The girl who just wants to have fun is back, and she's done some serious growing up since her "Tuesday Night Music Club" days.
Sheryl Crow's new album "Wildflower" marks a serious branching point in her career. Crow dedicated the record to Lance Armstrong, which may have something to do with all the recurrent themes of love on "Wildflower."
Songs like "I Don't Wanna Know," "Perfect Lie," and "Good is Good" are indistinguishable and fairly representative of the general attitude of the album. Crow has traded in her gritty guitar for a softer acoustic sound on the majority of the tracks. For most of the songs on "Wildflower," the results are unremarkable, redundant and easily forgotten.
"Here we are burning faster than the closest star/ falling back down to the earth/ I love you so much sometimes it hurts," Crow sings in a voice barely above a whisper and out of her usual range on the title track "Wildflower," shining a painful spotlight on vocal weakness.
Fans of Crow's "The Globe Sessions" and her self-titled album will find solace in tracks like "Lifetimes," with its snapback beat and "Live it Up," which have the sass the rest of the album is lacking.
"You're hawking your latest sins/ put on your backpack/ you're sidetracked," Crow sings on "Live it Up," effectively rehashing the attitude of "Soak Up the Sun" with a bit more maturity and a dash of bossa nova.
Crow rounds out the album with "Always on Your Side," a ballad that highlights her vocal talent with the accompaniment of a piano. Another progressive track, "Where Has All the Love Gone," illustrates a step forward from the "All I Wanna Do" attitude.
"And even though I'm trying to smile/ with everything I see it could take a while," Crow sings on "Where Has All the Love Gone."
"Wildflower" embodies the music of a grown-up cowgirl whose vulnerability is visible after years of singing about past mistakes and an untroubled outlook on life. If Crow continues down the road of soft acoustics, she will need to get away from the well-worn path of redundancy to hold anyone's attention.
