Jewel Bio

A contemporary folkie renowned for her expressive, crystalline voice, singer/songwriter Jewel was among the most successful of the many new female performers who dominated the pop charts throughout the 1990s. Born Jewel Kilcher on May 23, 1974 in Payson, Utah, she was raised in remote Homer, Alaska, and began her music career at the age of six, regularly performing alongside her singer/songwriter parents in local Eskimo villages and tourist attractions. After her parents' divorce, she remained with her father, touring with him for the next seven years. While attending Michigan's Interlochen Fine Arts Academy, Jewel began writing her first songs; upon graduating, she joined her mother in San Diego, suffering through a series of short-lived day jobs before deciding to flee the 9-to-5 world for good, at which time she moved into her van and began focusing on a career in music. Her first regular gig was at the Innerchange, a coffeehouse in Pacific Beach; word quickly spread, and by 1993 she was the subject of a rabid local cult following. After signing to Atlantic, in early 1995 Jewel issued her debut LP, Pieces of You; the record was a slow starter, not even breaking into the Billboard pop charts until some 14 months after its release, but eventually the single "Who Will Save Your Soul" became a major hit, and soon the album was a best-seller as well. Two other hits, "You Were Meant for Me" and "Foolish Games," followed. In 1998 Jewel returned with Night Without Armor, a collection of her spoken-word poetry; her hotly anticipated second album Spirit followed later that year, as did the seasonal collection Joy: A Holiday Celebration. Chasing Down the Dawn was issued in fall 2000. - Jason Ankeny

Within the liner notes to her fourth album 0304, Jewel includes a note to her fans, explaining that "This album may seem different to you," which is putting it mildly. For a singer that has been make low-key singer-songwriter albums so unassuming that on her debut the two singles had to be re-recorded for mass consumption, it is a big shock to put on 0304 and hear that she has abandonded folkiness and adult-pop to make her dance-pop album, of all things. A move that's even more shocking when you consider that when this was released in June of 2003 the teen-driven dance-pop boom of the late '90s/early '00s was over, so it doesn't necessarily even sound like part of the mainstream of the time, suggesting that this isn't a calculated effort to ride the latest hip trends. No, the music on 0304 is the wild, weird result of Jewel's desire to create a "modern interpretation of big band music. A record that (is) lyric-driven, like Cole Porter stuff, that also has a lot of swing...that combined dance, urban and folk music." While the big band and Cole Porter allusions are a stretch - although it is true that this is as lyric-driven as her previous three records - with the assistance of producer Lester A. Mendez, she has managed to blend dance, urban and folk, complete with pop overtones, of course, in previously unimaginable ways. Like Sheryl Crow's eponymous second album, this picks up familiar strands of contemporary pop music and familiar themes in Jewel's own work, but the way they're assembled is disarmingly idiosyncratic - it has a polished, commercial sheen, but the songs take weird twists and turns in their arrangements, structure and lyrics (another thing this shares with Sheryl Crow is a prediliction for odd pop-culture references and name-dropping). More than anything, it's the weird juxtapositions in the production - the accordions and dance beats on "Intuition," the way her protest tune "America" ends in an electro-crash, the muted jazz trumpets on her Nelly Furtado-styled "Leave the Lights On," to name just a few - that make this an original-sounding album, something with more imagination than the average dance-pop record. Better still, it sounds more authentic (and boasts a better set of songs) than her previous records, which were either too ramshackle or too self-serious and doggedly somber to really reveal much character. Here, even if its under the veneer of commercial pop, she puts herself out on the line more than she ever has, and she's come up with her best record, with her best set of songs and best music yet. As she notes in her message to fans, "it's the first record I enjoy listening to. It's fun!" She's completely right on that note - against all, it's the first album of hers that's a sheer pleasure to hear.

1. Stand (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:15
2. Run 2 U (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:40
3. Intuition (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:49
4. Leave the Lights On (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:24
5. 2 Find U (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:17
6. Fragile Heart (Bell/Kilcher) - 3:33
7. Don' Fine (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:15
8. 2 Become 1 (Chambers/Kilcher) - 4:40
9. Haunted (Kilcher/Mendez) - 4:53
10. Sweet Temptation (Kilcher/Nowels) - 4:10
11. Yes U Can (Kilcher/Nowels) - 4:01
12. U and Me=Love (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:38
13. America (Kilcher/Mendez) - 3:43
14. Becoming (Kilcher/Mendez) - 4:24