PERFECTLY CLEAR

Valory Music Co.

It’s not often that an artist devotes half a page of her liner notes to explain why she’s suited to sing a particular style of music. In Jewel’s case, the pop singer’s name-dropping of Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt and her assertion that she’s been talking about doing a country album “since my second cover of Rolling Stone back in the ‘90s” comes off as defensive and ridiculous.

If it’s in the music, you don’t need to rattle off your record collection. Show, don’t tell. For her first country album, a lyrically sophomoric effort not unlike her pop releases, Jewel lacks authority.

Musically, the first half of “Perfectly Clear’s” airy, light country-pop tunes like “I Do” and “Love Is a Garden” would make for acceptable filler on a mid-‘70s Olivia Newton-John LP. These middle-of-the-road melodies, dusted with fiddles, banjo and steel guitar, are somewhat engaging, with easily digestible hooks. If only Olivia could sing these. Jewel’s thin, sexless voice robs her music of passion and expression. As such, even an authentic countrypolitan track like “Anyone But You” is rendered inert. By the second tedious half of “Perfectly Clear,” listeners have no other feeling but one of growing annoyance.

— Howard Cohen,

The Miami Herald