That wasn't all that bad, actually. I didn't like the jabs at POY because obviously I love it and I threw up in my mouth a little when he said YWMFM was the better of the three big singles. The Miss Piggy comparison was a bit much. His opinion does reflect that of most music critics and connoisseurs, though - Jewel's writing was never really
that deep. I thought it was great at the time, but I'm just one person and I was a teenager and we all know how wrong and dramatic teenagers are about perceiving depth.
I think the Nedra part of the 0304/Intuition story is an important nuance that's left out here; however, I do agree with his overall thesis - 0304 marked pretty much the end of Jewel's career. Like it or hate it, the general consensus in the professional music world is it sucks. I got into it after a few listens, but very few people really do. In fact, the number one thing I hear when talking about Jewel with randos is:
"Oh, yeah, the folk chick who sold out! Didn't she go all pop and get her teeth fixed?"
No
"She used to be pretty cute, but now she's just another ..." ... I'll just leave it there.
Now very few people know much about Jewel past that record. That also means most folks don't know about Perfectly Terrible, and I envy that...
It's all a shame because I thought Goodbye Alice was a solid record and this last one was good, too. Lullaby, had 0304 not happened, could have been a bigger deal than it was. There's just no coming back from from the pink frisbee.
Thankfully, Jewel seems to know that, and is making her way in the world with confidence and success. She'll never be a multimillionaire 70 million twitter follower superstar, but a good, honest, comfortable life as a
D list celebrity is still a pretty great life.
And personally, I still like to hear her sing songs - even if older me knows the songs themselves probably aren't as good as younger me thought.
