glenn mcdonald’s latest entry in his weekly column takes on those who believe that Jewel has sold out with her latest album:

Anybody who accuses Jewel of having sold out with 0304 should be regarded with intense skepticism, at least, and is quite likely an asshole trying to pick cheap fights. Jewel already sold out to the theoretical limit with her atrocious Christmas album, after all, and I believe it should also not be a controversial assertion that Spirit involved at least as many artistic compromises in the hopes of commercial reward as 0304 does. Even This Way took on borrowed idioms, and attributing cynicism is often just a function of whether you like the idioms in question. Jewel has gone way out of her way to establish that although she is an acoustic folk-singer by some measure of nature, she will make studio records in any style she feels like. Maybe she does it hoping to sell more, maybe that’s just more fun for her. Either way, 0304 is only another step in the non-pattern, and guilty of no real new affront to any meaningful purity. So fuck anyone who writes it off without listening.

Well put, there. I have to admit that I was, at first, quite taken aback by her new direction. Even though I grew to really, really like “Intuition”, I’ve been hesitant to buy her new album (everytime I visit the iTunes music store, it beckons to me). After a couple of weeks of obtaining some ridiculous, overblown extremely angry music (witness: a used copy of Marilyn Manson’s latest, which has a few good blustery songs on it, and Metallica’s latest effort, which I have found interesting, but have not totally embraced), I’ve had a case of musical indigestion, perhaps brought on by all of that undiluted angst. Therefore, it might be time to give 0304 a chance.

(Incidentally, glenn trashes Liz Phair’s stylistic change — partially. Looks like some of the outtakes and bonus tracks he found online were better than the majority of the songs on her latest effort. I have to agree that, after listening to a snippet of “H.W.C.”, Liz needs to stop trying to recreate the I’m-such-a-naughty-little-girl that she was when she recorded the infamous “Flower” on Exile In Guyville.)