Jill Sobule may have sparked a minor sexual revolution in 1995 when "I Kissed a Girl" (off her eponymous second album) got teenagers across the country singing along to a tune about Sapphic love. As Alanis Morissette cornered the Angry Young Woman market, Sobule concealed the most subversive of fantasies within the sweetest of pop signatures.

Two years later, Happy Town finds Sobule stalled in a no...