0304

2003年，珠儿发行了专辑《0304》。她在这张专辑的唱片套的注释中写道，“我想要制作一张用现代的方式诠释大乐队音乐的唱片。这张唱片要用抒情诗的方式来表达，就像科尔·波特（Cole Porter）那样，而且唱片要有大量的摇摆乐。非常感谢Lester，因为当我告诉他，我要向制作一张揉合了舞蹈、都市音乐和民谣在内的唱片时，他看着我，没有觉得我不正常。”单曲《Serve the Ego》获得很大的成功，在此之后，珠儿发行了单曲《Intuition》，开始转向更加偏重流行音乐的歌曲。这首单曲，不同于她以往只用一把吉他作为乐器的民谣风格，开始用法国手风琴作为乐器，并且尝试用电子合成器来制作舞曲流行音乐的节拍。这首单曲获得了成功，分别在公告牌成人流行音乐排行榜和公告牌百强单曲榜上排名第5名和第20名。尽管使用了不同的声音，这首歌曲歌词方面仍类似于她以往的作品。它提到了大量的文化，包括流行歌星珍妮弗·洛佩兹、模特姬·摩丝、杂志、电影文化和商业主义。

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Within the liner notes to her fourth album, 0304, Jewel includes a note to her fans, explaining, "This album may seem different to you," which is putting it mildly. For a singer who has been making 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 abandoned 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 2000s 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 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 predilection 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 it's 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.