for pre-order here now.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (July 28, 2015) -- She first appeared on the scene like a supernova and now, just five years since her last singer-songwriter album, Jewel is returning to the deep, personal territory and folk sound that made her one of music's most exciting young voices when she released the transcendentPieces of You.
As revealed by RollingStone.com this morning, Jewel will release her new album Picking Up the Pieces onSept. 11 through Sugar Hill Records, now available for pre-orderhere. She self-produced the 14-track LP - with her first producer, the lateBen Keith, always in mind – and hired a band comprised mostly of Neil Young collaborators to help her strip away the veneer she’d built up over two decades in the music business.
“This is just me. These are my thoughts. These are my feelings. This is my poetry,” Jewel said. “It really felt like returning to a part of me that I didn’t mean to lose, but with time and relationships and life and surviving and dealing, you take on new things and not all of them are great.”
The last five years have been full of change, both personal and creative, for the 41-year-old Alaska-born singer. Her 4-year-old son Kase was born, but her marriage fell apart. She wrote her memoir,Never Broken, and recorded a pair of children’s albums. Picking Up the Pieces captures some of these moments on “Love Used to Be” and “Mercy,” but also gathers longtime unrecorded live favorites like “Carnivore” and “Boy Needs a Bike.” The album also includes “My Father’s Daughter,” a stunning autobiographical collaboration withDolly Parton.
Jewel said she wanted to make an album where she didn’t feel “diluted”: “I was trying to keep my mind quiet and honestly get back to something I feel like I’d lost touch with in my life. It was really an exercise in shutting out fear. I was giving myself permission to be exactly who and what I was.”
For more information about Jewel, Picking Up the Pieces and tour dates, check in at www.JewelJK.com. And follow @jeweljk on Twitter.
About Jewel
Spending the past several years alternating between penning her memoir, Never Broken, and recording a pair of children’s albums, Jewel is set to return with her first proper album of new music since 2010’s Sweet and Wild. Picking Up The Pieces, which serves as a “bookend” to the Alaskan-born singer’s landmark, multi-platinum-selling debut, 1995’s Pieces Of You, is some of Jewel’s most striking work yet: front and center is the iconic singer-songwriter’s world-renowned vocals, laser-sharp songcraft and intricate guitarwork. “It was time in my life to do this,” Jewel, who Rolling Stone calls “one of the most richly idiomatic pop singers of her generation,” explains of the 14-track LP, recorded in Nashville with seasoned musicians, and featuring road-tested fan favorites (“Carnivore,” “Boy Needs A Bike”) alongside groundbreaking new tracks (“Love Used To Be”) and a stunning collaboration with country legend Dolly Parton (“My Father’s Daughter”). Says Jewel: “I wanted the album to be purely an extension of my soul.”
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49.63%. :flower:
Let's break that 50% mark, folks....
That's proving to be a tough nut to crack. I just voted and she's at 49.13%. 2nd place Thomas Rhett is under 19%, though. Someone's voting for Alabama, too- they're approaching 16%.
OH WAIT I POSTED THIS ON THE WRONG BOARD D:
:lol:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 48.05%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 12.22%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 14.94%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.85%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 17.83%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 6.11%
Read More: Vote for the Most Anticipated Album of September 2015 | http://theboot.com/most-anticipated-album-september-2015-poll/?trackback=tsmclip
This is status of voting at 11:26 pm CST :thinking:
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I just came here to mention that poll. Some Eagles fans must have gotten together yesterday because Henley is dominating. He was at, like, 4% this time yesterday, and behold:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.63%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 11.54%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 14.1%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.8%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 16.83%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 10.1%
Read More: Vote for the Most Anticipated Album of September 2015 | http://theboot.com/most-anticipated-album-september-2015-poll/?trackback=tsmclip
Battle stations!
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All four remaining Eagles fans that aren't just former frat boys reminiscing about their drunken nights caterwauling Hotel California at 3 AM have assembled!
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All four remaining Eagles fans that aren't just former frat boys reminiscing about their drunken nights caterwauling Hotel California at 3 AM have assembled!
Jess, I swear I'm not voting for Don, so it must be the other three guys!! :blush:
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I just came here to mention that poll. Some Eagles fans must have gotten together yesterday because Henley is dominating. He was at, like, 4% this time yesterday, and behold:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.63%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 11.54%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 14.1%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.8%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 16.83%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 10.1%
If all the Eagles fans started voting and they only got to 10%, that's so sad. :rofl2:
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Jess, I swear I'm not voting for Don, so it must be the other three guys!! :blush:
:lol:
Awesome new username, BTW.
If all the Eagles fans started voting and they only got to 10%, that's so sad. :rofl2:
They're still coming at us! Henley will be all alone in 2nd place tomorrow at this pace. Votevotevote!
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 45.64%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 10.47%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.81%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.87%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 15.55%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 13.66%
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45.65% - just now :blueguitar:
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45.65% - just now :blueguitar:
Now that's interesting to see. It looks as if you voted right after I did, and it moved the needle 1/100th of a percentage point. The total vote count is getting pretty high. That's why it surprised me that Henley gained about nine points in a day and a half.
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 45.81%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 10.4%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.73%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.87%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 15.46%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 13.73%
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 45.89%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 10.39%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.71%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.87%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 15.44%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 13.7%
I you completely clear your chache of cookies and so forth, it doesn't realize you just voted. I sould o to bed. I'm getting pretty lame, AND, I'm not working which was the entire purpose of staying up. :unsure:
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.12%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 10.34%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.65%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.86%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 15.37%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 13.65%
Yup. Just have to clear the cahce and cookies and you can do it all night.
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46.88% - G'night!
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Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 47.05%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 10.11%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.48%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.84%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 15.03%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 13.48%
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I can't wait for this album! I know it's only around 2 weeks away but I want it nowwwwww
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Oh why won't this leak!? :LoudMouth:
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Ugh! 2 weeks seems so far away! And no leaks yet :(
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Because conference calls are boring...
thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 47.25%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 9.89%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.19%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.82%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 14.7%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 14.15%
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No! I don't want it to leak! I love the anticipation, getting the cd and frantically opening it to play it. I hate the previews and the leaks and all the techie stuff. Call me old and old fashioned...
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I kind of miss the days when albums would have a theme to them, and sometimes one song would flow right into the next one without a break. That's something that can't really happen the same way anymore in this iTunes age of standalone tracks.
We could probably use a "Get off my lawn" smilie here...
Anyway, I said last night that Don Henley would blow past everyone but Jewel in the poll today, and he did.
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 47.4%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 9.61%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.95%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.8%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 14.29%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 14.95%
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I kind of miss the days when albums would have a theme to them, and sometimes one song would flow right into the next one without a break. That's something that can't really happen the same way anymore in this iTunes age of standalone tracks.
Yeah, a lot of musicians are lamenting this very thing and I agree with you - I really don't want to see the album format die.
It still lives, though. Jukebox the Ghost had a pretty great one called Live and Let Ghost. I would argue that both of Fun.'s albums have done this for the most part. There are some other real good ones in there, too, that I can't think of right now, but it certainly isn't as common as it used to be.
Also, to be fair, Jewel's never really done this.
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How do they break the songs up for singles sales? Do they just chop 'em apart, or leave two (or more) together as one unit?
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If you're good at your craft, like Radiohead, the songs can blend together or work separately.
Jukebox the Ghost isn't super famous, but the "single" they had was a stand alone track on the themed album.
Fun. kinda followed that formula, too.
Radiohead don't gaf.
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I kind of miss the days when albums would have a theme to them, and sometimes one song would flow right into the next one without a break. That's something that can't really happen the same way anymore in this iTunes age of standalone tracks.
Ditto. I love Jewel as an artist. I think she kinda sticks to the format and kind doesn't. I used to plop on an album, :smoke: and just listen, be still and escape. I wish a different song hd been picked for the first single, because people judge the album by the first single and I like the live, Jewel only version.
I'm still looking forward to not only a new release (yeah, we know the songs), but hopefully hearing more from Jewel. Comes down to I appreciate the artist and the art and feel bd for everyhing else they have to go through.
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I still don't understand why Without You By My Side isn't on this album... :grumpy:
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Pretty Faced Fool just downloaded on my phone. Not sure if other music stores released it it if it was just iTunes.
I really really like it. I'm looking forward to playing it loudly on my way home.
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Pretty Faced Fool just downloaded on my phone. Not sure if other music stores released it it if it was just iTunes.
I really really like it. I'm looking forward to playing it loudly on my way home.
The whole song? Hmm, interesting. I'm still holding off on listening to even the preview snippets, but it's difficult. And getting difficulterer.
...
Poll:
Eagles fans, not surprisingly, have staying power. Those kids who were voting for Eldridge and Rhett evidently have been distracted by something shiny.
48 hours ago, Jewel had a 44 point lead on Henley. Now, it's 30.9, which means she's lost nearly half of her current lead and they'll be dead even by Sunday at the current pace. Does that sound panicky? Because panicky was what I was going for. :P
Also: Heh. Here's how anal I've been over this damn poll. I jot the time down over here on a note pad when I vote so, when I think of it, I can check it to see if it's been more than one hour. I just added up all of 'em, I've voted 78 times! :whistle:
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Pretty Faced Fool just downloaded on my phone. Not sure if other music stores released it it if it was just iTunes.
I really really like it. I'm looking forward to playing it loudly on my way home.
The whole song? Hmm, interesting. I'm still holding off on listening to even the preview snippets, but it's difficult. And getting difficulterer
Yeah the whole song!
I don't want the album to leak either. I hope it makes it so I can listen to it on release day.
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Apparently, if you want, you can buy Pretty Faced Fool on Amazon now!!
http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Faced-Fool/dp/B013FAGC0S
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Why is this coming out on a Friday?
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I think all album releases changed to Fridays (from Tuesdays) recently. Don't know why; there's probably a focus group or three and $$$ spent on marketing responsible for it.
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I blame Beyonce. Well, partly. :lol: Here's an article about it:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6487289/friday-global-record-release-day-ifpi
On topic: I'm not listening to Pretty Faced Fool. You can't make me! :P
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While I've enjoyed the sneak previews of the songs, I'm going to wait for the album to come out and not search for anything else. Sometimes waiting for something is fun, it builds the anticipation. Not everything has to be so automatic. :)
Yes, I just quoted Miranda there.
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While I've enjoyed the sneak previews of the songs, I'm going to wait for the album to come out and not search for anything else. Sometimes waiting for something is fun, it builds the anticipation. Not everything has to be so automatic. :)
Yes, I just quoted Miranda there.
Yes, but I guess if you don't jump, you'll never know if you can fly... :tongue2:
Boot poll update time!
Things have stabilized the last day or so- Jewel's maintaining a 29+ point lead over Henley. The rest of them are slipping under the waves. We just have to get her to midnight Monday now!
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.68%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.93%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.03%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.09%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 13.27%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 17%
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:shiftyeyes_anim:
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.63%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.72%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.02%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.05%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 12.79%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 17.79%
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When do you think we will find out about the bonus versions of the album? X
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Has anyone got the newly released PFF song from itunes?
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So this is how they used to get those glowing critics' quotes for those movie posters. It's kind of fun.
Jewel's voice is in good form here!
The rest of this PUtP review is, well, not that. :tongue2:
http://alibi.com/music/49644/Sonic-Reducer-Jewel-Fresh-Snow-The-Expanding.html
SONIC REDUCER
By Geoffrey Plant
Jewel Picking Up the Pieces (Sugar Hill)
Jewel finds space on the front cover of her new country album to share this philosophical bombshell: “what we call reality in actuality is our perception of it”—confirming that Picking Up the Pieces is a “return to the emotional and musical territory mined on her landmark 1995 debut Pieces of You”, as her press release states, warning potential listeners of the pithy musings awaiting them. Jewel's voice is in good form here, even if she can't decide if she's Dolly Parton (who joins her on track 13), an American Idol contestant or one of the Indigo Girls. Perhaps Jewel has rearranged the pieces too many times trying to find herself in a self-constructed world where everything is imbued with symbolism, myriad interpretations, paradox and deeper meaning—a world built entirely on the cotton candy surface of the universe actual thinking people inhabit. Jewel knows we think she's shallow, too. On “Carnivore”: “I’ll never trust my pink, fleshy heart to a carnivore”—duh—“I'll take back my songs and my poetry/ and next time I won't be so easy to read.” Uh huh.
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The rest of this PUtP review is, well, not that. :tongue2:
Oh well. They can suck it. :D
Just one more day folks!!!! Let's vote!! :pray:
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.41%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.73%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.15%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.99%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 12.6%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 18.12%
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SONIC REDUCER
By Geoffrey Plant
Jewel Picking Up the Pieces (Sugar Hill)
Jewel finds space on the front cover of her new country album to share this philosophical bombshell: “what we call reality in actuality is our perception of it”—confirming that Picking Up the Pieces is a “return to the emotional and musical territory mined on her landmark 1995 debut Pieces of You”, as her press release states, warning potential listeners of the pithy musings awaiting them. Jewel's voice is in good form here, even if she can't decide if she's Dolly Parton (who joins her on track 13), an American Idol contestant or one of the Indigo Girls. Perhaps Jewel has rearranged the pieces too many times trying to find herself in a self-constructed world where everything is imbued with symbolism, myriad interpretations, paradox and deeper meaning—a world built entirely on the cotton candy surface of the universe actual thinking people inhabit. Jewel knows we think she's shallow, too. On “Carnivore”: “I’ll never trust my pink, fleshy heart to a carnivore”—duh—“I'll take back my songs and my poetry/ and next time I won't be so easy to read.” Uh huh.
This guy is an asshole. Well, if she wanted a bookend to POY, she sure got it - complete with miguided reviews. I need a "jerk-off" emoji. LOL
The rest of this PUtP review is, well, not that. :tongue2:
Oh well. They can suck it. :D
Just one more day folks!!!! Let's vote!! :pray:
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 46.41%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.73%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 13.15%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.99%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 12.6%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 18.12%
:ragecomp:
I'm on it! Don Henley can suck it too. Sounds like someone is twisting hhis nuts when he sings with the Eagles. Counry is going to be that much worse. :mad:
Damn, but I woke up in a foul state.
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I need a "jerk-off" emoji. LOL
I found one of these when I was searching emojis the other day! lol.
It was funny, but didn't know if it would get used much on here. Little did I know... :w
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:-[
I sound like Cartman, this morning.
To make it worse, I had to upgrade my computer and I swear the keyboard is messing with me. The keying is all wrong (either too light or too hard) so it looks like I can't type.
:ragecomp: - soooo me.
The jerk off guy, is probably a bad idea and I'm probably the only one who would post him. So, I'll stick to the pole and take my rage out on Don Henley.
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 47.06%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.61%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.96%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.09%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 12.42%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 17.86%
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:confused:
How many times an hour is everyone voting? I mean, I go in - vote, close the window, clear my cache and cookies and vote again.
Anyone, anyone?
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I've only voted once. :hide:
That review is probably a pretty fair reflection of what most music connoisseurs will feel about this record, but whatever, music snobs suck anyway.
When do you think we will find out about the bonus versions of the album? X
I don't know! I keep checking the Target site - I even went there yesterday - but nothing yet. I say Target because every other album before this one has had a bonus addition released through Target. I'll keep checking and I'll definitely make it known if I find anything. :)
Has anyone got the newly released PFF song from itunes?
I haven't seen it out in the wild. I didn't get it, either, because I didn't pre-order from iTunes or Amazon.
I think Matt got it.
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:deadhorse:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 48.02%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.45%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.73%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.07%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 12.19%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 17.54%
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:deadhorse: :deadhorse:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 49%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.29%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.49%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.05%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 11.96%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 17.21% <--- :jackoff: HA!!! I LOVE IT!
And clearly, I have NO life. Especially when I'm on Monday morning con calls.
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Jewel moves forward by looking back on Picking Up The Pieces (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/31/fall-music-preview-jewel?hootPostID=42c6c4620836c37f3ac83864e0fbb94b)
"My goal was to try to be as undiluted and pure and emotional as I could."
Listening to Jewel’s debut Pieces of You, one of the things that really stands out is the power of her voice. A large chunk of that landmark album (which turned 20 years old earlier this year) was recorded live in an attempt to crystallize the same live energy that led to her success in the first place.
“I’ve never sung great in the studio,” Jewel admits. “It’s always been a vexing thing for me. If a person sees me live, I’m about 300 times better. I’ve always felt the audience, and I sing from my heart. I don’t sing the song the same every time. I get so much feeling and emotion from the crowd, and I really live the songs. I don’t know how to do that in a sterile studio environment where you’re looking at a wall. It’s a hard thing for me to get emotional about.”
So when the time came to make a new album, she wanted to get back to the vibe she captured on her debut and close the loop on Pieces of You with a bookend called Picking Up The Pieces. The result is a remarkably raw, bracingly honest set of folk and Americana tunes that tap into both the remarkable spirit in her voice and her incredible lyrical honesty. She recruited a lot of the same players who performed on her debut, cut the bulk of it live, and even produced the thing herself in order to get an unadulterated version of her vision.
“Originally I had Paul Worley, who is a great producer in Nashville, set to help me with the record,” Jewel says. “I knew my goal, and I thought he had a good sensibility for me and for the record. He backed out right before we were going to start the record, and I went over to his office completely flummoxed, and he said, ‘I think this is something you need to do. Anybody producing would just be a filter you get heard through, and you don’t need a filter.’ I thought it was a cop out and he just had another project, and I was really pissed. He said one day I would thank him for this, and sure enough on my liner notes, I’m like ‘Thank you, Paul.’ So my goal was to try to be as undiluted and pure and emotional as I could.”
The same idea fueled her forthcoming memoir Never Broken, which chronicles the many ups and downs of her personal life. “People are aware of a lot of my background, but they don’t really know a lot of what really happened,” she says. “The darkest of my moments were at the heights of my fame. There was an incredible betrayal that I suffered and had to keep picking myself up from that nobody ever knew about.”
Like most of her previous albums, Picking Up The Pieces contains a handful of tunes that have been lurking around the corners of Jewel’s world for years. “I have a catalogue of 500 songs probably,” she says. “So on every record, there are songs I wrote when I was 18, 20, 25.” On Picking Up, that includes a stunning cut called “Nicotine Love.” “I wrote before I was homeless, so right after I graduated from high school. I’m always amazed at what I was writing in high school and when I graduated. It’s obviously a reflection of the life I was living—I wasn’t a normal teenager writing about crushes and things going on in school. I grew up in barrooms and left home when I was 15. I wrote about what my life was. I wrote a lot of short story fiction before I began writing songs, so I kind of approached songwriting as a short story writer in the beginning because I didn’t know much about songwriting. This is short story fiction about a woman who was sexually abused as a young girl, and she decides to get revenge by seducing him and killing him. Monster came out years later, and I was like, ‘Boy, that would have been the perfect theme song for that movie!’ It’s been a fan favorite for a long time.”
Picking Up The Pieces is out Sept. 11, and Never Broken arrives Sept. 15. Jewel launches a book tour beginning Sept. 14.
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 50%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8.13%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.24%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.03%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 11.73%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 16.87%
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How many times an hour is everyone voting? I mean, I go in - vote, close the window, clear my cache and cookies and vote again.
Anyone, anyone?
I'm voting about 5x a day... its really all I can manage.
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 50.76%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 8%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12.06%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.01%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 11.55%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 16.62%
Over 50%! :rock:
Take that, Don.....
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Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 51.01%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.96%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 12%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.01%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 11.49%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 16.53%
How many times an hour is everyone voting? I mean, I go in - vote, close the window, clear my cache and cookies and vote again.
Anyone, anyone?
I'm voting about 5x a day... its really all I can manage.
Cool. I thought I was playing with myself. :rofl2: I've been at this for hours.
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:whistle:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 52.12%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.78%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 11.72%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.99%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 11.23%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 16.16%
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Jewel moves forward by looking back on Picking Up The Pieces (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/31/fall-music-preview-jewel?hootPostID=42c6c4620836c37f3ac83864e0fbb94b)
"My goal was to try to be as undiluted and pure and emotional as I could."
“Originally I had Paul Worley, who is a great producer in Nashville, set to help me with the record,” Jewel says. “I knew my goal, and I thought he had a good sensibility for me and for the record. He backed out right before we were going to start the record, and I went over to his office completely flummoxed, and he said, ‘I think this is something you need to do. Anybody producing would just be a filter you get heard through, and you don’t need a filter.’ I thought it was a cop out and he just had another project, and I was really pissed. He said one day I would thank him for this, and sure enough on my liner notes, I’m like ‘Thank you, Paul.’ So my goal was to try to be as undiluted and pure and emotional as I could.”
That explains all of the activity with Skyville Live in Nashville early this year, Paul Worley is the co-founder and works with some new talent and veterans, like the show where Jewel joined Kris Kristofferson on "Me and Bobby McGee." It is a Country venue but I like and it is just up the road in Nashville, for me. ;)
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Do you live in Nashville? That seems to be the new hotbed for Jewel activity!
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My OCD has kicked in
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 53.04%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.62%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 11.57%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 0.96%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 10.99%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 15.81%
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Okay, this is all I have for today. Off to a business dinner.
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 54.12%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.4%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 11.24%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.03%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 10.67%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 15.54%
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Do you live in Nashville? That seems to be the new hotbed for Jewel activity!
I live in Huntsville, Alabama about 110 miles south on I-65. :biggrin:
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Jewel
Today at 3:46 PM
To: jneuding@yahoo.com
Download the new track for free
Hello JOHN!
Thanks for Pre-Ordering Picking Up The Pieces. Here is "Pretty Faced Fool" a few weeks early for you to enjoy! You can get it by logging into your store account and clicking "My Downloadable Products" on the left side.
Xx – Jewel
:blueguitar: :jewelsmilie:
Get it now
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Holy crap! I figured there would be a last-day frenzy of poll voting but I thought it would be Henley's people doing it.
You pretty much ripped out their hearts and showed 'em to them today. :hi5:
Thank you for voting!
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 54.24%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.36%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 11.18%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.12%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 10.62%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 15.47%
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fFXnNILAWrY/VcAxmxcBt7I/AAAAAAAABmM/TX17plRxPTE/s1600/happening.gif)
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Hello JOHN!
Thanks for Pre-Ordering Picking Up The Pieces. Here is "Pretty Faced Fool" a few weeks early for you to enjoy! You can get it by logging into your store account and clicking "My Downloadable Products" on the left side.
Xx – Jewel
!!!!!!!
I gotta go check my email now. But I don't want to listen before I get the album. DAMN!
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I got the same email about the 'Pretty Face Fool' download, but sadly, it doesn't appear to be available in my account as yet. Anyone else having this problem?
Pretty pleased we get it though, was pleasantly surprised to receive the email.
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Yay! Thanks for the update, John!
I will absolutely add it to my rotation. :)
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Simon, did you check in your downloadable products? I had to click the link a couple times to get it to start downloading.
EDIT: https://store.jeweljk.com/downloadable/customer/products/
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Simon, did you check in your downloadable products? I had to click the link a couple times to get it to start downloading.
Hi Jessica! Yes, I had a good look around, but the 'My Downloadable Products' page still just has My Father's Daughter and nothing else. I even clicked on the link in the email in case it activated anything.
No big deal, but hopefully it updates later today. Glad to have tracked you all down on the new forum btw, all looks very impressive - although slightly traumatised that my Tetris high scores were all in vain! :no:
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Hmmm, makes me wonder if it's done manually, :lol:
Wouldn't surprise me.
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Hmmm, makes me wonder if it's done manually, :lol:
Wouldn't surprise me.
Does anyone know if we'll eventually be offered the entire album download if we pre-ordered the CD on Jewel's site? Probably won't be necessary, but may come in handy if the international orders take a little time reaching us. Not long to go now!
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Yeah, if you bought the CD off jeweljk.com, it will come with a download.
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Yeah, if you bought the CD off jeweljk.com, it will come with a download.
Cool. I've deliberately stayed away from the preview snippets, so definitely ready to get my hands on the full album now!
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Hmmm, makes me wonder if it's done manually, :lol:
Wouldn't surprise me.
Seems the mp3's title line was entered manually, too. :wtf: :lol:
10 Pretty Fooled Face
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http://renownedforsound.com/index.php/album-review-jewel-picking-up-the-pieces/
Jewel’s story will be known to many. It’s the story of a bright and young star who emerged and blew the world away with her talent, then over the years evolved and changed with the industry. Her debut album Pieces Of You was released just over 20 years ago and became one of the highest selling debuts in history, spawning hit singles like Foolish Games and You Were Meant For Me, it was definitely one of the most influential albums of that decade. As her music began to become more mainstream (take hit single Intuition as an example), her new album Picking Up The Pieces has been said to pick up where her old sound left off. So we can expect a more personal, emotive and heartfelt journey from Jewel.
Your heart aches with the songbird as she sings Love Used To Be, introducing us to the poetry that flows throughout this album, after all these years in the industry Jewel still has such a youthful and emotive voice. This album was recorded with a live band too, not to mention Jewel self-produced it, which made the listening experience all the more personal and intimate; it’s those aspects that really helped nail the delivery of tracks like Here When Gone and Plain Jane. Jewel’s voice hasn’t been heard this raw for 20 years, it shines throughout the entire album, but particularly on subtle emotive numbers like Pretty Fooled Face and the almost spoken worded His Pleasure Is My Pain. Another notable track is Jewel’s collaboration with Dolly Parton on the autobiographical ballad My Father’s Daughter.
Jewel has done wonders with Picking Up The Pieces, self-producing it made it all the more her ‘baby’ and returning to the sound that brought her fame was a good move. The star’s personal life was in turmoil over the last few years with the breakdown of her marriage, and her poetry that reigns throughout this album really brings you to her level; the beauty of folk music is that the genre is mostly lyrically relatable, if you have been through what the writer has been through it will touch you deeper than somebody who lacks experience. Jewel has successfully returned to her roots, and her fans will thank her for it.
4.5 / 5 stars
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Yeah, if you bought the CD off jeweljk.com, it will come with a download.
Cool. I've deliberately stayed away from the preview snippets, so definitely ready to get my hands on the full album now!
Actually, I'm not sure if it will. Did you only buy the album and none of the extra stuff? According to the Details page it only says you get the My Father's Daughter download, nothing about the digital album. That could be why you don't see anything about Pretty Faced Fool, but that's just a hunch. I dunno.
https://store.jeweljk.com/picking-up-the-pieces-signed-cd-instant-download.html
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Wait, I just thought. Do you see one or two copies of My Father's Daughter? I ordered one of the bundles with the digital album and I was thinking it was weird I got two copies of MFD, but thinking about it now it might be that one's for the regular digital album and the extra is from the promised instant MFD download, if that makes sense. Otherwise I can't think of why I'd have 2! Is that the case with anybody else?
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I look at my download page, and I think it shows that you're exactly right, Tracy. I have MFD there three times. I ordered the signed CD with instant download at first, then thought about it and ordered the gold bundle too, without canceling the original order. It looks sort of like this:
[Gold Bundle order #] 7/28/2015 Picking Up the Pieces Digital Album - Pretty Faced Fool Available Unlimited
[Gold Bundle order #] 7/28/2015 Picking Up the Pieces Digital Album - My Father's Daughter Available Unlimited
[Gold Bundle order #] 7/28/2015 My Father's Daughter - My Father's Daughter Available Unlimited
[Signed CD order #] 7/28/2015 My Father's Daughter - My Father's Daughter Available Unlimited
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And...
What's the Most Anticipated Album of September 2015? (Poll Closed)
Jewel, 'Picking Up the Pieces' 53.97%
Brett Eldredge, 'Illinois' 7.75%
Alabama, 'Southern Drawl' 11.21%
Mac McAnally, 'A.K.A. Nobody' 1.28%
Thomas Rhett, 'Tangled Up' 10.67%
Don Henley, 'Cass County' 15.12%
WE DID IT!
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Wait, I just thought. Do you see one or two copies of My Father's Daughter? I ordered one of the bundles with the digital album and I was thinking it was weird I got two copies of MFD, but thinking about it now it might be that one's for the regular digital album and the extra is from the promised instant MFD download, if that makes sense. Otherwise I can't think of why I'd have 2! Is that the case with anybody else?
Oh right, this might explain why I didn't have the download available then! :blush:
Feels like the pre-orders were quite a while ago, and seemed I'd forgotten what they actually entail! Still, all worked out okay in the end though.
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Ah, ok then! Glad we figured out that little multiple MFD mystery. :)
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Track By Track for Picking Up The Pieces
http://ebmediapr.com/clients/jewel
“It was the time in my life to do this,” Jewel says, reflecting on her decision to record, produce and now release Picking Up the Pieces, her first “proper” album of new material in five years and a self-described return to the emotional and musical territory mined on her landmark 1995 debut, Pieces of You. “It’s something I needed for myself. It was really an exercise in shutting out fear. I was giving myself permission to be exactly who and what I was.”
“Love Used To Be,” by Jewel Murray. "A potent depiction of an emotional state following the decision to divorce. “I’m very proud of this lyric. It’s completely non-commercial, six minutes long and doesn’t have a traditional structure, but I think lyrically, if somebody was to look back on who I am or what I am as a writer and lyricist, this is a good example. It’s a song that you have to listen to several times and it’s a gut-wrenchingly honest take of where I was at in my life when I wrote it.”
“A Boy Needs A Bike,” by Jewel Murray. “I’ve often written from a male’s perspective both in my songs and in my short-story fiction. I liked the idea of a young boy not being able to understand the tension in the household and identifying with his dad and wondering if women are crazy, and the way his dad handles that relationship and the nuance of it. And the son enjoying a bicycle and the release of it and the way his dad enjoys going in his car to sort of meditate. But the boy is too young to understand. I love the limitation of a child not being able to get the full picture but still get the idea.”
“Everything Breaks,” by Jewel Murray. “I wrote this song about 20 years ago. But doing it now and recording it now, I didn’t get through it without sobbing on every single take. This song has more relevance now than it did when I wrote it.
“Family Tree” by Jewel Murray and Lisa Carver. “In addition to the autobiographical lyrics, this is really about the obligation we have as children to examine where we come from and where we want to be. It's directly conveyed in the bridge line that says, ‘Take the fruit but choose the seeds I scatter in the wind / That’s the job of the kid to do better than our parents did.’ No matter whose childhood it is – even the best of childhoods – there are traits we might want to weed out and traits that we really want to continue. And to try and do that thoughtfully I think leads to a more fulfilled life.”
“It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” by Jewel Murray and Rodney Crowell. “I’ve been a big fan of Rodney’s and we finally got together to write. He came up with that first verse and we liked the idea of this being a mini-play. It’s very theatrical - with a storyline that conveys the aftermath of a woman's affair on a broken relationship devoid of communication. It’s also about the complexities of love and the willingness, courage and ability to engage yourself in it fully or not. I think it’s difficult to do a male-female duet. It’s hard to strike the right note that isn’t just sort of saccharine. But Rodney’s a very deep and thoughtful writer and very interested in truth, so I loved that this wasn’t a typical duet.”
“His Pleasure Is My Pain,” by Jewel Murray. “I wrote this quite a while ago, when I was probably 18. I’ve always liked this song but never found the right place for it. I recorded it acoustic at my home studio and then I had a friend add all those evocative strings to it. This added such a rich texture and ambience to it. It’s a very long song with no chorus. Producing that type of song can be difficult, but hopefully the storytelling is intriguing enough that people keep listening.”
“Here When Gone,” by Jewel Murray. “This song was never completed until a couple years ago. I was never happy with it. And even then I wasn’t sure until I got in the studio and figured out this dramatically improved arrangement. Thanks to the chemistry between these musicians and I, this song has finally found its place. The poetry and lyric is very unique to my style of writing. I don't recall hearing anything quite like it before, as it transitions from a sort of haunting groove to a shuffle swing.
“The Shape Of You,” by Jewel Murray, Dallas Davidson and David Lee. “I wrote this for a friend of mine that passed away of cancer. I’d written another song for her called “Violet Eyes,” shortly after she died, and this revisits my feelings 15 years later. Losing someone you love very dearly is so painful; you just wish the pain would go away. But after time I started to see that pain as a little treasure because it was something that reminded me of her. I was driving down the road and had this idea that I had a hole in my heart that is in the shape of you. There’s a beauty to mourning and missing somebody and holding them in your heart. It’s sort of like a little window into heaven you can see them through.”
“Plain Jane,” by Jewel Murray. “I wrote this after being in New York for a week and being around some socialites. It’s about women – and I include myself, certainly – feeling this need to hide behind something because we don’t feel good enough exactly how we are. We have to somehow be prettier or smarter or dress better to be lovable. It’s really a song about self-acceptance and learning to love yourself and that ‘Plain Jane’ is beautiful.”
“Pretty Faced Fool,” by Kip Moore, Brett James and Dan Couch.” “My friend Kip Moore wrote this and he’s a really dear friend and a really great talent. He’s been with me through a lot of what I’ve been going through. He played me this song and I really loved it. As much as I’m a really big fan of songwriters, I don’t find many songs that I feel sound like me, but this song really resonated.”
“Nicotine Love,” by Jewel Murray. “I wrote this a really long time ago, predating my first album by a couple of years. Way before I was homeless. I was probably 18 and had just graduated high school. It’s an extremely dark song about a woman who had been sexually abused as a child. She turns to prostitution and ends up getting off on killing men and controlling them. I look back at a lot of the songs I wrote at that time and none of them are love songs. They’re very complex and grown-up. Thanks to Jonathan Yudkin's wonderfully adventurous string arrangements, this is now exponentially darker than any solo acoustic performance of it. I still find it remarkable that I wrote this song at such a young age.
“Carnivore,” by Jewel Murray. “I’d forgotten I’d changed the bridge over time into this low, mellow little-red-riding hook spooky bridge and I didn’t realize there was ever another bridge over time. My fans on Twitter reminded me to go back to the original bridge on “it. I was sent a bootleg of it and now it’s more dynamic. My fans speak up a lot. They really wanted “Carnivore” on the album.”
“My Father’s Daughter,” by Jewel Murray and Lisa Carver. “This song is very personal and very autobiographical. I thought it worked well to have Dolly Parton on it. It’s kind of difficult on that personal of a song to have somebody on it, but Dolly was definitely the perfect choice because our lives are similar in several ways. It’s a song I wrote in 2008 - seven years ago, and whenever I sing it live people always cry. I was always surprised because it’s such a personal song about my life and my story, but I definitely realized as I sang it that people relate their own lives to it. Dolly said it reminded her of “Coat of Many Colors” and some of her autobiographical songs, which was very flattering.”
“Mercy,” by Jewel Murray. “This is the newest song on the album. I wrote it for myself. I was in a lot of pain when I wrote it. It really touches me when I sing it. It reminds me a little bit of “Hands” just in its message: yielding and giving instead of being more brittle and fighting and armored. I’ve been playing it live recently and it seems to be bringing a lot of comfort to people. People often cry when I sing it. It's always nice when you create something for yourself that you really needed to hear and it seems to be something other people needed to hear as well.”
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“Everything Breaks,” by Jewel Murray. “I wrote this song about 20 years ago. But doing it now and recording it now, I didn’t get through it without sobbing on every single take. This song has more relevance now than it did when I wrote it.
This is heartbreaking.
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I thought the same thing. :(
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Awww. I got this song as a single years ago, I've always loved it.
Poor Jewel. Sounds like its been pretty difficult writing the book and putting together this album. For someone who is so positive about life, she's certainly had her share of struggles. :'( Also sounds like the book will reveal more than any of us know.
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I kind of feel bad now that I complained about the way she was singing Everything Breaks in the little clip we heard a few months ago.
Damnit, Jewel.
Also: I now know most of the songs here, but seeing that list with her descriptions, one after another, really drove home something I hadn't thought about: This collection isn't the most uplifting of works, is it?
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Yeah, It's all pretty dark, which I like. MFD is the only somewhat cheery song. Looks like Jewel has found her inner Yorke.
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Anyone that ordered the vinyl or gold pre-order form the website...
Due to demand on pressing plants and turnaround time, the release date for the 2 LP vinyl edition of Jewel's new album, "Picking Up The Pieces," is now expected to be in November. All other contents of your order will still be shipped on the originally planned ship date. Of course, our production team will keep pushing to get the vinyl edition as soon as possible, but it will be well into the Fall. You will not be charged additional shipping when it does ship and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Thanks so much for your support!
Xx Jewel
*Reminder* Due to publishing requirements, if your package includes a copy of the "Never Broken" book, your complete order won't be able to ship from the warehouse until the release date, September 15
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http://theboot.com/album-of-the-month-jewel/
Album of the Month (September 2015): Jewel, ‘Picking Up the Pieces’
Jewel‘s new album, Picking Up the Pieces, will be released on Sept. 11 and fans are eager to hear the singer-songwriter’s newest batch of songs.
Fans voted Picking Up the Pieces Album of the Month for September 2015, and it beat out other exciting projects including Brett Eldredge‘s sophomore record Illinois, Alabama‘s Southern Drawl, Mac McAnally‘s A.K.A. Nobody, Thomas Rhett‘s funky Tangled Up and Don Henley‘s Cass County.
Jewel earned a whopping 53.97 percent of the votes in the Album of the Month poll, with the closest competitor being Henley with just over 15 percent of votes.
Picking Up the Pieces is Jewel’s first non-holiday release of new music since 2010′s Sweet and Wild, and although she’s released several other projects during the past five years (including a greatest hits album), her album of all-new music took half a decade because of some personal circumstances in her life.
“This CD was a fantastic labor of love for me and took a while for me to finish because I was trying to do my real job, which is to be a parent to my son Kase, going through a divorce with love and grace, which takes a tremendous amount of effort and focus,” she says on her website.
She spoke last year of the album, saying the project — a bookend to Pieces of You, would be raw and recorded live. It’s a concept similar to Jewel’s debut album — for that, she recorded live at the Inner Change Coffee House in Pacific Beach, Calif. This time around, the singer decided once again to cut a live record, and recorded a live show at Nashville’s the Standard.
After the live show, she had a few more songs to add, and cut the rest of it live in the famous RCA Studio A building. “The idea was to capture one whole live take of a song and be done with it. No overdubs, no layering tracks, no AutoTune or tricks. Just one live take — and it was a blast! It was emotional and raw and a little messy — but honest. That’s all I wanted,” she reveals.
On Picking Up the Pieces, fans will notice it’s a project that thrives on being genre-less. Jewel was extremely focused on not settling on any one genre, and instead, focused her energies on the songs themselves.
She says, “I let go of genre, radio, trend, current events and clever strategies. I let go of it all — which was no small feat, as those voices are so deeply penetrating after 20 years of doing this professionally. It took real effort to clear my thoughts and have no rules and just create — going back to my folk/American roots that I began with.”
The finished product? A 14-track record with “no single that will be played at radio,” according to Jewel, but one that is “raw, honest poetry that poured out of my bones and my soul.” Fans can look forward to folk songs, country songs and even songs that are “just long poems set to music.” With this album, Jewel wasn’t focused on album sales — instead, she was dead set on revealing what was in her heart.
Picking Up the Pieces includes “My Father’s Daughter,” a track featuring country great Dolly Parton.
Picking Up the Pieces is set for release on Sept. 11 and available for pre-order on Jewel’s website.
Jewel, ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ Track Listing:
1. “Love Used To Be”
2. “A Boy Needs A Bike”
3. “Everything Breaks”
4. “Family Tree”
5. “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now”
6. “His Pleasure Is My Pain”
7. “Here When Gone”
8. “The Shape of You”
9. “Plain Jane”
10. “Pretty Face Fool”
11. “Nicotine Love”
12. “Carnivore”
13. “My Father’s Daughter” (feat. Dolly Parton)
14. “Mercy”
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http://theboot.com/album-of-the-month-jewel/
Album of the Month (September 2015): Jewel, ‘Picking Up the Pieces’
Jewel‘s new album, Picking Up the Pieces, will be released on Sept. 11 and fans are eager to hear the singer-songwriter’s newest batch of songs.
Fans voted Picking Up the Pieces Album of the Month for September 2015, and it beat out other exciting projects including Brett Eldredge‘s sophomore record Illinois, Alabama‘s Southern Drawl, Mac McAnally‘s A.K.A. Nobody, Thomas Rhett‘s funky Tangled Up and Don Henley‘s Cass County.
Jewel earned a whopping 53.97 percent of the votes in the Album of the Month poll, with the closest competitor being Henley with just over 15 percent of votes.
Picking Up the Pieces is Jewel’s first non-holiday release of new music since 2010′s Sweet and Wild, and although she’s released several other projects during the past five years (including a greatest hits album), her album of all-new music took half a decade because of some personal circumstances in her life.
“This CD was a fantastic labor of love for me and took a while for me to finish because I was trying to do my real job, which is to be a parent to my son Kase, going through a divorce with love and grace, which takes a tremendous amount of effort and focus,” she says on her website.
She spoke last year of the album, saying the project — a bookend to Pieces of You, would be raw and recorded live. It’s a concept similar to Jewel’s debut album — for that, she recorded live at the Inner Change Coffee House in Pacific Beach, Calif. This time around, the singer decided once again to cut a live record, and recorded a live show at Nashville’s the Standard.
After the live show, she had a few more songs to add, and cut the rest of it live in the famous RCA Studio A building. “The idea was to capture one whole live take of a song and be done with it. No overdubs, no layering tracks, no AutoTune or tricks. Just one live take — and it was a blast! It was emotional and raw and a little messy — but honest. That’s all I wanted,” she reveals.
On Picking Up the Pieces, fans will notice it’s a project that thrives on being genre-less. Jewel was extremely focused on not settling on any one genre, and instead, focused her energies on the songs themselves.
She says, “I let go of genre, radio, trend, current events and clever strategies. I let go of it all — which was no small feat, as those voices are so deeply penetrating after 20 years of doing this professionally. It took real effort to clear my thoughts and have no rules and just create — going back to my folk/American roots that I began with.”
The finished product? A 14-track record with “no single that will be played at radio,” according to Jewel, but one that is “raw, honest poetry that poured out of my bones and my soul.” Fans can look forward to folk songs, country songs and even songs that are “just long poems set to music.” With this album, Jewel wasn’t focused on album sales — instead, she was dead set on revealing what was in her heart.
Picking Up the Pieces includes “My Father’s Daughter,” a track featuring country great Dolly Parton.
Picking Up the Pieces is set for release on Sept. 11 and available for pre-order on Jewel’s website.
Jewel, ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ Track Listing:
1. “Love Used To Be”
2. “A Boy Needs A Bike”
3. “Everything Breaks”
4. “Family Tree”
5. “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now”
6. “His Pleasure Is My Pain”
7. “Here When Gone”
8. “The Shape of You”
9. “Plain Jane”
10. “Pretty Face Fool”
11. “Nicotine Love”
12. “Carnivore”
13. “My Father’s Daughter” (feat. Dolly Parton)
14. “Mercy”
All that voting, and this is the lack-luster article they write? Meh.
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Well done, y'all!
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Power of the EDA.... :rock: :rock: :rock:
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:grumpy:
I would have been happier with a real article and not snippets of the ones we've seen...but a win is a win. :woot:
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I would have been happier with a real article and not snippets of the ones we've seen...but a win is a win.
:that:
Yayy EDAs!!
Hmm is it me or is the smilie with the angel wings missing?
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My slacking ass has finally put my pre-order in! :rock:
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Yay - Garf!! Welcome!!
'Bout time you ordered! Which bundle did you get?
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I got the album/book bundle. I think it was silver. Actually starting to get a bit excited. Feels like it's been awhile.
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Thought I'd completely missed the EDA download of 'My Father's Daughter' back in 2012, so went back into the archives and downloaded it again - only to discover that it'd been on my computer all along and I'd just not added it to iTunes! Unusual, wouldn't have thought that my borderline OCD would have allowed for an oversight like that...
Anyway, I have to agree with everyone else by saying that I much prefer this solo version. It's so much more raw and emotionally evocative, and I love how pure the vocals are. And sorry Dolly, but I do prefer hearing it sung by Jewel alone (some of the harmonies on the PUTP version don't quite do it for me).
In a way, I'm glad that I found the version I liked afterwards, as I can't help but think I'd have been a tad underwhelmed if I'd been anticipating the studio version based on the EDA download.
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Hello everybody, I'm new here. Always wondered where I cound find a forum about Jewel. glad I found it today.
I'm a littlebit jealous I can't hear pandora radio in the Netherlands, I'm really looking forward to hear the album, a preview would be nice.
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I did not pre-order. I wanted to buy some other stuff as well from the site, so I wait till I can purchase it together. shipping costs are very high for europe.
I asked questions to the shop several times but I never got any reply's/answers or what so ever, it makes me a little bit anxious to buy anything. It really dissapoints me, because I'm a big Jewel music collector.
So I really hope the gold package is also available in the shop later.
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Welcome to the board, Javo!
What questions did you have about the Jeweljk site? Maybe we can help!
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Welcome!
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Thanks for your welcome!
I wanted to know If the golden package would still be available after preordering was done. Because than I can order a few more articles and things can be shipped together. I heard nothing (even checked my spambox several times).
If it's not the case I would like to pre-order and order other stuff normal as 2 several orders, that will cost me, but that is better than missing it.
I'm off now, but will log on later. I have to babysit 3 children and drive 20 minutes first to the home of my friends.
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Oy, babysitting. >.<
The gold bundles are 1st come 1st serve, but I'm sure the items in the bundle will stick around for awhile - they're still selling stuff from the previous bundles on the jeweljk store, BUT, it's not all being sold as a bundle anymore - only as individual components.
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You've only seen the front cover [of Picking Up the Pieces] and I think you'll be pleased when you get your hands on it. It's a cool package actually, with more photos from the Matthew Rolston cover shoot. Designed like the gatefold covers on 2 record vinyl albums, only miniturized to CD size. The cover opens up with the right side housing the CD and the left housing the lyrics and extensive liner notes - which folds out to poster size and includes a bunch of new poems that continue from the ones in the original POY liner notes. Much nicer than a plastic case and a lyric booklet!
:fun:
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Hmm..I think I will order it in advance then.
Can't wait to hear it on vinyl.
I just have a tiny problem, I can't concentrate on lyrics anymore, every time I try my concentration won't hold up longer then 30 seconds. I 've got that problem with music for a few years now. with other things my concentration is a littlebit better. It's becoming a handycap especially with Jewel-songs, I love her voice, but the combination with her lyrics make it really beautiful, I hope I can find my concentration back for this album.
I really like the duet with Dolly Parton by the way, I've read different opnions here and can imagine a lot of people like it better without, but I really like Dolly Parton her music and voice as well, so this is a unique song for me.
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Oh, that reminds me - those of us who have already pre-ordered got an email from Jewel's people that the vinyl won't be ready until November now.
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Oh, that reminds me - those of us who have already pre-ordered got an email from Jewel's people that the vinyl won't be ready until November now.
Jess, what is so great about the vinyl, it cost more, is easily damaged, bulky, and you need a good turntable to listen? :confused:
Album cover art and inserts are larger and easier to read and frameable for display. :yes:
opinions? :thinking: any views welcome :help:
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If you have a baller stereo system, then vinyl sounds great to audiophiles. I am not an audiophile.
Vinyl used to come with bonus tracks, but that's not really the case anymore. The vinyl POY had five bonus tracks.
I frame them. Both the mister and I have a few vinyls and we put them up on our walls. It's the classier version of a teenagers rockstar poster :lol:
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I still have a This Way poster in my home office. :blush:
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Jess I preordered the Silver pkg. because I no longer have a turntable and it made no sense to buy Gold Pkg. with vinyl LP, unless there is some bonus or extra material only on LP. :that:
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If there's anything extra on it, I'll let you know! :)
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:thumbsdown:
LONG LIVE VINYL
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:boxing:
EDIT: team cassette tape!!
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Nah, I'm a snob when it comes to certain things. I admit it. I had to order the POY vinyl from an import store, 20 years ago.
So really, there's the copy you listen to, the sealed copy you keep mint, and THEN colored vinyl, picture discs or special pressings or foreign prints. :blush: :whistle:
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:hail: I just love vinyl, the sound is nice and I'm a collector. And because I have to turn and switch the records on the turntable I'm really occupied with the music. I take more time for it and get less distracted doing other things. So if I really want to listen putting on a vinyl record is the best way.
From Jewel I even collect different versions of albums, singles, EP's. even if they have the same music on it. That's why I love discogs.com, does anyone have his/her collection on that website?
By the way: I'm still searching for the greatest hits and this way on vinyl.
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I have a radiohead album on clear vinyl. It's p cool. Played it once, but I didn't realize you had to adjust the speed on the record player, lol, so that was the end of that adventure.
I did a direct rip of the POY vinyl bonus tracks, but the internet did a better job ripping those than I did, so it was for naught.
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By the way: I'm still searching for the greatest hits and this way on vinyl.
I have no idea where one would get This Way on vinyl or Spirit, but I know people who are seeking both.
There are a million GH vinyls on Jewel's website - for awhile, she was giving away signed copies with orders over $ 75.00 ... is she finally sold out of them?
I've had three of them. I can't remember if I kept them all or gave them away or what... I do remember a few people complaining that they were damaged and couldn't be played properly. :/
EDIT: yeah, plenty: https://store.jeweljk.com/greatest-hits-autographed-vinyl.html
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:boxing:
EDIT: team cassette tape!!
Those too. But I'm a fan of reel-to-reel, too.
I guess for me, it's like Javo said - you get sucked into an album and you listen to it start to finish. I always thought there was a warmth to the sound of vinyl, but it is a pain to "keep" properly so it doesn't warp and so on. I'd rather listen to music through headpones too - especially if it's something like Jewel and she's getting emotional or breathy...I waant to hear it as clear as possible.
I was bummed that iPod classics went away. They had the best compression (IMO) :music:
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Jewel Chronicles Personal Growth In Latest LP (http://sensiblereason.com/jewel-chronicles-personal-growth-in-latest-lp/)
She continues to be a favorite here among the staff at Sensible Reason, and her latest LP, Picking Up the Pieces, is the latest masterpiece Jewel Kilcher has graced us with. A knack for poetic storytelling, Jewel has crafted many gems in the past, and her gift of weaving intimate tales continues on. With raw vocals and expert craftsmanship, the singer returns to her roots. Serving as a bookend piece to her debut album, Picking Up the Pieces connects the young girl that released Pieces of You to the woman before us. The songs come from an honest place, and Jewel seems to know we’re listening to her, waiting for her songs to truly connect us to her life.
Immediately I fell in love with “Love Used To Be.” The song is a remembrance of how love could be once upon a time, the foundation on which it was built. The heartache is truly felt when she bids goodbye to love. “A Boy Needs A Bike” is one of Jewel’s solo penned tracks, crafting a tale of family issues and the urge to run away from it all. Twenty years later, Jewel returns to a song that seems to echo the hurt in love. “Everything Breaks” was originally a B-Side to Foolish Games in 1997, but this time its production is more refined. Jewel sounds as young as she did back then, and the song echoes what could have been done but that sometimes, “everything breaks.”
Once more, Jewel’s thoughts on family can be found in “Family Tree,” expressing hope that a child will learn how to do better than her parents. Rodney Crowell features on “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” giving the impression of a love triangle occurring and both unsure of what’s happening. “His Pleasure Is My Pain” combines Jewel’s gift of poetry with her songwriting, where spoken words transition into Jewel airily singing about it, even referencing “I’m Sensitive.” Leaving someone you were once close with, someone you spent your life with, it can still feel like they are with you. “Here When Gone” is a step back in time, channeling the tone of This Way, inducing a retrospective on knowing that it’s time to move on.
I believe we all have lost friends due to illness. Having lost a friend many years ago to cancer, “The Shape of You” has been one of my favorite songs that I sing along to. Hearing Jewel revisit it, giving it an even more acoustic approach that it already was, turns the song into a hurting and bittersweet reminder of those gone. “Plain Jane” was a favorite on first listen. The minimalist nature of the tune has me softly stampin’ my foot along to it, while Jewel delivers a barrage of snarky comments on oblivious and materialistic individuals.
I try not to think about the one that got away, but Jewel manages to get the best of me. “Pretty Faced Fool” is a light, acoustic song where Jewel lets her lover know that their indecisiveness proved fatal for their chance at a relationship. Even though it hurts, Jewel is a beacon of hope, admitting she will be back and that it will not get her down. “Nicotine Love” is a song that eluded being recorded for an album for ages. Finally it makes its appearance officially on a studio album. Its haunting lyrical content provides gruesome imagery, likening it to hurting and crushing one.
Hurt has always been a theme in music, and Jewel makes it know that even she herself doesn’t always know best. “Carnivore” is a love letter to not only those who have hurt her, but to herself, acknowledging she shouldn’t trust her “pink fleshy heart.” One of the greatest songs recorded is a duet between Jewel and Dolly Parton. “My Father’s Daughter” is an autobiographical song, detailing the two’s similar experiences growing up. Closing out the album is “Mercy.” After confronting many emotions, you might feel as broken as Jewel sounds. But every breaking point has a silver lining, and depending on how you get through it, Jewel acknowledges the longing for mercy, aching to see release from misery. Acknowledging is just the beginning.
The tagline on the album cover reads “what we call reality in actuality is our perception of it.” Though it bares resemblance to the tagline on Pieces of You, it holds true. What we choose to view is our own choosing, and maybe no one else can see it. I can say I relate to this album on a personal level, but who else but me who could see it as that. Kudos to Jewel for releasing an emotive and thought provoking album.
Pre-order Picking Up The Pieces (available September 11th) on Jewel’s site along with her upcoming memoir, Never Broken, available September 15th.
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I was bummed that iPod classics went away. They had the best compression (IMO) :music:
I still have my iPod classic and continue to use it to this day, and the battery life hasn't decreased at any point since I bought it in 2007 (and it has every right to be on its last legs, based on how much I've used it). If I'd known they were being discontinued, I'd have definitely bought a new one for the day my original finally does kick the bucket.
Instead, I finally gave in earlier today and ordered myself a shiny new iPod Touch! It's not compatible with my old PC's version of iTunes though, so I have the slightly unenviable/never-ending task of transferring some 3,500 songs over to my new laptop! Sheesh.
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My Ipod classic got washed in the washing machine. :(
Was like losing a friend.
:fallen:
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My Ipod classic got washed in the washing machine. :(
Was like losing a friend.
:fallen:
I can imagine. An expensive friend, at that!
But did it not just come back out as a Nano?
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I have an older Nano that's only 8GB. I just use it more now. Not the same as my old 80GB pal that had everything on it. :'(
I'll probably get a shiny new Ipod of some sort here before long.
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Why wouldn't you just put all your music in your phone? :unsure:
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I have some on my phone but my car has an old iPod hookup. I could just plug the Classic in there and forget about it. It charged there and I always had all of my 3000ish songs at my fingertips in my car. First world problem, I know.
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Why wouldn't you just put all your music in your phone? :unsure:
Because it's a phone. :w This is probably just me being weird again. A phone is a phone. I use it for contacts, texting, and sometimes a camera.
I feel old.
I use my iPod classic every day as well. I hate the latest version of ITunes, but other than the iPod, I'm not an Apple fan :hide:
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I don't even have an I-pod, totally zero music on my phone, and just a littlebit on my computer (angelfood and stuff like that). Everything on CD or vinyl. I bring cd's to my car and take them out again. People in my country think I live in a cage and go hunting every day...
My 2 stepsons say I have a pretty cool collection, what they really mean is: you're just an :crazy: old fool...
I bought a MP3-player once...it is still in it's case plasticwrapped.
I just like having stuff in my hands to much, and I spend a lot of time on my collection (organizing, putting in a database, etc) and I would like to digitalize it also, but I never feel like starting, so much work.
I bought myself a 300cd-disc-changer, I put in most of my cd-singles and it's a sort of jukebox now, digitalizing my collection is postponed by buying that device.
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Why wouldn't you just put all your music in your phone? :unsure:
Because it's a phone. :w This is probably just me being weird again. A phone is a phone. I use it for contacts, texting, and sometimes a camera.
I feel old.
I use my iPod classic every day as well. I hate the latest version of ITunes, but other than the iPod, I'm not an Apple fan :hide:
I'm exactly the same. I like to compartmentalise things when it comes to technology, and really don't like the concept of an 'everything machine'.
I'm also really into my music, so as far as the iPod goes, I like having a standalone device that I can use without the distraction of calls, texts, and apps. My iPod Classic has lasted nearly a decade, and I must have switched phones at least four times during the same period, so I wouldn't fancy transferring over 3,500 songs to the new phone every time.
Also, my iPhone has such poor battery life as it is, I dread to think what would happen if I started playing music on it for a couple of hours a day.
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I put it all on my computer and use Google Play to listen to it on most my devices. Easy way to keep it all in one place
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Everything on CD or vinyl.
Wow! Still going strong, too. That's impressive!
I stayed off the mp3 revolution for a long time. I probably never would have gotten into it had it not been for bootleg live recordings and...
I put it all on my computer and use Google Play to listen to it on most my devices. Easy way to keep it all in one place
Yaaasss! This! I got an account with google play when it was still in beta testing and I loved it! It shrinks the quality down a bit, so I still keep some of my favorite files stored on the phone, but otherwise, this service is amazing! I've already used it to recover lost files, too.
I still have stacks and stacks of CDs. I finally just got rid of all my old cassette tapes just to find out they're finally getting popular again.
Jewel was giving a cassette tape away in her store and I can't remember which one it was or why. I kinda wanted it, but my tape player broke a few years back and I never replaced it. Hence why I got rid of all my tapes!
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The majority of my music I have on the computer, on an external hard drive and on CDs because I'm weird like that. :crazy:
I have even burned many live shows on a CD just in case of a simultaneous computer external hard drive crash. I think I have a problem. :lolsad:
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I still have to burn some live shows on cd/dvd, but I never get to dot it. On Jewelwiki I saw there is so much angelfood I don't even have. I really hope to get my hands on as much liveshows as possible.
But no hurry. There is so much music from other people to discover and I have so little space for my collection, since I started to expand my collection with vinyl-records space has really become an issue.
I'm thinking about getting digitalized as well (it would never replace cd's and vinyl). I hate Google, what other options would be handy and not to much work? (I'm a real NOOB with these kind of things.
I don't want to pay of course, I only pay for cd's and vinyl records.
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Can you use Deezer?
I think Microsoft's OneDrive lets you upload and stream your music now.
Why do you hate google?
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Google doesn't respect privacy enough in my opinion (not that they are the only one). I'm also not a big fan of social media. We get more and more option to communicate, but all these options only made people communicate worde (in my opnion)
When Jewel wrote something on her site I wanted to give a reaction, but I'm not a member of any social media so that wasn't possible. I think that's annoying :angry:
I'm thinking about Twitter, I heard that is not so populair anymore (does it mean that it will close?). But there are like 3 or 4 people I would like to follow. I quess it's not important enough for me, because I already think about it for a few years.
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When Jewel wrote something on her site I wanted to give a reaction, but I'm not a member of any social media so that wasn't possible. I think that's annoying :angry:
That is super irritating - especially since I don't like my personal facebook tied to my boarding like that. The Facebook Platform keeps me from commenting on her site, too. I used to comment before that, but not anymore.
Twitter's pretty cool, though - there's still a modicum of privacy for us normal people in there. Personally, I like it for news updates and links to little known foreign policy essays. I love that kind of stuff.
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I have a niece who's reall good at cycling (number 1 in the world right now), we don't have contact simply because my family is to big to have contact with all my cousins. But I really like to follow her and see how she's doing. retweet something now and then and congratulate her.
Also I like to follow Jewel of course, comes in handy to keep updated. to be amember on this forum keeps me just as much updated though...
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We are pretty on top of it, but it's nice to be able to occasionally tell the Blonde Bombshell Deity that she's awesome. :wub:
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I'm really amazed by all of your reviews. I can really see what true fans you all are. You hear so many things I don't hear. I'm really a shallowly (is that even a word?) listener. It is nice to read because now I hear more than I heard before.
You all know much more about Jewels history and that give an extra dimension to her music.
Thank you all for sharing. You guys really giving me an extra perception during listening.
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I'm really amazed by all of your reviews. I can really see what true fans you all are. You hear so many things I don't hear. I'm really a shallowly (is that even a word?) listener. It is nice to read because now I hear more than I heard before.
You all know much more about Jewels history and that give an extra dimension to her music.
Thank you all for sharing. You guys really giving me an extra perception during listening.
This is almost exactly what I'd write. Knowing what other fans with varying degrees of obsession think is extremely helpful. Different people hear different things.
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Why wouldn't you just put all your music in your phone? :unsure:
Because it's a phone. :w This is probably just me being weird again. A phone is a phone. I use it for contacts, texting, and sometimes a camera.
I feel old.
:that:
I should be ashamed to say this, but I don't even own an ipod. I have an iphone, but I have NO music on it. I listen to music on an old MP3 player that requires some makeshift gizmo thingie that uses a fuzzy radio station to listen to music in my new-ish vehicle.
Soooo. I guess I feel... old too... :hide:
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We are pretty on top of it, but it's nice to be able to occasionally tell the Blonde Bombshell Deity that she's awesome. :wub:
That is one of my favorite Jewel lyrics; "the Blonde Bombshell Deity" :jewelsmilie: :wub:
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I'm really amazed by all of your reviews. I can really see what true fans you all are. You hear so many things I don't hear. I'm really a shallowly (is that even a word?) listener. It is nice to read because now I hear more than I heard before.
You all know much more about Jewels history and that give an extra dimension to her music.
Thank you all for sharing. You guys really giving me an extra perception during listening.
This is almost exactly what I'd write. Knowing what other fans with varying degrees of obsession think is extremely helpful. Different people hear different things.
Both of these boarders address my feelings & observations about this Forum, I am learning so much and filling in lots of blanks. Seeing what many of the EDA's who have been with Jewel her whole performing career is amazing to me. :angel:
I even like Steve Poltz now for his stories and comments in interviews, I used to just be JEALOUS of his luck and relationship with Jewel. :jewelboobies: :grumpy:
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Not sure if this has already been covered in another thread, but did everyone else get the 'order shipped' email yesterday? Or was that just for the international orders?
Judging by the tracking info, my CD has already made its way through Texas, all the way up to Chicago, and it's now en route to London! Guessing if I'm really lucky, it may be here on Thursday at the earliest.
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^ I didn't get a shipped email and I'm in Australia but I did order with the book and my order won't ship until closer to the book release date. Did you order the book too?
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^ I didn't get a shipped email and I'm in Australia but I did order with the book and my order won't ship until closer to the book release date. Did you order the book too?
Hey Matt - no, it was just the autographed CD by itself, so that might explain it. I did think about ordering the bundle with the book too, but it's actually out here the same day as it is in the US, whereas the new album isn't being released until late October in the UK. Hope you don't have too long to wait though!
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Google doesn't respect privacy enough in my opinion (not that they are the only one). I'm also not a big fan of social media. We get more and more option to communicate, but all these options only made people communicate worde (in my opnion)
When Jewel wrote something on her site I wanted to give a reaction, but I'm not a member of any social media so that wasn't possible. I think that's annoying :angry:
I'm thinking about Twitter, I heard that is not so populair anymore (does it mean that it will close?). But there are like 3 or 4 people I would like to follow. I quess it's not important enough for me, because I already think about it for a few years.
Javo, I like the way you think. I hate info scrubbing Google, too. I refuse to do anything on FB aside from family friends and work.
Twitter doesn't bother me, because even though I have work connections, I limit everything else (family and friends)
I skipped MP3 and went for an iPod. It is the ONLY Apple product I own or will suggest. The compression ofthe files does not loose anything from the original recording. Plus, if you really want to "hear" music - it HAS to be through headphones. Good headphones. I'm a Sony snob. And if I really get into something, I run it through my studio board, plug in the headphones and you won't see me unless I need another drink or the bathroom. :music: ya gotta.
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I skipped MP3 and went for an iPod. It is the ONLY Apple product I own or will suggest. The compression ofthe files does not loose anything from the original recording. Plus, if you really want to "hear" music - it HAS to be through headphones. Good headphones. I'm a Sony snob. And if I really get into something, I run it through my studio board, plug in the headphones and you won't see me unless I need another drink or the bathroom. :music: ya gotta.
Thanks for the good synopsis of the MP3 vs. iPod. I bought my wife an MP3 about 10 years ago, she liked it but I could hear the loss of the high and low ends of the music, because of their compression methods. I definitely agree that good headphones makes all the difference, but earbuds just don't do it for me. Having a studio board would be great but not all of us are so lucky or have a career that requires that kind of equipment. :thumbup:
BTW I miss your Avatar. ;)
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Thanks for the good synopsis of the MP3 vs. iPod. I bought my wife an MP3 about 10 years ago, she liked it but I could hear the loss of the high and low ends of the music, because of their compression methods. I definitely agree that good headphones makes all the difference, but earbuds just don't do it for me. Having a studio board would be great but not all of us are so lucky or have a career that requires that kind of equipment. :thumbup:
BTW I miss your Avatar. ;)
[/quote]
Avatar should be back. :w
Jess, would probably say I'm an audiophile. :shrug2: maybe. I just think if you really want to experience music or sound, there is a standard. Sony developed the technology first, so my personal opinion is Sony headphones. If you can afford noise canceling... :music:
Everyone was going on about Beatsaudio - I have it in my new laptop, and everything through these speakers sound like tin cans. :barf:
The boards are a luxury. You can get a small board for a few hundred bucks - but most people don't really have the need. If you look at my Twitter pics, the small Tascam is my travel board. Better than the Roland, that a friend has. I could go on, but I'm probably boring everyone :yawn:
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I have Bose noise-cancelling headphones. They're a miracle on the airplane. I can still hear the pilot, but I can't hear the whine of the engines - and I don't need to have the volume super high to hear my podcast/movie/album clearly. I'm sure the Sony are just as good and/or better. Bose has a special sound their speakers put out. I don't actually think I prefer it, to be honest.
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Our friend Darwin got an early copy! I love the back cover!
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Bose are pretty awesome, in my book. Never used their headphones, but external speakers were great.
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Avatar should be back. :w
Jess, would probably say I'm an audiophile. :shrug2: maybe. I just think if you really want to experience music or sound, there is a standard. Sony developed the technology first, so my personal opinion is Sony headphones. If you can afford noise canceling... :music:
Everyone was going on about Beatsaudio - I have it in my new laptop, and everything through these speakers sound like tin cans. :barf:
The boards are a luxury. You can get a small board for a few hundred bucks - but most people don't really have the need. If you look at my Twitter pics, the small Tascam is my travel board. Better than the Roland, that a friend has. I could go on, but I'm probably boring everyone :yawn:
I am an Electronics Engineer, but spent my time in Helicopter Aviation, servo systems, sensors etc... I appreciate audiophiles and love music in its full range of sound. :music:
I like Bose as well, and Dave Clarks for voice audio. :yes:
The Beatsaudio stuff is popular bullshit. :bs: Way over rated & overpriced but the young folks are buying the hype and Headphones. :rolleyes:
But I don't find your opinion on this boring. Thanks again. ;)
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I want my copy early! :angry:
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You didn't even order it until 5 minutes ago, Garf! :lolsad:
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:lol:
That's beside the point! :angry:
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You didn't even order it until 5 minutes ago, Garf! :lolsad:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Told.
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Jewel Returns To Her Roots with Picking Up The Pieces (http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/09/writer-week-jewel/)
This Friday, Alaskan-raised singer-songwriter and former child yodeler Jewel will release her new album Picking Up The Pieces, a raw and confessional song-cycle that is meant to bookend her multi-Platinum debut smash Pieces of You.
We caught up with Jewel recently and talked about the new album (which comes out on Sugar Hill Records), her forthcoming memoir Never Broken, and the recent success of the Americana movement.
You’re also doing a reading from your book the night you play AmericanaFest. Are the book and the album companion pieces?
Yes. Obviously, they are such different mediums that you have to do them in a way that is appropriate to each medium. My goal with the record and the book was to be incredibly raw, and very transparent and [have it] where the emotion elicits a very visceral response, so that the emotion I have in my body is the response I’m trying to put in other people’s bodies. I really tried to produce the record like the way I sing live. I’m a much better singer live than I’ve ever been in a recording, because you have an audience in front of you. When I’m in the studio in a vocal booth, it’s so sterile and I have no idea how to get that out of myself.
To get around that, we set up mics in an old-school way and mixed the record by how far I placed the drums from the mic, etc. I pushed “record” and then I pushed “stop record.” It really was a very live performance. I also recorded live at The Standard in Nashville and had fans fly in from all over the world and did a recording there, sort of like I did in the coffeeshop for Pieces Of You.
Regarding the book, I feel like a lot of people feel that they know my life. They know broad strokes. I think they’ll be pretty surprised. The [book deals with] how does a person heal in the face of so much heartbreak and so much setback? And I went about it in a very specific way. Statistically, girls like me end up with what they were raised with … I should have been addicted to drugs, I should have been knocked up by 18. So how do you avoid becoming a statistic? How do you re-nurture yourself if you can’t change nature? It’s like a scientific experiment and I’m writing about my findings and it became a career.
But the book is really about the process and revealing the truth of what happened. I never had resources so I was figuring these things out on my own and developed my own system. I’m aware of the suffering of other people, andI hope this encourages people to be architects of their own lives. You don’t need therapy, you don’t need money, you don’t need a house even.
When you’re writing so close to the bone and the subject matter is autobiographical, do you have any internal blocks that keep you from “going there,” and if so how do you to get over those?
In the book I write about the first time I was homeless. I learned so much about being able to not succumb and get myself out of that. And one of the things I did was to start writing down secrets and being really honest. Shame loves secrecy and the antithesis of that is communication and I had nothing else to lose, literally, so [I thought] I better try it. And it had a profound effect. And with some of the first songs I wrote, I got on stage at a coffeeshop in front of two surfers and just bled my heart out … I [revealed] certain embarrassing truths about myself that I thought would make me unloveable and it had a really shocking effect — it actually touched people and I felt less alone because the audience felt the same way.
Very few people are willing to tell the truth and show what a real human life is like. We try to pretty it up, especially in art, and use it as propaganda to make ourselves seem more perfect than we are to sell an image. And that’s never been me. It doesn’t make me comfortable to do that.
Was the production style you opted for on this album borne out by the intimate nature of the songs, or had you planned on making a really stripped—down record for a while?
My goal was to make a bookend to Pieces Of You, my first album. It was that time in my life. I was going through a divorce, and it was a very holistic process as nothing in my life is untouched by another area. So I was getting back in touch with my most official self, stripping away what got added through the years that I don’t think belonged to me. I challenged myself to be as raw and as bold as I was as a 20 year old before I knew better — before I knew about the business, before I knew about genre, before I learned about radio. Learning how to forget that is really a challenge in the studio … so I knew I had to make this record live.
Originally, I went to [producer] Paul Worley and he came to me and said he was backing out, saying, “You’re the only who should make this record.” And I thought that was a total cop-out … But he said that [any other producer] would be a filter … He said I’d end up thanking him one day … and I did thank him in my liner notes.
What is your take on the Americana movement and its recent success? Your new label Sugar Hill Records is an Americana label for the most part and you’ve been on a country label with the Big Machine imprint. Recently, it seems like there’s been a blurring of the lines between Americana and country and it’s not as dichotomized as it has been in the past.
That’s interesting, and to have done this for 20 years and watch the shift of what people call things. The music’s always been there, and there’s always been people who are very lyric-driven, let’s say. When I came out nobody knew what to call me … I found it hilarious that I made a living on pop radio … You listen to Pieces Of Me today and you think, “That’s not a pop record, that’s an Americana record,” and for a while it would have been considered a country record. So it’s been interesting but I feel like a lot of what I’ve done hasn’t changed that much … but the genres at the radio have changed a bunch.
For your book, did you use any other memoirs as a blueprint?
I never read a lot of memoirs … I read a lot as a child. I read a lot of philosophy and great fiction, like Steinbeck. I have tremendous respect for writing but I’ve never been a long-form writer. I’ve always written poems, essays, short stories. The longest thing I’d written was a 12-page essay or something like that … So tackling long form for me, especially a memoir, was really a new experience. I didn’t know how it would do, really. So I had to just dig into it and find my way through it. For a lot of the book I felt like a bad writer … But then I got really fascinated with the timing and the pacing and having recurring themes and an arc over 400 pages. [I had to learn] to be more lyrical and use a lyrical style of writing to really slow it down.
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Did Jewel really call Pieces of You "pieces of me?" :unsure:
Why do people keep writing Pieces of Me?
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Did Jewel really call Pieces of You "pieces of me?" :unsure:
Why do people keep writing Pieces of Me?
Maybe they're all secretly in love with Ashley Simpson? :shrug2:
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:lol:
I thought of Brittney Spears and I'm not even sure why
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:lol:
I thought of Brittney Spears and I'm not even sure why
Ha! Prolly cuz she has a song that goes "You wanna piece of me?"
Its actually not a bad song..... if you like that sort of thing. :whistle:
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The older I get, the less I hate terrible pop music. I have no idea why. :lol:
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Oh, and I'm glad I "tuned" in here... as I'm looking for some decent headphones. (see what I did there?) Nice to have input. I'm thinking Sony or Bose now. :music:
How about Beats by Dr. Dre? Or is that the same as the Beatsaudio stuff? Too teenager-y? We got some for my stepson a few years back and they were tres pricey.... :(
The older I get, the less I hate terrible pop music. I have no idea why. :lol:
Don't worry Jess. It has its place in the world. :flower:
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Yeah, but Dre sold Beats so he could be the first billionaire rapper.
:mchammer:
The mister is a dedicated Sony customer. He agrees with SMP - Sony headphones are where it's at.
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I've got a Sennheiser earphone, pretty good stuff (expensive enough), do the sell that brand in the US as well?
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Jewel - Picking Up The Pieces (http://onestopcountry.com/index.php/music-reviews/album-reviews/1705-jewel-picking-up-the-pieces)
[added paragraph breaks]
In the midst of the alternative music boom of the mid-90’s, Jewel released Pieces of You and brought her coffeehouse folk to radio, earning instant success with “Who Will Save Your Soul,” “You Were Meant For Me,” and “Foolish Games.” Since then, she evolved as the industry changed around her and wasn’t afraid to stretch out of her boundaries to expand her sound by bringing in more pop elements and country ideals. However, with her new album Picking Up The Pieces, she abandons those changes and recaptures the raw and honest sound that gave her mainstream success.
The album as a whole is more stripped down as is evident the moment that you hit play and are met with “Love Used To Be,” which quickly re-introduces us to her poetic lyrics as she lets them shine by accompanying them with only a simple acoustic guitar. She revisits her 90’s era sound with longtime live fan favorite “A Boy Needs A Bike,” a song that allows her to perfectly balance her folk side against her country roots as she paints the picture of life and the lessons we learn from its ups, downs, and in-betweens. Within’ her signature style she takes slight risks as well such as with the mostly spoken word feel of “His Pleasure Is My Pain,” but also focuses on tugging at our hearts with songs such as the autobiographical ballad “My Father’s Daughter,” a collaboration with Dolly Parton that tells the story of Jewel's father and grandmother.
Jewel has always been able to use her voice to catapult you right into the emotions of the lyric and she does that flawlessly throughout this album. She personally returns to her roots with this album, but just as she did when she broke through, she is offering something completely different amongst the pop and rock edged music of today and once again, she finds herself face to face with being the necessary change to the mainstream.
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:lol:
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Got an email last night. I don't check it often enough, it seems.
Randall McC......,
Your order #100000... has been updated to: Shipped
USPS 9400110200830841127...
You can check the status of your order by logging into your account.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at store@jeweljk.com .
Thank you, Official Jewel Store!
This would be the PUtP signed CD.
:banana:
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:thomdance: Nice!!
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I think my Gold bundle has shipped.
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I think my Gold bundle has shipped.
That would be awesome! I've got one coming, too, and the status is listed as, "Complete". Of course, with what we know about the vinyl now, that's not technically true.
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Mine hasn't shipped either! :LoudMouth:
That's okay - I didn't expect it to.
My Ben Folds package shipped early! I should be getting that early! :fun:
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Is it wrong im cranky that i haven't received an email that my cd has shipped and other people are already receiving them in the mail?
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I didn't receive a mail yet about shipping, But I just ordered. *trying to be patient*
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I thought all this stuff wasn't being released until tomorrow? Or are you special if you ordered the gold bundle? :thinking:
I only ordered the silver bundle.
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I thought it was only people who ordered the signed CD and nothing else who are getting theirs early.
:unsure:
I ordered gold and I have no reason to think mine is coming just yet, which is fine. I don't pay much mind to what my account on the website says because it's not exactly Amazon, iykwim.
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Maybe because i did the silver package. Hmm oh well
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I thought it was only people who ordered the signed CD and nothing else who are getting theirs early.
Yeah, that's what I assume. The silver, gold etc bundles are probably all gonna be shipped together, and since the book doesn't come out until Tuesday then they wouldn't want people to get it a week early. But that's fine with me. We've got the digital album that'll hold us over until then. :music:
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When I first ordered this bundle, they told me it wouldn't ship until 9/15, so anything beyond that is a gift. No expectations here. :yes:
I was a little bummed about waiting for the vinyl, but I'll have the CD and a digi download, so I can wait to have the album. :)
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When I first ordered this bundle, they told me it wouldn't ship until 9/15, so anything beyond that is a gift. No expectations here. :yes:
I was a little bummed about waiting for the vinyl, but I'll have the CD and a digi download, so I can wait to have the album. :)
Okay. That's cool then. I didn't remember seeing that it wouldn't ship until the 15th. Less :grumpy:
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Yeah, none of it was going to ship until the book was released and ready, which is/was the 15th. :)
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I did the putp silver bundle without the book. Its not even listed as shipped yet :/
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I thought it was only people who ordered the signed CD and nothing else who are getting theirs early.
:unsure:
I ordered gold and I have no reason to think mine is coming just yet, which is fine. I don't pay much mind to what my account on the website says because it's not exactly Amazon, iykwim.
Well, I can be used as an experimental case because I ordered the signed CD, thought about it, and ordered the gold bundle too. I didn't cancel the first order.
So, the CD is in transit (somewhere between Houston and here) with expected delivery tomorrow. The gold bundle still shows as "complete", not shipped, at the Jewel store. I think any bundle including the book ships based on the book release date, the 15th, right? Hehe, asked and answered. I didn't read everything first. :blush:
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And we still have no answer on the Deluxe Edition, right? Because I want a hard copy of the book :book: with the extras on a dvd or cd. (Geezer emoji here)
I hate reading on a kindle or tablet. Hurts my old eyes.
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Well, it doesn't look like Target got a bonus track version after all...
I can't find a bonus track anywhere.
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(Geezer emoji here)
Got you covered. ;)
http://forum.edas.space/index.php?topic=28.40
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Pieces of Jewel: The Singer Releases A New Album and a Memoir (http://parade.com/422120/alison-abbey/pieces-of-jewel-the-singer-releases-a-new-album-and-a-memoir/)
It’s a big month for Jewel. Not only will she release Picking Up the Pieces—her first studio album in five years—tomorrow, she’ll also share even more of her story with the world in a new memoir, Never Broken: The Songs Are Only Half the Story, out September 15. The singer took a break from performing her new material to talk about her creative process, connecting with her authentic self and the journey from her debut album Pieces of You to its “bookend,” Picking Up the Pieces.
Parade: You’ve called Picking Up The Pieces a bookend to your debut album, 1995’s Pieces of You. How did you decide now was the time for such an album?
Jewel: I knew at some point I was going to make another record that was akin to Pieces of You. I wasn’t sure when it would happen exactly, but I knew it was headed toward that, and as my life took some turns, I realized this was the album I needed to make now. When my son was born, I looked into his eyes and realized I wasn’t quite the woman I wanted him to know and I needed to make some pretty significant changes in my life. I was able to use my writing and my songs and the book as my mechanism to do what I called an archeological dig back to my essential self.
Parade: Many of the songs on this album are songs you’d written (or partially written) in the past. What made you decide to put them on this album?
Jewel: With time, things can become doling, even in your career. You learn the rules, and you learn to play by the rules, and you learn to succeed by those rules, but it isn’t how innovation happens. It isn’t how you move the needle. You get domesticated. You quit being a wild animal, and as an artist, there are parts of a wild animal that are incredibly important, so a lot of making this album was this archeological dig back to myself. It was interesting recording songs I wrote when I was 18, 19, 20, because it was like having a conversation through time travel with myself and saying what did we do here that was right and that was wild and free, and how can I find that again? It was also being able to be 40 and have what I’ve learned about patience, perseverance, tenacity–some things that are really important that I’ve learned over the years–that I was able to tell my younger self.
Parade: Did it change the way you write songs?
Jewel: I’ve never tried to control songs. I’ll sit down and I might write a pop song, or I might write a reggae song. They just come out how they come out, it’s not my job to judge them. I’ve been lucky to be prolific enough over time that I don’t have to control the process. There doesn’t need to be pressure on it, you just get to let songs be, and some of them will never see the light of day and some are good. So my process hasn’t necessarily changed…except that somewhere over time you learn that songs should be three minutes long, and that’s a shame, so I made it a point to put at least three six-minute songs on this record.
Parade: Is writing easier when you’re going through something difficult or after you’ve gotten through it?
Jewel: I’ve never been a writer that writes well in pain. I write better when I’m happy. But a song like “Mercy” [an emotionally-charged track off the new album], I was sobbing when I wrote that song. I needed it. I wrote it for me, it was medicine. I was having a real freaking breakdown and that is the only thing I could think of to do to soothe myself, and that longing and passion you hear in it was birthed of that. I don’t know that I could have written that later.
Parade: Do you get emotional all over again when you perform the song?
Jewel: I feel it every time I sing that song. Any song. Even Who Will Save Your Soul that I wrote when I was 16. I’m a very emotional singer. I don’t phone anything in, and if I don’t feel like I can emotionally connect to a song, I don’t sing it. And my fan base is fine with that. I don’t write a set list, I do different songs every night just by feeling the crowd and singing what I can authentically connect to.
Parade: You’ve been performing some of these songs for two decades. Are there any you’d like to retire?
Jewel: I hated singing Standing Still for a long time. I got tired of all the strumming, it was exhausting! And then I started playing it in this muted eighth note version and I kind of fell in love with it again.
Parade: What was it like to transition from songwriting to penning a memoir?
Jewel: It was a different process entirely. I’d never written long form before and I kept asking my editor, ‘Do I need a writer?’ And she was like, ‘No you’re doing good!’ Her job was picking me off the floor on a daily basis. My style of writing tends to be a lot of meaning and very few words, so talking so much felt like a crime, like my God, this must suck because I’m talking a lot! I must be horrible at my job! But you have to say more in a book and you have to learn to find different pacing—how to keep time, how to keep people’s attention, where to drop in or slow down, where to get philosophical and extrapolate—so it was a learning process and I really enjoyed it.
Parade: How personal is the book?
Jewel: I didn’t put everything in. It’s not a tell-all. But there’s a lot there. I didn’t tell anybody else’s story, it’s none of my business. I didn’t write this because I was bitter, or to try and get revenge or be salacious, because that isn’t in the spirit, so I was actually able to share a lot, but I don’t think anybody that reads it will be like, whoa, she went to town on that person! But I went to town on myself. I really feel like you have to be incredibly transparent to connect with people, and if we don’t share what really makes us human and our flaws then we miss the opportunity to understand ourselves, and a lot of artists will do that. They will make themselves seem perfect. I have not had a perfect life, it’s been a real roller coaster and it’s been difficult, but the takeaway I wanted people to have is that no matter what you face, no matter how many times life brings you to your knees, you can stand up and you are not broken.
Parade: Give us three words to describe yourself 20 years ago, on the eve of your debut album’s release, and three words to describe yourself today.
Jewel: On the eve of my first album launch I would say I was excited, too inexperienced to know better and nervous. Now I would say I’m peaceful, too stubborn to know better—too stubborn to do better, I could do better, I’m just too stubborn to do something different—and I feel courageous.
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I would like to hear a Jewel reggae song!
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Parade: Give us three words to describe yourself 20 years ago, on the eve of your debut album’s release, and three words to describe yourself today.
Jewel: On the eve of my first album launch I would say I was excited, too inexperienced to know better and nervous. Now I would say I’m peaceful, too stubborn to know better—too stubborn to do better, I could do better, I’m just too stubborn to do something different—and I feel courageous.
That's a hell of a lot more than 6 words!
Oh, Jewel. Never change. :wub:
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I thought it was only people who ordered the signed CD and nothing else who are getting theirs early.
:unsure:
I ordered gold and I have no reason to think mine is coming just yet, which is fine. I don't pay much mind to what my account on the website says because it's not exactly Amazon, iykwim.
Well, I can be used as an experimental case because I ordered the signed CD, thought about it, and ordered the gold bundle too. I didn't cancel the first order.
So, the CD is in transit (somewhere between Houston and here) with expected delivery tomorrow. The gold bundle still shows as "complete", not shipped, at the Jewel store. I think any bundle including the book ships based on the book release date, the 15th, right? Hehe, asked and answered. I didn't read everything first. :blush:
How did you see where your order is?
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http://tasteofcountry.com/jewel-picking-up-the-pieces-interview/
Jewel delivered an understated, yet powerful performance in Nashville Thursday afternoon (Sept. 10), when she previewed selections from her latest album, Picking Up the Pieces, for a small group of journalists.
The singer-songwriter is releasing the new project on Friday (Sept. 11), marking a return to the no-frills approach of her now-iconic 1995 debut, Pieces of You. She moved easily through a variety of styles and moods in her hour-long set, casually sharing stories from her life and career and breaking the serious mood by joking with those in attendance, warning everyone to “eat quietly” and wondering, “Why am I not drinking and having random sex?” after her much-publicized divorce.
“That would be easier” than what she has undertaken, she mused — namely, a staunchly un-commercial folk album and a searingly honest new memoir, Never Broken.
“I always knew I would do a record that had a similar spirit to my first one,” Jewel tells Taste of Country after the performance. “Being mentored by Neil Young, seeing Harvest and Harvest Moon — you were allowed to do that. You were allowed to dip in and out of different styles and come back to certain styles. I always felt that was in my future; it became apparent that it was now. I almost did a standards record, but where I went in my life … having my son made me really want to figure out if I was the woman that I wanted him to know, and what I needed to do and change in my life.”
Part of that process was to produce herself for the first time, which only happened after Paul Worley was unavailable. “He backed out last minute, saying that I was the only one who could do it,” Jewel recalls. “I thought he was saying that as a cop-out because he wanted to go take another job. He said, ‘You’re gonna thank me one day,’ and I ended up thanking him in the liner notes. He was right — I just needed a kick in the pants to do it.”
Jewel chose to record the new material as organically as possible, eschewing vocal comps and multiple layers of tracks in favor of recording the instrumental bed tracks and vocals live in the studio, with minimal vocal harmonies as the only overdubs. She collaborated with Rodney Crowell on “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now” and brought Dolly Parton in for a duet on an autobiographical track titled “My Father’s Daughter.”
“As soon as she stepped into the vocal both, she said, ‘Now honey, you don’t be afraid to tell me what you need out of me,’” Jewel says, slipping into an endearing imitation of one of her own musical heroes. “‘You just boss me around. And if you don’t keep me honest, I brought someone that will.’ She brought somebody with her that, if I wasn’t gonna speak up if something didn’t sound just right, he was gonna. It kind of empowered me to do that. But she’s such a pro; she really doesn’t need any guidance. I was just glad to be there along for the ride.”
Kip Moore also contributed to a song titled “Pretty Faced Fool,” but the most surprising collaboration on the album is “The Shape of You,” a song inspired by losing someone to cancer that Jewel co-wrote with David Lee and bro-country king Dallas Davidson, who’s best-known for testosterone-laden hits like “That’s My Kind of Night” and “Kick the Dust Up.”
The song shows a very different side to Davidson’s talents. “I don’t think it would be a typical song that Dallas would write,” she laughingly acknowledges, but the track is as strong as anything else on the collection.
Drawing on such diverse influences, the resulting album stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of contemporary releases, which is its greatest strength. But Jewel is aware that she’s facing an uphill battle to make Picking up the Pieces into a commercial success.
“It feels like a risk. I took five years off. That’s a big no-no,” she admits. “I did it to build a family, and I lost a family. I have a son. I knew I couldn’t go back to a major label, because I couldn’t promote a record the way you need to at a major label, and I didn’t want to waste their time or money. I knew as a mom, I was probably unwilling to do six months straight on the road at radio. So you make decisions, and they’re tough decisions. I decided to make an indie record, and a folk record, and something that probably wouldn’t be commercial,” she adds with a laugh, “after taking five years off … ’cause I am a glutton for punishment! But it’s the only honest thing I knew how to do. My goal has always been to have a 40 or 50-year career of being a great singer-songwriter, and I think you do have an onus to make those types of decisions.”
She’s not yet decided exactly how she’ll structure touring to promote the album.
“I haven’t had a band in 100 years,” she says, “so maybe I’ll take a band out. I do tend to tour solo acoustic. I was also thinking about doing a one-woman show that’s based on the book, sort of more a theatrical thing that has music. I’ve acted in a couple of films, and I do a lot of stand-up in my shows, so I think it would be this amalgamation of drama, comedy and music, and I’d shape it in a way that fit a format of about an hour-and-a-half. I’d have to write it, so …. we’ll see,” she says with another laugh. “We’ll see what I get up to here!”
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Jewel Says Ex-Husband Is 'Going to Get Blamed for a Lot of Songs' on 'Picking Up the Pieces' (http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6693313/jewel-ex-husband-blamed-for-a-lot-of-songs-on-picking-up-the-pieces)
Jewel knows without being told that when fans are listening to her new album Picking Up The Pieces, they are likely going to be connecting the emotional dots. "Yeah, that's probably going to happen," she said. "My ex-husband is going to get blamed for a lot of songs."
While the singer says that some of the 14 tracks on the album were influenced by last year's divorce from rodeo star Ty Murray, quite a few of the songs on the disc were written years ago. She says that stems from the fact that her pen is always writing -- whether she's recording for an album or not.
"I was really lucky to be mentored by Dylan, Neil Young and these people who drummed into my head when I was 19 or 20 that I had to follow my muse as a songwriter. It was your sacred duty. So, I've tried to do things that kept me alive as a songwriter," she told Billboard. "My first record [1995's Pieces Of You] became so popular that I felt a lot of pressure, but then I realized that I had a lot of money and didn't actually have to have another hit again. So, that took the pressure off and if I saved my money, I could spend the rest of my life doing whatever the heck I liked musically. That's what I set about doing -- asking myself 'What do you feel like being now? Who am I now as a songwriter, what do I want to say and how do I want to say it?"
She said that has allowed her to approach her music exactly the way she wanted to -- sometimes defying conventional wisdom.
"I've taken left turns when I should go right, right when I should have gone left, took years between records and had breaks in momentum," she said. "But, I felt that's what I needed to do as a writer and I feel like it has kept me alive. I feel like I'm writing better -- or at least as good as I ever have and that was my goal. When I was 18 and being signed, I asked myself why the best novelists write their best work in their 50s and why do songwriters write their best in their 20s. I thought it was lifestyle. I thought it was fame. That's why I never tried to surround myself with cronies. I tried to never do anything by the book or idolize fame or keep the momentum going if it didn't serve me as a writer. It's taken me on a hell of a journey."
But, while some of the lyrical content was written before she married Murray, that's not to say the emotional attachment to the songs were any less when recording it.
"A lot of people will think this is a break-up record," she said. "And it is in a lot of ways. I wrote some of it going through a divorce. Though I wrote 'Everything Breaks' 15 years ago, I felt everything I was going through when I sang it. But, a lot of them aren't written about him.... but some of them are."
And, the album is definitely full of emotion, from a duet with Rodney Crowell on "It Doesn't Hurt Right Now" to the stunning "Carnivore." The singer said that while preserving her inner muse was important, it was also a way to grow as a mother to her son Kase.
"I realized after I had a child that there were parts of me that went to sleep and there were parts that I needed to wake up." she said. "There was a part of me that felt very confined in the life I had built for myself. It's one thing to do that at 18, but another when you are building a family. A lot of that was about giving myself this internal permission to say, 'Am I the woman I want my son to know and what do I have to do to be that?' Not just for him.... but for myself. Am I the woman that I want to look back on?
"There's things I let go of that I feel compromised me. That was an intense and personal journey that lived itself out in the writing of the record and I learned to do this archaeological dig and peel away the things that I don't feel added to me and might have covered up a light of mine that I burned brighter in some aspects. In a lot of ways, it was like time travel making this record. It was my 18-year-old self that wrote some of these songs tapping me on the shoulder and saying, 'This is the ways we're brave and this is the way we are courageous.' My 40-year-old self got to talk to the 18-year-old and say, 'You're going to be OK and I know how to do this. It was a very interesting healing process that forced me -- because I was recording some older songs -- to meet myself both as a younger woman and an older woman and to let them have that conversation."
At the same time she was preparing the album, she was also working on her memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Journey, which will be released on Tuesday. She admitted that the creative process for the book was much different than writing a song or poem.
"I wrote it three hours a day while my son was at school," she said with a laugh. "But, whatever it is about me, I will be thankful that if I sit down for three hours, I can do it effectively and then do it the next day. It wasn't until the last couple months that I buckled down and wrote six and eight hour days."
Picking Up The Pieces is out now.
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Parade: Give us three words to describe yourself 20 years ago, on the eve of your debut album’s release, and three words to describe yourself today.
Jewel: On the eve of my first album launch I would say I was excited, too inexperienced to know better and nervous. Now I would say I’m peaceful, too stubborn to know better—too stubborn to do better, I could do better, I’m just too stubborn to do something different—and I feel courageous.
That's a hell of a lot more than 6 words!
Oh, Jewel. Never change. :wub:
I think those are the six words, maybe?
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I would like to hear a Jewel reggae song!
You mean aside from the Morning Song remix? :w
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I never do listen to that, and I should, because I don't hate it. Not sure how I keep missing it in my Jewel playlist, but it's a p big f playlist at this point :lol:
It would take me nearly a week nonstop to get through all of it.
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Jewel on Coping With Heartache: ‘I Peel Off Every Scab and Stick My Finger in Them’ (http://time.com/4020426/jewel-interview/)
The singer-songwriter talks to TIME about her new album and new book
Jewel isn’t sure if her new album will get much radio play. At 41, the singer-songwriter has criss-crossed genres enough times to realize that in order to make something she could call art, she had to shed decades’ worth of music industry acumen. Rather than getting bogged down with distractions like crossover appeal and radio formats, she mined the emotional terrain of her last five years—heartbreak, divorce, motherhood—for something a little more raw. “I don’t think there was an area of my life that wasn’t touched,” she says.
Picking Up the Pieces (Sept. 11), a title that more than subtly invokes her 1995 debut album Pieces of You, could easily be described as a bookend, a return to roots or the end of a chapter. But Jewel doesn’t see it as any of these. It’s “just similar in spirit,” she says. So similar, in fact, that several of the songs on the album were written at the same time as the songs on Pieces of You, but endured two decades as grainy bootlegs, only now making their way from the live stage into the recording studio.
While she set out to capture, in the studio, the emotional intensity of songs previously performed only onstage, Jewel also wrote a host of new songs for the album, like its opening track “Love Used to Be.” A poetic rendering of the pain of divorce from her husband of six years, Ty Murray, the lyrics adhere to the kind of vulnerable self-reflection for which her fans know and love her—namely, peering deep into the bottom of a wound, then turning it inside out for the world to see: “Dig a six foot hole inside my chest,” she sings, “Heart like a gravestone lay it down to rest.”
While gearing up for the consecutive release of the album and her new memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story (Sept. 15), Jewel spoke to TIME about why she’s zig-zagged between genres, how she avoided becoming a teenybopper and why she idolized Dolly Parton from a young age.
TIME: Several of the songs on Picking Up the Pieces were written when you were 17 or 18. Had you been playing them consistently over the last two decades, or were you revisiting them for the first time in a long time?
Jewel: Some of them have been requested as much as any of my hits. They became these underground bootleg hits with my fanbase. I bet every single show for 20 years I’ve sung “Everything Breaks” and “Carnivore.”
Having accumulated so much life experience since you first wrote these songs, do you approach them differently than you did when you were 18?
These are songs that I had the ability to write quite young but never had the ability to produce in a way that didn’t diminish emotion. If you’ve heard me sing a song live, I think the reason people have loved it is because it’s very intense and emotional. Typically I’ve had difficulty in the studio. I don’t sing as raw, it’s just a bit more tame. I’m a live singer who’s always fed off the energy of the audience. In a studio, you’re just looking at a wall—it feels very odd to me. I’ve been a live performer since I was six years old.
The reason I recorded the album live with the band was so that I could play guitar, which I usually never do in the studio, while I sing at the same time. The band was accustomed to following singer-songwriters and feeling for me slowing down and speeding up. It has a real ebb and a flow and a naturalness that didn’t inhibit my singing or performance.
When you record these older songs, or when you go back and listen to Pieces of You, can you see how you’ve evolved as a musician and as a person?
There’s been evolution that’s good and evolution that I don’t perceive as valuable. On this record, it was really ridding myself of the evolution that covered me up. Twenty years later, you know too much about the industry, about what having a radio crossover means, what it means to say, “I spent the last 10 years building up a country fanbase, and I’m making a folk record, and I shouldn’t walk away from that, and I don’t even know what genre this record is, and oh my God, there’s no radio single!” You have to get all that out of your head and just be willing to make art. On top of that, I was going through a divorce, and looking at my entire person and saying, what is my essential self? I don’t think there was an area of my life that wasn’t touched.
Your memoir comes out just a few days after the album. Do you see them as companion pieces?
Yeah, I wanted them to come out at the same time. When I do live shows, I do a lot of storytelling and music, and it’s hard to get that all in one place unless you do some kind of TV special. They give you the whole story, if you put them together. My number one job was being a mom. My number two job was making sure I was giving enough time to transition Ty and I into a new phase of our relationship with the divorce, and it took a lot of energy to do that. And then my third job was writing the book and doing the record.
Some of your songs are autobiographical, and others read more like stories. Do you approach an autobiographical song differently from one that has a fictional premise?
I don’t. They all feel like me somehow. I feel emotion very intensely. I wrote “His Pleasure Is My Pain” when I was 17 or 18. It’s a very complex song about a woman who’s much older than me at age 17, but I felt all those feelings. I think it was just a lifetime of watching people and having pain myself. Any of my short stories or poems or songs, I run the emotion through my body. It feels very real to me.
When you’re writing a song that’s very personal, like “Love Used to Be,” is there fear in putting it out in the world or in sitting down to write it?
I don’t experience fear in that way. I don’t know a single person that hasn’t been through some sort of heartbreak, whether they were married or it was a break-up or they lost somebody they loved to death. The disillusionment of innocence and first love is pretty universal. I’ve always found music really healing. I talk in my book about this moment when I was homeless and didn’t have anything left to lose, and I was like, “I’m going to start saying my worst fears, my deepest hopes, the things that I think make me unlovable.” I started writing songs and was really shocked that I wasn’t rebuked or shut down. I was seen for the first time. Oddly, people in the audience felt seen for the first time, and we all felt less alone.
It’s counterintuitive that the more transparent you are, the safer you are. I think it’s what helped me in my career with fame. I’m a pretty introverted person. When I was looking at getting signed, I felt very uncomfortable at the prospect of being idolized, because I was so deeply flawed. I had a very abusive background and I was homeless, so the idea of having to be perfect was horrifying. The only thing that gave me comfort was if I could lead with my flaws and say, “Hey, let me keep myself off of any pedestal anybody ever might consider putting me on.” That allowed me, at age 18, to never be considered a teenybopper act that had to transition into being an adult.
You’ve said that your fans had a fair amount of influence on the songs you included in the album, and even, on “Carnivore,” which bridge you chose to go with. Have you always been that deferential to your fans?
Honestly, I forget my music. I have hundreds of songs, and they have bootlegged and catalogued all of them. I get complete amnesia about many of my songs. Fans bring lyrics to shows because they know I’m going to forget something. So it’s not necessarily that I defer, but I use them as a valuable resource. I forgot I wrote that bridge to “Carnivore.” Quite a few years ago, some fans said, “Hey do you remember this bridge?” And I clicked the link and said, “Oh, that’s actually better.”
When you started making country albums, did your fan base come with you, or did you pick up a new one?
My hardcore fans stay with me. The formats were shifting dramatically in radio. Where “You Were Meant For Me” snuck into the alternative movement in the ‘90s, today if that came out, that’d be too country for country. I can’t tell you it’d make it on pop radio or country, frankly. I’ve always been in between worlds, and you’ve got to figure out where your best shot is. When I was looking at the shift, I was looking at pop music going very different from the kind I was interested in making, and if I wanted to be a singer-songwriter and tell stories, it became obvious the place for that was country radio. Now country radio has shifted again. It’s become much more pop. [The new record] is an Americana folk record, and I can’t say that it’ll get played on any radio station.
When you think about future projects, do you think in terms of genre?
The onus of a singer-songwriter is to follow your heart, and it’s a pain in the butt. It’d be a lot less draining to know what target you’re hitting and just hit it. That isn’t how I approach things, and it creates a lot more work, but that’s the privilege and burden of being a singer-songwriter. I don’t know what’ll come out of me next. I’d like to do some spoken-word poetry set to music. A standards record is something I’d enjoy. I’m a much better singer than the melodies I write for my own music, because I’m so interested in telling the story that I try to sing just enough to tell the story. The standards really let you sing. They’re what I cut my teeth on, so I’d love to pay homage to that.
One of the tracks on the album, “My Father’s Daughter,” is a duet with Dolly Parton. It’s a very personal song. How did you decide that it should be a duet, and that it should be with her?
When you grow up as a girl on a homestead with an outhouse, you don’t have many heroes in the public eye. Dolly and Loretta [Lynn] were them, because they had outhouses and they had a similar lifestyle to me. I loved their audacity. They were women who were so outspoken and they had no shame in being who they were. They were so ahead of their time, and I always thought it was quite heroic. So I asked her to sing on the song, and I was pretty surprised she said yes. I’m tremendously honored. We got in the studio, she started at 8 a.m. and was 10 minutes early and well-prepared and looked amazing and was sarcastic and witty and everything you would hope Dolly Parton would be.
Reflecting on the process of making this album, did you come out on the other side seeing yourself more clearly than you did before you started?
The birth of my son really inspired me to make sure I’m the kind of woman I want my son to know, and looking at the places I’ve been stagnant, looking for things that were lost and reclaiming them. The process of making this record and writing this book really helped facilitate that for me. It’s funny, most people go through a divorce and are like, why didn’t I just get drunk and have meaningless sex? And I write a memoir and a heartbreaking record, peel off every scab I’ve ever healed and stick my finger in them and write about it. That’s how I dealt with it. But I think it was the best thing I could have done.
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Seems like she's getting a lot of great press for this. :)
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I hate the click bait headline on this story with a passion, so in protest, I'm not going to link to the source. One page view is enough and you've all likely already seen the story.
Multiplatinum and Grammy-nominated artist Jewel — the small-town horseback rider who got her start in biker bars and eventually racked up more than 27 million worldwide album sales — has come a long way since her childhood in Homer, Alaska.
With her 12th studio album, Picking Up the Pieces, being released Friday — 20 years after her debut effort, Pieces of You, hit shelves in 1995 — Jewel speaks to The Hollywood Reporter about the long, winding path that brought her this far and the sexual harassment she's had to endure since the very beginning.
"The music industry is a very male-dominated business," says Jewel. "I never slept my way to the top, ever. There was never one time I’ve ever compromised anything. I was always willing to walk away. ... And I think that type of spirit that you bring just informs everybody that’s around you. You know, I've heard plenty of stories that the opposite happens."
"I saw what women would give up for a compliment," she says. "I felt men were willing to take advantage if they saw something vulnerable."
"I’ve had men hitting on me, sadly, since I was really young. At 8, I had men putting dimes in my hands saying, 'Call me. It’d be so great to f— when you’re older.' And just horrible stuff."
Jewel says that traumatic experience early in life helped prepare her for the sexual harassment she'd have to endure in the wake of her big break at 18, when she signed with Atlantic Records.
"In the music business, it ended up serving me very well. I learned to keep my energy to myself, where there’s nothing about me that seemed approachable. And as men did approach me, I got very good at handling men in a way that sort of didn’t anger them. ... And at the same time using wit and usually humor to defuse the situation and to inform them, 'P.S. Not available that way.' "
Jewel was homeless at the time she got her record deal, and she says sexual harassment is what put her on the streets.
Back when she was just starting her career by singing in bars and coffee shops in San Diego, Jewel says her boss at the time fired her for refusing to have sex with him. She no longer could pay her rent and lived out of her car until it was stolen. She describes this chapter of her life as her most fragile state and says men around her continued attempting to exploit it.
"I’ve never been more propositioned by businessmen in my life. It was almost like they were sharks that could smell blood, like of vulnerability," says Jewel. "I’d go back to my car, writing songs, and men would literally come up and proposition me. They would be like, 'Hey, do you need rent money?' you know and things like that. It was pretty wild. I never took anybody up on it, but it was interesting to see this side of men that basically would prey on somebody vulnerable."
Jewel touches on these issues in her raw new memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story, which will be released on Sept. 15.
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Seems like she's getting a lot of great press for this. :)
Absolutely! I'm miffed about the exclusion on Spotify's new release section because there are some views to be had there, but there's been some otherwise great press all over! She was even on the Google News front page, albeit briefly, and only for the terrible clickbait headline referenced above, but w/e - there's no such thing as bad press, right?
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How did you see where your order is?
USPS tracking.
Speaking of...there's been no update on tracking, and I didn't get my CD today. :(
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*Whew!*
That was a lot of reading. Just caught up. Those Dolly stories were great, and I've got a feeling it's not the last time we'll hear them. ::2
As I read those pieces, I was struck with the notion that Jewel might be an actual genius. The inclusion of Dolly and Crowell and Moore and Davidson in the album is just enough to get the interest of country publications, but this isn't a country record. Also, I think she effectively torpedoed one of the arguments people have had against her, namely, genre-shifting. She's moving through the media like a little blonde ninja.
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I hate the click bait headline on this story with a passion, so in protest, I'm not going to link to the source. One page view is enough and you've all likely already seen the story.
I'm up way too late.
I'm not gonna post any of the "news" sites that picked up on the "putting dimes in my hand at 8" angle but lordy, there are a lot of them. Of course, this would be the very thing that gathers steam...sheesh.
Anyway, she told Stern this story over two FIVE years ago and no one noticed!
EDIT: It was the 2010 interview!
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Seems like she's getting a lot of great press for this. :)
Absolutely! I'm miffed about the exclusion on Spotify's new release section because there are some views to be had there, but there's been some otherwise great press all over! She was even on the Google News front page, albeit briefly, and only for the terrible clickbait headline referenced above, but w/e - there's no such thing as bad press, right?
My friend was over last nite and he pulled PUTP right up on Spotify. Then we :smoke: and :sandy: and :cry: and :yawn:
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Update from the friendly neighborhood mailman...
Product & Tracking Information
Postal Product:
First-Class Package Service
Features:
USPS Tracking™
DATE & TIME
STATUS OF ITEM
LOCATION
September 12, 2015 , 8:35 am
Out for Delivery
DOVER, DE 19904
Your item is out for delivery on September 12, 2015 at 8:35 am in DOVER, DE 19904.
My CD is out and about through the countryside! And when I say countryside, I'm not kidding. I live in the suburbs of Amish Gotham.
Maybe I should get an extension cord and drag this computer out to the mailbox for live updates: "Here comes the mailman! Oh, no, wait...that's a cow."
EDIT: Pretty sure this is the final update on this one...
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Jewel @jeweljk · 1h1 hour ago
Shooting a video today for My Fathers Daughter- doing a sun dance to keep the rain away :jewelsmilie: :blueguitar:
Not sure where to put this but: sounds good :woohoo:
Jewel is doing Music Videos for songs in Picking Up the Pieces. :hi5:
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Jewel Says Ex-Husband Is 'Going to Get Blamed for a Lot of Songs' on 'Picking Up the Pieces' (http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6693313/jewel-ex-husband-blamed-for-a-lot-of-songs-on-picking-up-the-pieces)
Though I wrote 'Everything Breaks' 15 years ago,
Jewel on Coping With Heartache: ‘I Peel Off Every Scab and Stick My Finger in Them’ (http://time.com/4020426/jewel-interview/)
I bet every single show for 20 years I’ve sung “Everything Breaks”
Hehe.. silly Jewel. :jewelsmilie: EB is way older than 15 years!
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Jewel ‘Picking Up The Pieces’ – Album Review (http://forthecountryrecord.com/2015/09/11/jewel-picking-up-the-pieces-album-review/)
I think it’s fair to say Jewel has been through a lot in the past few years. Her last album of original studio material was in 2010 with ‘Sweet and Wild’, and since that time she’s released a holiday album and two children’s offerings, but nothing that chronicles the birth of her son, the breakdown of her marriage and the life shifts that occurred in between. This is all changed with today’s release of ‘Picking Up The Pieces’, a bookend of sorts to her celebrated debut ‘Pieces of You’, which put her on the map with her raw, honest songwriting and folksy approach. Featuring fourteen tracks, some of which are old live favorites that extend back through the 90s, and some of which that are brand new for this record, it’s a cohesive collection of critical, razor-sharp reflections on life, family, conflict, love, pain, regret, doubt and ultimately peace, even if that peace is somewhat cracking in places.
Many of the heavy emotions on this record can easily be attributed to Jewel’s comparatively recent divorce, although it is the poetic license of the songwriter to put out material that fools us in its inspiration. It is reductive to assume that every song here holds reference to her break-up, particularly due to the age of the some of the offerings, but equally it is hard to ignore the freshness of the pain, the strike of the match as she sends herself up in flames. It can be difficult to listen to at times; ‘His Pleasure Is My Pain’ is an especially emotive piece, supported by sitar and cello and alternating between impassioned, broken singing and almost vicious spoken word. Jewel takes the concept of blunt honesty to a new level here, making sure we feel every word with every ounce of meaning and emotion she has experienced, striking us at our most vulnerable and painting a clear picture of her truth. “I wonder if he’s only half alive or if he’s always lacked such subtlety,” she says, the words rolling around her tongue with a kind of twisted delight, interspersed with the more desperate cries of “Yes it’s true I’m too sensitive but he takes pleasure in my pain.”
In case it wasn’t already blindingly clear, this is not a record for the faint of heart. We find her stripped away and open at her most broken, her most devastated, her most angry and bitter. The powerful opener ‘Love Used To Be’ reflects on all the different aspects of her life love used to fulfil, and how it has impacted those now it is gone. “Dig a six foot hole inside my chest,” she begs, before building to a half-sung yell as the heartbreak becomes too much. Equally ‘The Shape of You’ finds Jewel lost, missing someone so painfully and deeply that it becomes all she can hold onto, while ‘Carnivore’ (an old song, repurposed with new relevancy) lashes out with fire-spitting anger, “Never trust your pink fleshy heart to a carnivore.” Instead of writing songs in hindsight of a great heartbreak, finding some kind of lesser representation of pain to convey in a way that is a more palatable to a mass audience, Jewel closes her eyes and just speaks her emotions, redefining what it is to be raw in this industry.
The closing track ‘Mercy’ has this same concept in mind, “Simplicity does not come easy when you’re dreaming of being someone else,” she advises, and this willingness to let go of the veneers and the walls she has built up over the course of a career is what informs this record the most. It is so easy to think we are being raw and truthful when in actual fact it’s just a less guarded version of ourselves – ‘Picking Up The Pieces’ looks to discard that in favor of simplicity and honesty in their essences. Just a record about stories and feelings and experiences. ‘A Boy Needs A Bike’, another old song that many fans will be familiar with, sees Jewel taking on the perspective of a little boy whose parents’ marriage is complicated. He doesn’t understand why his father doesn’t just take him and his sister and drive away from the conflict, though his father assures him it’s not as simple as that. Through the innocence of a child, we see two people who shouldn’t be together and how their imperfect relationship impacts their children, but we also see that we can get caught up in the rules and social practises of the world that prevent us from doing what we should.
The same message crawls through the curiously rhythmic take-down ‘Plain Jane’, which lambasts a person for trying too hard to be interesting and socially dominant, instead advising that she prefers this person as a plain jane. But Jewel experiences her own communication breakdown on ‘It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now’, a wonderful duet with Rodney Crowell, not afraid to showcase the ugly side of relationship conflict.
There are a couple of songs regarding family on this record, and Jewel looks to take the lessons she’s learned into motherhood on ‘Family Tree’, a reflection on the mistakes and twisted legacy of her ancestors and those already made between her and her ex-husband. The other duet on this album, ‘My Father’s Daughter’, finds Dolly Parton joining the songstress in a perfectly-suited country folk track that takes a kinder approach to the influence of family.
‘Picking Up The Pieces’ is at times a hard listen and pushes us to the edge of our emotional boundaries. But there is resolution and comfort in there – not falsified, but reminding us the pain won’t always hurt this much, even though right now we’re screaming and crying and bleeding inside. It’s a time capsule, like ‘Pieces of You’ was, that reflects an emotional journey for Jewel, and I’m glad she took us along for the ride. Life is ugly, but it’s a little less so if we all stop pretending to be doing better than we are.
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The album is up on YouTube now. Yes, it's free and legal. ;) Can everyone outside the US listen?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNAgy7iyMbZ46OrD9qhmlhlWjFaFwylTc
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Over here I can't, luckily the digital album has been downloaded already!
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Jewel’s music comes full circle (https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29534672/jewel-s-music-comes-full-circle/)
Ara Jansen
When Jewel says she hopes her latest album is like sticking a line into her arm and one into yours for a direct exchange of emotions, she isn’t kidding.
Picking Up the Pieces is the Alaskan singer-songwriter at her most raw, grabbing you by the heartstrings and tugging hard.
“I wanted it to be visceral,” Jewel says from her home in Nashville. “I wanted you to feel what I feel. I wanted you to have an uninhibited experience of who I am as a poet and a songwriter.”
The 41-year-old folk singer who shot to fame in 1995 with her debut album Pieces of You, feels she has completed a circle with Picking Up the Pieces.
“I always knew I was going to make another folk album,” she says. “I just had to wait for the right time.”
And the right time for her eleventh album was now. Known for the compassionate, sometimes uncomfortable, transparency about her life and emotions, one of the drivers behind this album was her divorce last year from professional rodeo rider Ty Murray after 16 years together.
Part of their divorce statement said that “growth became tragically stifled as a couple and we believe we can find it again in setting each other free”.
“It’s something I needed for myself,” Jewel says about making Picking Up the Pieces. “It was really an exercise in shutting out fear. I was giving myself permission to be who and what I was. It was scary. I was going through a divorce and trying to awaken parts of myself and music became a metaphor for that.”
Jewel is one of those rare artists who has always followed her own intuition when it comes to making decisions and music.
Picking Up the Pieces — which includes songs written with Rodney Crowell and a duet with Dolly Parton — was made independently. She was determined to unlearn all the record company rules about making sure the album had a hit single or keeping songs within radio-friendly time limits.
“I have always laid things bare,” Jewel says. “These are emotional songs and are pretty out there. People have been having very strong reactions to them which is good because it means there’s a potency in them.”
Picking Up the Pieces is out now.
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I have really gotten a chance to give this album quite a few good, proper listens this week and :wub:, just :wub:
I missed this so much. :wub:
I mean it's not perfect, but :wub:
Marie (My 6 year old daughter for those who don't know me yet) has started singing along in the back seat of the car now.
"Too damn coooool to take a chance on love"
Plain Jane - "Loooooovvee"
She's saying damn but its freaking adorable!
Sigh... :wub:
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Post-Divorce, Jewel Picks Up the Pieces With New Album, Book (http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/country/6700621/jewel-picking-up-the-pieces-album-book-interviewr)
The singer-songwriter directs Dolly Parton on a duet on her new album, 'Picking Up the Pieces.'
For all the successes Jewel has enjoyed in her professional life, it’s a seemingly rich inner life that drives the singer-songwriter and has been the source of both her greatest pain and her biggest victories. Much of that life is explored both on her latest album, Picking Up the Pieces (her first for new label home Sugar Hill), and in her memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story, due Sept. 15.
The album, which dropped Sept. 11, is her first set of new material since her second Big Machine Label Group (BMLG) country project, Sweet and Wild, in 2010. In the interim, she gave birth to son Kase, now 4; released a pair of
children’s albums and a holiday set; and amicably divorced rodeo star husband Ty Murray after six years of marriage and 16 as a couple. While some of the songs on Picking Up the Pieces pre-date the divorce, the pain of the split finds its way into others. With the new set, Jewel aimed to return to the folky sound that put her on the map two decades ago with her multiplatinum 1995 debut release, Pieces of You. The current project was recorded in Nashville, where Jewel, 41, has lived with Kase for two-and-a-half years. Billboard sat down with Jewel to chat about music, motivation and more esoteric things.
In the album’s liner notes, you thank Nashville producer Paul Worley for “kicking me in the butt by backing out and making me produce this CD.” What happened there?
[Paul] came in a week before pre-production and said, “I’m not going to do the record,” and I was pissed. He said, “You’re going to thank me … You need to be doing this.” I just thought he took another gig and was bailing on me, and I was pretty upset about it.
I’ve produced some of my own records myself, but they weren’t this type of work. I’m comfortable in the studio, but I always felt I had more to learn from other people than what I knew on my own. That has helped me a lot as an artist, but at the same time it can also hold you back. Paul felt the same thing. He felt no one should put a filter on me, that I had the vision for what I wanted. It really was the kick in the pants I probably needed.
Was producing yourself a good experience?
It was. I knew I didn’t want to have a label when I started recording and would shop it at the end. I wanted no influences. Whenever you have anybody around, no matter how transparent of a producer they are, it is a filter that you become interpreted through. My job is to serve emotion, and if emotion gets diluted, I didn’t do my job. I wanted this record to feel like there was something from my vein to your vein.
During your time on BMLG, was country music a comfortable fit for you?
I loved it. It’s funny, when I [first] got signed — when I was living in a car — I didn’t know a thing about the business. So I went to my label and said, “Can we get ‘You Were Meant for Me’ played on country radio?” It’s a country song. It’s a shuffle. I’m shocked it got played on pop radio. I thought it should be a natural fit for country, but Atlantic Records in New York didn’t have a relationship with country radio. It’s then that I learned there’s these completely separate systems.
When I first came out, country radio was Shania Twain and Faith Hill. It was a lot more pop than what I was. [But] as a singer-songwriter, I knew I had to get into the country business, because it was the only place I could tell stories. [So] it was an awesome experience for me. It’s felt like a great home. For the first time in my life I was asked, “Why did you write this lyric?” [by country] radio. [At pop radio], I was just asked, “What’s your favorite nail color?” I’m like, “Really? Did you ask Beck that?”
Will anything be worked to radio from this project?
I went into the studio thinking, “I’m not going to think about radio. I’m not going to think about genre. I’m not going to think about tempo.” To get that out of my head and make a record pure and independent from all the stuff you learn over 20 years was really difficult. “My Father’s Daughter” is being taken to Americana. Country has changed a lot. Right now where it’s at, I can’t really see any of my stuff getting on there.
How did your collaboration with Dolly Parton on “My Father’s Daughter” come to be?
As a kid growing up with an outhouse, my heroes were always Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. They were the only other icons I’d heard of that were raised similarly to me. I liked that they had the courage to say, “This is exactly who and what the hell I am.” So I got the courage to ask her to sing on the record, and she agreed. I never thought I’d be producing Dolly Parton on a record. That was weird.
Does she take direction well?
She’s such a pro and everything you would hope she would be: Shows up 15 minutes early, has her notes, knows her parts, and she’s just like, “Honey, don’t you be nervous about bossing me around. You get what you need out of me while you got me. You don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around.” Sweeter than hell.
How was collaborating with Rodney Crowell on “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now”?
We wrote a couple of songs together and just had a real poet’s affinity for each other. He’s a real craftsman. It’s not often you’re around people in the business that care so much about the craft. A lot of people just want to be famous.
What can your fans can expect from the book?
People often ask me, “How did you go from being raised in the sticks, to being abused, to moving out at 15, to being homeless at 18?” I did it really consciously. Imperfectly, but I knew at 15 girls like me end up in the ditch, pregnant or in an abusive relationship. I wanted to beat those odds. If I was to look at nature vs. nurture, how would I ever know my nature by how I was nurtured? And if you become what you’re raised around, what did that say about my future and my hopes? Could I re-nurture myself? I started asking myself those questions at 15, writing them down in my journal. I’d read a bunch of philosophy. It set me on a path, and writing for me just became my medicine and my way of tracking my progress. It accidentally became a career, but it’s never what I considered my greatest success. My greatest success is that I kept standing up and I never let my life make me bitter ...
My life has been an open story in a lot of ways, but there’s a lot of things I went through that I never shared, and the worst things I suffered were at the height of my career. I kept my mouth shut and got about rebuilding and never talked about it. So this is really the first time I talk about what those setbacks were … [including] being millions of dollars in debt by the time I was 33.
At the back of the book I list 20 takeaways that helped me overcome agoraphobia and all kinds of things. I’m now building a website based on those 20 things. I created these exercises for myself to help retrain my brain, change my way of thinking and challenge my beliefs. They changed my life. I really believe if you have tenacity and a willingness to say, “I am accountable. I am not a victim,” then you can create tremendous change in your life.
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I'm a Jewel Homer of course, but you gotta take the good with the bad. I really don't disagree with the occasional "oversinging" critique.
Jewel returns to 'Pieces' but falls short of debut (http://www.thespectrum.com/story/entertainment/music/backbeat/2015/09/21/jewel-returns-pieces-but-falls-short-debut/72585488/)
Brian Passey, bpassey@thespectrum.com 11:14 p.m. MDT September 21, 2015
It’s been two decades since Jewel’s first album, “Pieces of You,” and her new record was intended as a bookend for that debut release. Unfortunately, “Picking Up the Pieces” is no “Pieces of You.”
Sure, stylistically it’s much closer to “Pieces of You” than her past half-dozen or so releases, which included a couple of children’s albums and two country records. And this self-produced record does have her signature personal lyrics. It’s just not nearly as good as “Pieces of You.”
Take the first track, “Love Used To Be.” It has the sound but it’s just not all that memorable. Her voice is still strong and retains those intrinsic qualities that made it so unique when we first heard it in 1995, but she takes things a little too far and over-sings at the end of the track.
In fact, that over-singing problem is a recurring one throughout “Picking Up the Pieces.” Just when you think a song is going well, she overdoes it. We get it, Jewel. You can still sing now that you’re in your 40s, but you don’t have to prove it on every track. A little subtlety can go a long way.
A pretty piano melody helps to save “Everything Breaks” from its cliched storm lyrics while “Carnivore” easily avoids those relationship cliches with slightly disturbing but creative lines: “Never trust your pink, fleshy heart / To a carnivore.” Yet “Carnivore” is among the many tracks weakened by a lack of restraint in her vocals.
While occasional cliches sneak in, Jewel’s lyrics are otherwise fairly strong. Ever the poet, not only does she include three original poems in the album’s liner notes, she also writes some of the songs like poems. Among them is “His Pleasure Is My Pain” with an intriguing sitar melody throughout.
She finds success in the simplicity of “Family Tree,” the bittersweetness of “The Shape Of You” and the quirkiness of “Plain Jane,” though the latter feels out of place on this particular album. “Here When Gone” boast a great chorus melody and intriguing lyrics: “”I am a woman haunted by hands / Even though I’m alone / Traces of palm across my skin / An invisible map of where you’ve been.”
The country sounds of 2008’s “Perfectly Clear” and 2010’s “Sweet and Wild” come through from time to time. Those albums were both underrated gems so their influence is welcome here. Jewel even invites a couple of country singers by for a duo of duets.
The first is “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now” with Rodney Crowell, who co-wrote the song. It boasts a pretty, mysterious melody but Crowell sounds like he’s calling it in. There’s just no emotion to his singing. Jewel fares better until she over-emotes again toward the end of the song.
Much better is “My Father’s Daughter” featuring Dolly Parton. Their voices meld well for a track that seems to have it all: a pretty melody, a catchy chorus and heartfelt, storytelling lyrics about Jewel’s Alaskan childhood: “I am the accumulation of the dreams of generations / And their stories live in me like holy water / I am my father’s daughter.”
It’s just too bad more of “Picking Up the Pieces” isn’t like “My Father’s Daughter.” Jewel still has plenty of songwriting and singing talent but perhaps next time she should hire a producer to rein her in a bit.
“Picking Up the Pieces” by Jewel
2.5 stars
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Okay, so that person is a pop country fan.
And the phrase is "phoning it in," not "calling it in." :rolleyes:
But, yeah, I put that in my review, too: that end bit everyone else but me likes in Love Used to Be kinda torches the song a little.
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I'm a Jewel Homer of course, but you gotta take the good with the bad. I really don't disagree with the occasional "oversinging" critique.
I agree Randy... she could rein it in just a little in some of the songs. But she's admitted she can be a little bit dramatic. :w
I give this album a lot better than 2.5 stars tho.
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...now juxtapose that review with this one. Pretty sure this guy had a boner while writing this.
Album Review: @Jeweljk – Picking Up The Pieces (http://www.cmchatlive.com/jewel-picking-up-the-pieces/)
Monday, September 21st, 2015 by Chuck Dauphin
One thing is for sure. When Jewel sings, you listen. There’s something about her vocal approach that evokes comparisons to absolutely no one. She has a style all her own, and it shows in each track on this album. Truth be told, there will no doubt be quite a bit of curiosity about this album as it is her first since her recent divorce from Ty Murray. With that said, many of the tracks on this album are heartbreak-laden. But, the singer actually wrote some of these cuts years ago – so unless you know the chronology of the origin of the tracks, you might be surprised to know who is (or is not) the inspiration for the music.
Regardless of the answer to that obvious question, anyone who has ever endured the pain of a divorce or a breakup will identify with the heartfelt lyrics here. “Love Used To Be” details the emotional emptiness of looking around and seeing just how much life has changed in the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart. That could also be said for the melancholy of “Everything Breaks.” There’s a sense of sadness on the track for sure, but also a kind of a numbness that really hit home with me.
But, Picking Up The Pieces isn’t totally about the breakup of a romantic relationship. “Family Tree” gives her a chance to examine the legacy that she inherited from her parents at the beginning of the song – and then moves on to a former lover. The song itself is nothing short of an introspective masterpiece, which she handles with a great deal of emotional depth.
The disc features a couple of special guests – Dolly Parton on “My Father’s Daughter” and Rodney Crowell on the somber “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” which literally bleeds through the speakers. Never one to hold back her emotions, Jewel – as well as Crowell knock this one out of the ballpark with the skill of an Oliver in a Shakespearean play.
In my opinion, the cream of the crop of the album is the utterly brilliant “Carnivore.” The song walks the line from sadness to downright anger to ultimate regret – along with perhaps the best vocal performance she has given in years. If you don’t feel this one, you need to go to the heart doctor – to make sure you have one.
At the end of the day, Picking Up The Pieces is not the album you want to take with you when you’re wanting to roll down the window and crank it up down a country highway. Rather, it’s the type of album that will make you think….and drink, and maybe in that order. In a sense, it’s not a project she could have made in 1995 or 2005, as you have to live it to truly sing about – and that she does…possibly better than ever.
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Huh. I haven't been looking for album reviews recently because I figured they'd all be done just before and after the release date. But, here's another one posted yesterday.
Album Review: Jewel, Picking Up The Pieces (http://stonefruitmusic.blogspot.com/2015/09/album-review-jewel-picking-up-pieces.html)
In 1995 Jewel released her debut album, Pieces of You. Twenty years and ten albums later, she has finally released what feels like the spiritual followup.
From folk beginnings, a pop-star rebirth, reemerging as as fledgling country artist and even releasing music for children, much of Jewel's career has felt like a search to define itself. Pigeonholing never quite worked and by doing away with a genre hanging over her head, Jewel is able to focus on what she does best; music and poetry. In a twisted way, it's her best country music album by far.
She farewells the previous state of everything on Love Used to Be. It's a bold statement to start the album; that when love is gone the world can feel without purpose and beauty. "Love used to be my compass but now I'm alone and I'm adrift and I'm lost at sea" she laments from a place of genuine pain. Her voice bellows, moans and contorts on many songs as if it's trying to make sense of it all. At times this is powerful but can also become overblown and distracts from her sharp songwriting.
In its best moments, the writing on Picking Up The Pieces is unrestrained and unapologetic (meaning her voice doesn't always have to be); her dealings with personal heartbreak map out the album's journey and show the past twenty years haven't always been too kind. It Doesn't Hurt Right Now is a flooring moment and features the grounded vocals of Rodney Crowell. It's lyrics are sharp and haunting, particularly the mysterious line "could you ever see, just you and me alone in this room, or does he make it three?"
A Boy Needs A Bike has been a live number for years and remains a highlight; tracing the complicated relationship between children, parents, the loss of innocence and the distractions that guard us from reality. No one gets out easy and it's a punch-in-the-gut moment when her voice crescendos into a plea for her father to put the children in the backseat and drive away, for a child believes this would solve everything.
She grapples with the word 'sorry' on Everything Breaks and the very personal hole left behind on The Shape of You. Dolly Parton appears on My Father's Daughter, a fine pairing of the two voices and a rare moment of sweetness but one that feels at odds with the rest of the album. She stills finds time to ridicule American culture on the snappy Plain Jane.
Picking Up The Pieces is defined by it's harsh realities and though there's little optimism to be found it is a compelling study into love and heartbreak.
Rating: 7/10
Essential: Love Use to Be, A Boy Needs A Bike, It Doesn't Hurt Right Now
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But, yeah, I put that in my review, too: that end bit everyone else but me likes in Love Used to Be kinda torches the song a little.
Yeah, I actually agree. The first few times I heard it it kinda made me cringe, but I'm pretty much used to it by now. I can definitely understand the emotion in the song, though, obviously.
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Album Review: Jewel – Picking Up The Pieces (http://www.cmchatlive.com/jewel-picking-up-the-pieces/)
One thing is for sure. When Jewel sings, you listen. There’s something about her vocal approach that evokes comparisons to absolutely no one. She has a style all her own, and it shows in each track on this album. Truth be told, there will no doubt be quite a bit of curiosity about this album as it is her first since her recent divorce from Ty Murray. With that said, many of the tracks on this album are heartbreak-laden. But, the singer actually wrote some of these cuts years ago – so unless you know the chronology of the origin of the tracks, you might be surprised to know who is (or is not) the inspiration for the music.
Regardless of the answer to that obvious question, anyone who has ever endured the pain of a divorce or a breakup will identify with the heartfelt lyrics here. “Love Used To Be” details the emotional emptiness of looking around and seeing just how much life has changed in the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart. That could also be said for the melancholy of “Everything Breaks.” There’s a sense of sadness on the track for sure, but also a kind of a numbness that really hit home with me.
But, Picking Up The Pieces isn’t totally about the breakup of a romantic relationship. “Family Tree” gives her a chance to examine the legacy that she inherited from her parents at the beginning of the song – and then moves on to a former lover. The song itself is nothing short of an introspective masterpiece, which she handles with a great deal of emotional depth.
The disc features a couple of special guests – Dolly Parton on “My Father’s Daughter” and Rodney Crowell on the somber “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” which literally bleeds through the speakers. Never one to hold back her emotions, Jewel – as well as Crowell knock this one out of the ballpark with the skill of an Oliver in a Shakespearean play.
In my opinion, the cream of the crop of the album is the utterly brilliant “Carnivore.” The song walks the line from sadness to downright anger to ultimate regret – along with perhaps the best vocal performance she has given in years. If you don’t feel this one, you need to go to the heart doctor – to make sure you have one.
At the end of the day, Picking Up The Pieces is not the album you want to take with you when you’re wanting to roll down the window and crank it up down a country highway. Rather, it’s the type of album that will make you think ... and drink, and maybe in that order. In a sense, it’s not a project she could have made in 1995 or 2005, as you have to live it to truly sing about – and that she does…possibly better than ever.
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Another album review. This guy is obviously a fan; he included stuff that your average writer would not know. Here's the rating:
:wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :indifferent:
JEWEL – PICKING UP THE PIECES (ALBUM REVIEW) (http://www.glidemagazine.com/148968/jewel-picking-pieces-album-review/)
September 28, 2015 by Peter Zimmerman
Many, including Jewel herself, have dubbed her latest album Picking Up The Pieces as a logical companion, or book-end, to her smash debut Pieces of You (1995). Except for diehard fans, though, people forget that Pieces of You was sprawling, slightly meandering, utterly honest, difficult, vulnerable, and razor sharp in its grappling with human flaws and emotions – it was not a neatly packaged album like many other famous, major-label debuts, which perhaps is why it took two years to break. But when it did, people connected to Jewel’s open-hearted and unrelenting gaze into the psyche, and were willing to go with her through the album’s dark twists and turns. But since then, Pieces has essentially been distilled to its major hit singles: “Who Will Save Your Soul,” “You Were Meant For Me,” “Foolish Games” and to some extent “Morning Song.”
This is natural, especially when radio constantly played those first three songs and their accompanying music videos were always on MTV and VH1. Her folk music played between Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but found a following that grew way beyond niche. Add in a fairly grueling touring schedule, including opening for Bob Dylan, Neil Young, headlining Lilith Fair with other major 90’s acts and you can see why people would crave a return to the Pieces of You aesthetic, but perhaps also why they’d forgotten what exactly that sounded like.
What’s so brilliant about Picking Up The Pieces, Jewel’s new album and first on Sugar Hill Records, is that it isn’t a nostalgia act. It isn’t her proverbially throwing up her hands and writing what the masses want to hear. It doesn’t compromise, but instead it takes some of her strongest songs from early in her career, emboldens her vocals, adds in some fantastic new songs and finds a production style that offers a raw, delightful look into what makes Jewel such a compelling singer/songwriter.
The album opens with “Love Used To Be,” one of the strongest songs she’s written since 2001’s This Way. It infuses her poetic sensibilities with a finger-picked guitar part, slowly building to a cathartic release at the end of the song. It catalogues the end of a relationship and the inevitable emotional fallout, but with a maturity and thoughtfulness that eschews bitterness and instead embraces growth and understanding. It signals that despite divorce and being in the business for over twenty years, this could be a period of intensely potent artistic expression. It’s a daring move to put this song first on the album – on one hand, it makes sense considering the recent upheaval in her personal life, but it’s also pretty different than what you hear on Pieces of You, which actually strengthens the album by building a foundation for itself that is firmly its own, and not merely a reflection of her debut.
“A Boy Needs a Bike” and “Everything Breaks” follow – both songs that have been in Jewel’s catalogue since the mid-90s. The former receives a more radio-friendly production, and the addition of a stronger band presence during the chorus adds weight to the song, but doesn’t lose the innocence and story-telling lilt of the piece. “Everything Breaks” is a standout – it’s a little less stripped down than in previous incarnations, but Jewel’s voice shines throughout.
Picking Up The Pieces is the first album that really showcases the strength, vitality and power of Jewel’s voice throughout, unvarnished and without interruption. On Pieces of You, there’s a clear discomfort in the studio tracks (she’s joked about it being her “Kermit the Frog” voice), and Spirit and This Way can veer a bit towards a radio-friendly voice that wasn’t as audible in her live shows. Picking Up The Pieces sounds like the first time she entered the studio and wasn’t afraid to step into the magnitude of her own voice. In her new book Never Broken, she writes about seeing shapes when creating a melody and understanding the technicalities of her voice, like falsetto, melisma, vibrato and yodeling, and how to control those to express emotion. In songs from Picking Up The Pieces like “Carnivore,” “Everything Breaks,” “Mercy” and “Nicotine Love” you can hear with crystal clear audio and the vocals so close up in the mix how strong Jewel’s voice really is, and what a gift it is to get it in such form twenty years into her career.
The past decade has been rough for Jewel and Jewel fans- children’s albums that came off as cloying rather than sweet, blatant attempts to break into country, which led to production choices that betrayed her strength in songwriting (2008’s Perfectly Clear is the main offender, with songs like “Rosey & Mick,” which used to be dark, haunting Dylan-like ballads being turned into saccharine country shuffles), and her commercial ventures, like PureVia and Swiffer.
And on Picking Up The Pieces, there are a couple missteps, but they’re vastly outweighed by the power and vitality of the rest of the album. “Plain Jane” feels written just for radio, but instead of highlighting cliché comes off as trite and cliché itself. And “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now” just doesn’t connect – perhaps because of Rodney Crowell’s duet line. But that said, the remaining twelve tracks are all excellent, run the gamut in terms of structure and production, but ultimately shows what an incredible songwriter Jewel really is.
How interesting and rewarding it is that the first single from the album was “My Father’s Daughter,” which features Dolly Parton. The lyrics are heartfelt, simple and to the point, led by a minor key that breaks into major for the chorus, but it’s when you hear Dolly and Jewel sing together that it really comes together. At one point, Jewel takes harmony while Dolly sings lead, and then they switch. It’s a great parallel for Jewel’s career – she’s been able to sing with music’s legends, but still carve out a path that is uniquely hers. That path is often winding and rough-hewn, but it’s honest. And Picking Up The Pieces shows that Jewel isn’t just a follower – she’s a great in her own right.
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I'm kind of anal about italicizing album or book or movie titles and boy, that dude made me work at it. *whew*
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I'm kind of anal about italicizing album or book or movie titles and boy, that dude made me work at it. *whew*
:rofl2: :thumbup:
See, and I stop myself. Titles are usually, SOLID CAPS. Depending on what format you're writing for. My dad was a printer and proof-reader before smog bots automated his job ( :ragecomp:) Now, I just grammar nazi and cry a little, on the inside.
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Jewel Is Picking Up the Pieces (http://freshindependence.com/jewel/)
Tell us about your memoir Never Broken…
I’ve often been asked in my life how I went from an abusive background, to moving out at 15, to being homeless, to turning things around. So I set out to talk about those things and answer that question. I knew at 15 when I moved out that girls like me end up becoming a statistic. That statistically a girl like me ends up in an abusive relationship, or on drugs, or in a ditch or on a pole – one of those things. I wanted to beat those odds. I had read a lot of philosophy and I read a lot of nature vs. nurture and I wanted to see if I could re nurture myself if I did not like the nurturing that I had received in my home. So I started on a scientific discovery to see if I could learn happiness if it wasn’t taught in my household. I studied nature and read a lot and I learned a lot and I think the most surprising thing for me in the book to express and talk about, was how being diligent and focused helped me a lot. But I didn’t avoid all the pain that I hoped to. I learned that you can’t avoid pain in life and the thing that kept me safe in life was not avoiding pain, but actually how I handled pain and how I transmuted pain and how it kept me resilient and undamaged from the amount of trauma that I went through in my life. There are very specific things that helped me and I talk about them in case they can help someone else. I wanted to be honest and transparent in the writing so that people could understand and feel what it meant to heal from it, and that it is possible.
You story is a soul filled with character – do you feel you were born with tools already or was it something you had to learn…
I don’t think I have any gift that others don’t, but what I think happened to me was I had a great philosophy teacher who introduced me to great literature at a young age. It helped me look at my challenges from a different perspective and made me ask myself can I reason or think my way out of this. Instead of just feeling completely hopeless. It made me feel that there might be a ladder that I could use to climb my way out of the problem if I focused a lot. But that said my gosh, I was doing incredibly dangerous things like hitchhiking through Mexico, that shouldn’t of worked out for me. Shop lifting and I got in all kinds of trouble, it’s not like I had things all figured out. But when I was left to my own devices I was able to come up with some kind of incredible paradigm shift that really helped me, for instance I was able to train myself to be not agoraphobic.
I really wanted people to learn from this memoir is that you don’t need to wait to be happy, you don’t have to wait for somebody, or the right amount of money, the right therapist, the right partner or the right house to be happy, if I could figure it out when I had nothing. I remembered when I was homeless that Buddha said that happiness doesn’t depend on who you, what you have, it depends on what you think. I really tried to put that to the test, because when I was homeless and shoplifting I had nothing left but my thoughts, and my thoughts weren’t great you know. They were incredibly negative, victimized and it was difficult but I really tried to turn my thoughts around, and that is a lot of what the book talked about.
Let’s talk about your new album ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ – why no label…
When I was making that record I wanted no voices in my head, I wanted to have a completely free experience. I didn’t want to think about genre, I didn’t want to think about singles, I didn’t want to think about tempo, I didn’t want to think about anything except my poetry and who and what I am even if it didn’t fit in with where culture is at. I wanted to make a really honest record and to do that I didn’t want to invite other voices into the party and I had to learn to turn off my own voices and everything I had learned over the last 20 years in the business. So that ended up being really difficult even though I was alone in the studio with myself producing, and I had great musicians who had the same vision as I did, it is still difficult to turn those voices off in my head of the things I had learned over time, that didn’t have a place on my record and I had to learn how to tune them out.
A true labor of love – how long did it take to make this album…
It was a really emotional year. I was going through a divorce and going through writing a book. So I had to prioritize and my first job was being a Mom and making sure my son was stabilized. My second job was making sure my ex husband and I were going through the process in a humane way, making sure we could transition into a friendship which is really hard to do in a divorce. My third job was the art, the record came together really quickly on different levels like I probably only did five days of tracking and that was it, then I had to layers and over dubs but I spread the record out over a years time because I was writing the book, being a Mom you know, come and go with it over the year.
What can the listener expect…
It is a very emotionally, raw record. I tried to make it where it would feel like there was a direct line from my vein to your vein. I wanted there to be no filter, nothing separating the listener from what I was feeling. I wanted the listener to have a very visceral response when they heard the record.
Jewel with all you’ve been through what might you tell your younger self…
It was interesting to make the record because there are quite a few songs on there that I wrote when I was about 18. So it is almost like having a conversation with my younger self and there were a lot of things I liked but had sort of let go of in a way, as we do as we grow up and mature, start a business, get a job. Something had become very domesticated about me and my 18 year old self was anything but and there was a certain wildness and a certain audacity that I had, that I wanted to re embrace. So part of it was seeing what worked for me at 18 and re embracing that most essential vital self and stripping away any veneer that might of covered that up over time. The other part was seeing what worked about where I am now, there’s a real tenacity, strength, calmness and confidence that I didn’t have then. So it was an interesting process to let those two talk as it were.
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Jewel on Dolly, Divorce and New Album 'Picking Up the Pieces' (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jewel-on-dolly-divorce-and-new-album-picking-up-the-pieces-20150930#ixzz3nFooSW4h)
When Jewel suggested to Dolly Parton that the two of them get together for a glass of wine sometime, the response was pure Parton. "She said, 'No, honey…moonshine!'" recalls Jewel, beaming. The fellow songwriters were together in the studio to duet on the standout track "My Father's Daughter" on Jewel's new album, Picking Up the Pieces, a record that, like many of Parton's, was inspired by hardship, loss and a healthy dose of self-reflection.
"[Dolly] is such a pioneer, and who she was as a woman the time she came out was just revolutionary," Jewel continues. "I love how unapologetic and how willing she was to not use artist propaganda, and instead say, 'This is exactly who I am.'"
On Picking Up the Pieces, Jewel follows in those same footsteps. The record, her first since 2005's country effort Sweet and Wild, returns the Nineties' queen of introspection to her more folky roots, allowing her poetry-like lyrics to come to the fore. No emotion or feeling is masked, whether it's the awkward doubt of the cocktail-party exposé "Plain Jane" (in which she somehow manages to work "cynicism" into the chorus), the courage in the breakup story-song "His Pleasure Is My Pain" or the love-lost regret that imbues fan favorite "Carnivore."
Many of the songs were written when the Alaska-raised Jewel, who famously lived in her car during a period of lean times, was still in her late teens and early twenties. "Some have been underground hits and have been requested at every show. Fans will ask for 'Carnivore' before they'll ask for 'You Were Meant for Me,'" she tells Rolling Stone Country, referencing her 1996 Number One hit. "I've been wanting to [record them], because I know there is an appetite in my fan base for them at least. But there just wasn't the right record. 'Carnivore' on my country record would have sounded weird, as well as on my rock record or my pop record. [These songs] weren't right for what I was interested in musically at the time."
Unlike other artists who gingerly wade into other genres, Jewel has never been shy about adapting her grand pipes to pop, rock or even dance music. It's the most malleable of voices, sounding at home on a hard-rock stage (she recently joined Foo Fighters in Phoenix to cover Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love") or in an intimate club — Jewel's pin-drop performance was a highlight of this year's Americana Music Festival in Nashville. It's in that genre, an amalgamation of country, rock, folk and other American sounds, where she admits she currently belongs.
"I think it's the best home for me. Country radio has changed. Everything does. That's what is great about music — it's not a bad thing. But it is fascinating when you look at the history of what rock & roll used to be and what rock & roll is now," Jewel says. "Everything has changed and altered. And I've changed and altered. . . I feel like I'm in the right home for myself right now. I'd love to hear these songs on the radio, but I really doubt that I will."
Part of that stems from Jewel's own personal life. Since divorcing from her rodeo-star husband Ty Murray in 2014, she's balanced taking care of their 4-year-old son Kase with her career. And the 41-year-old makes no bones about which one comes first.
"As much as I'd love this record to do really well, am I willing to do what it takes to do in today's market at 41 as a mom? Probably not," she says candidly. "I don't know if I'd forgive myself."
In many ways then, Picking Up the Pieces is an album made for her already devoted and built-in fan base. She shares stories of how that community — a "family" she calls them — supports one another and champions her music, going all the way back to her 1995 debut Pieces of You. (The new album's title is a clear nod to that record.)
"It took me two years — two years — to get 'You Were Meant for Me' on the radio. God dang, it was a lot. I came [out] at the height of grunge. But every record has been like that for me. It's been about slinging it out and using the Internet and having fans do guerilla warfare to create an appetite, where radio stations have to say, 'Well, I guess, let's play it,'" she says. "It was nothing but grit and time to get it going. And I don't have that now. I believe in the music, but I have to be fairly realistic about what I am willing to do."
Above all else, however, Picking Up the Pieces was recorded for Jewel herself. The album, as well as its companion book, Never Broken, also out now, helped her rediscover who she is as an artist and a person. Often, she looked back to her adolescence and what she was feeling then when she wrote some of the new album's songs. ("My Father's Daughter," the most autobiographical track, however, was written just five year ago. Watch a performance of it below.)
"It was almost like my 18-year-old self was able to tap myself on the shoulder and say, 'You need to be brave in this way again; you need to be courageous in this way again; this is where you got dull and covered up, and domesticated.' And I'm not talking about marriage. I'm talking about your soul, your passion, your fire," she says. "I got tamed as an artist. Not that I meant to. It was a very gradual slow sleep in various areas of my life, and I think that's common for many people.
"But this [album] was also my 40-year-old self talking to my 18-year-old self and saying, 'These are the things we're going to keep.' It was very healing. Almost like time travel in a way," she continues. "Some [songs] I wrote ahead of my experience. I was writing about women going through divorce when I was 18. Now I lived through one."
To promote Picking Up the Pieces and Never Broken, Jewel has been on the road hosting book signings and intimate performances. But in talking to her, the end game seems to be more about helping that fan "family" she so appreciates than persuading them to buy something. It's rare to hear an artist admit that he or she isn't overly concerned with popular success. But as Jewel has often pointed out, she strives to be more poet than public figure.
"My music has never been about making myself into a star or a celebrity, it's been an authentic exploration of, 'How the heck do I do this' and 'What is this thing called life?'" she muses, summing up this latest creative arc in her career. "I'm just making something that is purely unadulterated me and what my poet's heart wants to say."
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Reflecting Jewel: New book, album draw upon alt-folkster’s time spent homeless (http://thecontributor.org/2015/11/reflecting-jewel/)
by HOLLY GLEASON
Jewel Kilcher needs me to wait. Ten minutes into our interview, she has something very important to attend to.
“My son’s driving up,” she says in her earth’n’honey speaking voice. “Let me go say ‘hi’ to him superquick.”
Kilcher—known to the world as the single-monikered post modern alternative folkie Jewel—shot to fame 20 years ago with the yearning “You Were Meant for Me,” the tugging “Who’ll Save Your Soul,” and the sultry “Foolish Games.” In spite of the glamour and global celebrity, the girl-living-out-of-her-van when she was discovered singing in a San Diego coffee house, the depths and details of the songwriter/singer’s life were never truly explored.
With the publication of her unflinching memoir Never Broken and her new album Picking Up the Pieces, a return to the more guitar-oriented folk that brought her to international acclaim, the barely post-teen turned superstar’s grit, determination, and hellish upbringing reinforces how powerful the decision to stop the interview to greet her son truly is.
“For the first time in 40 years, I don’t have any trauma to deal with in my life,” she explains. “It was the first time to draw a safe breath. Looking back, I was able to express a lot of the trauma.
“My outward image didn’t always line up with how I felt inside. The takeaway when you’re parents didn’t take care of you is that you’ve done something wrong—or you’re not worthy of that [kind of love and protection].
“I kinda had a revelation [writing the book and making Pieces]: What kept me safe wasn’t my hyper-vigilance, but how I handled pain. You can’t outrun pain. I never avoided it. I didn’t medicate it. I credit the outdoors and writing as the things that helped me through it.
“Because how you ingest your pain works to make you stronger and more graceful—or scarred and filled with that pain. It’s how you face it, and it’s not always something you realize.”
Jewel understands. She’s been there; she’s lived it. Reading her book—scaling the challenges of her mentally ill mother, the physically abusive alcoholic father, the humiliations of living on the street, the sexual attention of skeevy older men who feel entitled, and the force of a young woman determined not to succumb—it is obvious this is not a dilettante conjuring melodrama to flog the fires of fame.
“I really never believed in fame,” she confesses. “I looked at some things from the height of it, and I said, ‘No one is able to sustain this.’ So my self-worth was never tied up in my fame or success.
“I think your values help or hurt you. I love my work. I love being a Mom. I’ve never thought too much about the other. For me, it was trying to figure out how to make sense of a life that’s nonsensical, then to develop an opinion of yourself adrift in this world of reviews.
“Because it’s difficult to be an artist and put [yourself] out there and be judged by critics. As an artist you have to be porous, to be able to hear the real world—because that’s where [art] comes from. But also to protect yourself without getting hardened, about figuring out how to lose weight the right way when they called me Renée Zellweger’s fat sister, and not just give in to it.”
Compassion, for self as well as those around her, marks Kilcher’s way of seeing the world. Having just weathered a divorce from her partner for 16 years and husband of six years, that compassion fired her work on the book and the return to roots record that features the vulnerable “It Doesn’t Hurt Right Now,” featuring Rodney Crowell, the upside down topsy turvy of love “His Pleasure Is My Pain,” and the power of heritage “My Father’s Daughter,” with Dolly Parton.
“It was hard to talk about the relationship with my mom,” she explains, turning back to address the risks in such an unburnished memoir and record.
“When I was homeless and starting to write songs, I realized a lot of things. You hold shame in, and never let it out. When you try to communicate shame with strangers, you overshare—and they don’t know how to respond.
“When you’re looking at shoplifting or abuse impacting your life, your self-worth, giving things up for love, you learn a lot. Half of the things I wrote were addressed as having a conversation with my 18-year-old self.”
There is no pity here, no sympathy tug. Crediting a strong sense of self for always driving her, time spent in nature honing that reality and songs to give her a way to tap and release the pain, Jewel looks back on her work and forward at once.
“My first record was effortless, because I didn’t know any of those roles or rules they put on you: thinking about radio, and genre, and tempo, and crossover, and marketing. It was still difficult because I didn’t believe in myself, but we were free. I had no rules or boundaries, no time limits, no chorus—just the songs.
“We become domesticated over time. We learn the rules, they seep in and become part of [the way things are done]. I wanted my wild back, I wanted to get back to that.”
Believing we are the sum of our choices, she also knows sometimes there is no good choice. Or it’s so hard to see those choices when your back’s to the wall or your feet are tangled in the gunk in the gutter.
Nov. 8, the honeyed blond appeared at the premiere of Our Journey Home, a documentary she narrated for ReThink Housing to attempt to illuminate the gaps between the perceptions of the homeless and their reality. The film also makes tangible the impact of having a home on a person, how it changes everything from their outlook to their opportunities.
“I’m so moved by the heroism of disenfranchised people,” she offers. “It takes a lot to face every day when you don’t have a home, and the chaos that ensues from it. To continue to believe in yourself and not lose hope is so hard … and these people are doing that. They deserve our support.”
Experiencing the scorn of two women when washing up in a restroom before her big audition with Atlantic Records, the bone-shaking impact of judgment is something she knows intimately. Where there had been excitement, the shame being interjected requires heavy lifting—and her work with ReThink she hopes will inspire others to shift their thinking.
She knows its power. On the back end of the aftershocks of her divorce, she has once again found transformative powers in what could be devastating.
“The death of a part of your life … innocence, marriage … It’s not a death, but really a birth. There’s a lot there to grieve, but that darkness is also a very womblike place—and from death comes some kind of freedom. If you focus on that—being set free—you can find that grace [that gives you back your wild].”
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Happy Birthday Mr. Joe :bday: :cake: :woohoo:
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Happy Birthday Mr. Joe :bday: :cake: :woohoo:
Thanks so much, my birthday is actually the 24th, next Wednesday :grandpa:
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STAY ON TOPIC GEORGIANNA
:lol: :lol:
That birthday calendar has tricked many of us.
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It starts popping up when someone's birthday is a week away - little bit of a privacy feature on the board. I like it. :)
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I know that Jewel went more Indie on this record... but what's next for Jewel? (btw I'm back ;))
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TV and movie appearances are next with no work being done on another record at present. There's a website for the paperback release of the book, jewelneverbroken.com and she's been releasing some "guiding principals" videos to promote it.
That's pretty much it.
Welcome back in to the fold, Michael!
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I already want another album! Lol
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Nearly a year already since this was released! How's everyone feeling about it one year on?
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I never listen to it anymore.
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I listen to it every once in awhile... but it was mainly my cd to listen to for at least a month. I felt like 'The Shape of You' wasn't very emotional like it was on single form a year or more before. So this version kinda turned me off... but I loved Mercy... Love Used to Be, Here when Gone, Pretty Faced Fool the most. Everything Breaks definitely felt like she was angry.
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I never listen to it anymore.
Really? How come?
Tbh, I didn't really listen to it as much as I should have last year (once things fall of my Recently Added playlist, they seem to get completely forgotten about), but have started listening to it again recently. I like it more than I thought I did last year actually. Pretty easy to listen to from start to finish.
Agree with the above comment about Shape of You though. Much prefer the original single version. Also, what happened to that Violet Eyes bonus track? Was it not officially released anywhere in the world?
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Beyonce's album is better as have been a few others that have come out since then. :shrug: It's nothing critical of the record, but as far as the songs on it I love, I already had my favorite versions of them. I listened to it quite a few times when it came out, but even regarding the new songs, I have better versions of them now with the concert recordings being for sale.
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I'm in a similar boat, Jessica. I'm really happy with my relationship, and it's really a break-up record more than a bookend to pieces of you. It's not something I feel like listening to so much at this point in my life.
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I'm really happy with my relationship
Awww :wub:
it's really a break-up record more than a bookend to pieces of you. It's not something I feel like listening to so much at this point in my life.
I agree... it's a break-up record, with the exception of a few songs. I find it sad and a bit angry, which I'm not always in the mood for. Like Jess, I have other versions of my fave songs already. I can't remember the last time I listened to the whole album, but I have the songs I like on my MP3 player, and the rest I don't bother with. I usually listen to Jewel from the 90's.
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Ya, I see where people are coming from. I updated a big Jewel playlist I keep in my car and added a good bunch of songs from the album, so I still listen to Everything Breaks, His Pleasure, Love Used to be, Nicotine and Pretty Faced Fool fairly often. The only song I seem to go out of my way to listen to seems to be His Pleasure is my Pain. Still very satisfied with the album, but I don't feel as connected to it as GAIW or maybe even This Way.
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The album recording of Carnivore was really a huge missed opportunity. :(
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I don't feel as connected to it as GAIW or maybe even This Way.
GAIW and Spirit - both huge loves of mine! Can listen to these all day. :wub:
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Agree with the above comment about Shape of You though. Much prefer the original single version.
Yeah, I agree for the most part. I still like the song, but I was hoping there would be a bit more production to make it stand out from the original single. Nothing even drastic, maybe a piano like the song Perfectly Clear or some strings. I dunno. It's not a big complaint for me, though, but a bit of a disappointment.
I think my two favorite songs are still Plain Jane (probably an unpopular opinion!) and His Pleasure Is My Pain. I love them for different reasons. Obviously. :lol: I always have to listen to them when I have my songs on shuffle. :)
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I just received the album...so I'm not tired off it yet (just kidding because it took over a month and a lot of efforts to receive the record and cd)
But honestly, I'm not listening much to it, but it's for several reasons:
Just like Robbie said: it's abreak-up album, and it's not a point where I am in my life right now.
I listen to so much music. the last 3 years I'm constantly searching for new music listen to small artists/bands it's another phase I'm in.
The rest of the family doesn't like the album, my wife likes some songs of her but no hysterical or very emotional ones (I do like it but no one is always in the mood for it) and I don't listen music with a headphone very often.
I've listened and listen a lot to dark and sad songs, but the last few months I felt close to depression, maybe it even was/ still is a little), nothing scary, have been there a few times before and know how to deal with it but at a low point it is good to hear some really sad songs just to assist with feeling and dealing with pain. but when I'm not so deep in it it's better to have more happy songs to cheer up.
In general it's not an album one is playing all the time
But having said all that, It still is a beautiful album and I'm still very happy with it.
I really love it and I think after the first 3 albums wich I really loved it was really glad she made this kind of music again, the albums in between were ok but not really great for me. And this one is again.
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I just realized that I haven't listened to it in its entirety for several months now either, although we have had more than a few of the songs in heavy rotation in our daily music diet.