Sheryl Crow’s “Detours”

  In 1993, when Sheryl Crow first burst onto the scene as a solo artist after singing backup for the likes of Michael Jackson and Don Henley, she was backed by a band which shared the name of her debut album, “Tuesday Night Music Club.”  Reportedly they got their name because they practiced on Tuesday nights.  One of the main players (and that album’s producer) was Bill Bottrell.  It has long been reported that since the success of that first album, Crow and her former bandmates had a huge falling out.  So it is interesting that her latest album re-pairs her with Bottrell.  No doubt it’s a reunion that took a lot of soul searching for both parties.  Strangely, this means that in some interesting ways “Detours” recalls her first record.  The most obvious way is Crow’s voice.  Bottrell must have some sort of unusual microphone placement or mixing techniques.  If you listen to early hits like “Leaving Las Vegas” or “All I Want To Do,” her voice has a certain texture and tone that it doesn’t have on her later, self produced records.  It sounds like he often puts few effects on her voice, so it’s left there, dryly and naturally sitting on top of the arrangements.  It also seems on these earlier records as on here, there’s a lot more talk-singing.  “All I Want To Do” was telling a story, as “Gasoline” does here.  In fact, her nearly spoken verses on the latter strongly recall Dylan in his “Subterranean Homesick Blues” mode.  There’s a distinct drawl in her tone.  Of course the songs which set off “Detours” are among her most political.  These are difficult times, and there is a lot of doomsday imagery here.  She uses biblical language to discuss our current situations. “Shine Over Babylon” showcases this point well, where she narrates from a god-like perspective about “madman oil drillers,” continuing with “it won’t be long before we all are killers.” 
On “Out Of Our Heads,” backed by a tinny disco beat, she sings about “blood upon our hands,” and about peace and love.  The sing-along chorus has a “Give Peace a Chance” vibe.  Both the war and the endangered environment stand at talking points.  The overall message is that if we don’t do something now, we will be casualties of our own greed and disrespect for one another. Both “Out Of Our Heads and “Peace Be Upon Us” has a slight Middle-Eastern vibe.  “Love Is Free” is the album’s single and it’s a stripped down catchy acoustic jam complete with a clap-along chorus.  It would make a good summer single, but alas, it is only February. Crow and Bottrell have made what sounds like her most honest, personal record.  On the songs which aren’t political, the soft love songs in particular, she’s left with an acoustic guitar, and a sparse arrangement.  One wonders whether “Drunk With the Thought of You” is about her ex-fiancé Lance Armstrong, until the next song comes along and it’s called “Diamond Ring.”  In the chorus to the latter, she wails the title as if cathartically purging a painful memory.  The ghosts of love and failed engagement are being expunged from her system.  Enter, “Motivation,” a groovy steam-train of a track.  It’s as if it is her picking herself off the floor and dusting herself off and telling herself that life goes on.  Thus, “Detours” goes in cycles or movements.  The first part is about political, social and global unrest.  The second part involves reflection on failed romance and the idea of recovery.  Then comes part three, consisting of one song, her ode to cancer-survival “Make It Go Away (Radiation Song.)”  Since her last album, Crow survived a bout with breast cancer, and she pleads with the determination only a survivor could know.  Her lyrics during the verses are unusually sharp, sung obviously from experience.  It’s a scary idea to look cancer and death in the face, and Crow conveys that quite well. 
Part four serves as a summery of all these parts and an additional plead for love and peace.  “Love is All There Is” will probably end up being a single, and “Lullaby For Wyatt,” named after her son ends a record full of all sorts of unrest with a moment of sweetness and peace.  “Detours” is among Crow’s best work.  Her two best records are still her 1996 self-titled effort and her 1998 album “The Globe Sessions.”  “Detours” is a better record than “Tuesday Night Music Club,” so it takes its place as her third best record.  Her last album, “Wildflower” had its boring moments, and her worst record is still her attempt to make “big hits” on “Come On, Come On.”  Those two most recent records seemed lyrically uninspired.  Compare lyrically vacuous songs like “Soak Up the Sun” and “Good is Good” to lyrically dense earlier hits like “My Favorite Mistake” and it’s hard to believe they came from the same woman.  It took multiple hardships and life-changes, but Sheryl Crow has found her lyrical inspiration again.  Always a consistent hit maker, chart-wise, even at her weakest, “Detours” is a nice return to form.  Welcome back.