Pieces of You

The artist Jewel is really a country- pop crossover, sent in several years after its actual 19994 release to clean up MTV and be the main American-Euro rock star. Her material here is incredibly simple, not even basic folk music. A following release This Way just defined country, but this here is the major label debut. I like it, not love it, This Way is much better, it just defined country.

Getting away from the typical "diva" category that many female vocalists are limited to, Jewel is a serious musician, singer, song-writer, and shows a depth to her style that indicates serious study of her craft.

She Brings a fresh, easy sound that has a light acoustic instrumental drive, allowing the lyrics to stand out and be appreciated. Not beautiful, happy songs, but songs with soul. Jewel's vocal style shows influence from diverse artists such as Joni Mitchel and Bob Dylan.

This CD was published in 1995 and it is 13 years ago. However, I still got a brand new CD from Amazon.com and it is really worth to buy CDs there. Thank you.

First of all, I'm a really big fan of Jewel, I think she's one of the best singer/songwriters of all time.

On "Pieces Of You" I think the title track, "Near You Always," "Adrian," "I'm Sensitive," "You Were Meant For Me" and "Emily" are all great songs, both vocally and lyrically. I find that with the rest of the songs, the songwriting is still great but the vocals are what really lets the songs down. Jewel has always managed to write good lyrics that are interesting, she's written great stories like "Adrian," "Fat Boy," "Till We Run Out Of Road," "Stand," "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland," "Good Day," "Stephenville, TX" or "Rosey And Mick" - the love songs she writes are never cheesey, she just always keeps the writing really good.

Her vocals on this album (other than the six songs I mentioned, which I don't just think are alright songs, they're great songs) are very awkward, they're not easy on the ears at all, and Jewel has clearly learnt from this as she hasn't sang in this style since, she has said she doesn't know why this album sold over 11 million copies worldwide and I agree, when I think that her other albums combined haven't sold as many as this album, I find it sad, I just can't understand how "Goodbye Alice in Wonderland" is her only album not to sell over a million copies, the vocals on all her albums other than this one are on a high level, I guess the positive thing though is that Jewel is sticking to singing in the best way she can and isn't going back to singing in the way she does here.

Has anyone ever really listened to some of the lyrics by Jewel? She's really twisted in the head. Her mellow tone covers a lot of the dysfunctional lyrics though. But the songs Daddy, Adrian, and a few of the others just make me wonder what kind of childhood she had. Other than that, this Cd is pretty good. i like a few of the songs on there and like I said, she has a mellow tone. It's comforting when you don't pay any attention to the lyrics.