During the mid to late 90s, Sheryl Crow and other grunge lite-friendly female artists like Alanis Morrisette were all over the airwaves. Sheryl’s particular schtick being a soft rock stew of pop/country/folk that threw up monster hits like “All I Wanna Do”, “If It Makes You Happy” and “Everyday is a Winding Road”.
Thirty-odd years on and Sheryl seems to have been relatively quiet for some considerable time. So, it is something of a surprise to hear that Evolution is her 12th album and in 2023, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But then, she had announced that her previous album, Threads was going to be her last, despite reaching a respectable 30 on the Billboard charts.
Five years on though, and she’s back with a set of tunes that stay very much in Sheryl’s well-defined lane but that dispenses plenty of the homilies and pearls of wisdom that can come with age and experience, but which all pretty much assure us all that “everything’s going to be alright in the end”. Hence, we hear that “you can’t stop the rain” but “we can find a way to stop the pain” on “You Can’t Change the…” and that “I’ve lost the part of me that you once loved” but we can “make it if we both stay” on “Don’t Walk Away”. While, on “Where” Sheryl finds herself bemoaning that “to be free means learning not to care”.
Evolution is somewhat predictably a soundtrack of life-affirming but slightly knocked-about beige wisdom wearing a pair of cowgal boots. Still, it’s unlikely that anyone was looking for a significant reinvention of her sound this far down the road, even if the title track does come on a bit like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical theatre channelled by Heart.
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