Wildflower : Sheryl Crow : Review : Rolling Stone

Now that Sheryl Crow is forty-three and cheerfully domestic with Lance Armstrong, she says she's tired of striving for hit singles -- but there's one buried on Wildflower anyway. "Live It Up" is classic up-tempo Crow: There's a catchy melody, an appealingly husky vocal, a chorus built around a cliche ("like there's no tomorrow") and other lyrics that show she can be more clever than the chorus (rhyming "inherently self-conscious" with "resting on your haunches"). Most of Crow's fifth studio album, however, is about balladry: slow, lovelorn and, on every track but one, accompanied by a string section. Unfortunately, Crow isn't doing herself any favors with this approach. It's not just that the album would be more fun if it rocked harder; all too often on these songs she's straining for high notes or stranded in an arrangement that leaves her voice sounding breathy and reedy. The track "Chances Are" is gorgeous, though: In a delicate swirl of acoustic guitar, tabla percussion and strings, Crow sings hypnotically about Terence McKenna, "hybrid lives" and the overwhelming world all around us. It's reminiscent of early Van Morrison and suggests new possibilities for Crow -- if it makes her happy.