Why pick on a girl for taking a chance? After experiencing flagging sales, Jewel has become proactive and given herself a cosmetic and artistic makeover. But 0304 isn't the winsome songbird's first leap into the unknown. Hiring Shakira producer Lester A Mendez to give her solemn, folksy songs a pop sheen and some dance beats isn't as radical as starring as a Civil War widow in an Ang Lee ...
A two-for-one combo of the first two Big Star albums (they only recorded three). Heard side by side, #1 Record and Radio City only add further testament to Big Star's seminal greatness. On the first album, Chris Bell and Alex Chilton share songwriting credit, though each brings a remarkably different sensibility to the band: Bell creates pure pop nuggets ("Feel") while Chilton ...
Mariah Carey's #1's is as much a time capsule of 1990s pop and R&B as a record of one woman's chart toppers: the disc chronicles a shift from the sweet, nearly '50s-style "Vision of Love" to more recent hip-hop-lite grooves featuring heavy input from Puffy Combs ("Honey"), Jermaine Dupri ("Sweetheart"), and O.D.B. ("Fantasy"). Some hit, some miss, but all feature the fluttery swoops that ...