Oh, Whatever.

OK. Finally, after two years of getting intermittent urges to review this record, I get around to doing it. The urges tend to come around this time of year, and seeing as I have been felled by the 'lurgy and can’t do an awful lot right at the moment, I’m giving this strange and interesting CD the review it deserves.

Tuesday Night Music Club was released to complete and total critical rapture in 1994. Now, normally I don’t welcome discussion of that particular year; it makes me whiny and bad-tempered and generally unpleasant. But it cannot be denied that it produced some of the greatest songs and albums of the decade, and this, the debut CD by a former Michael Jackson backing vocalist with a fondness for heavy boots and denim shirts, definitely deserves a place among the year’s notable releases.

I think it’s fair to say that, despite the album’s other merits, it would never have gotten the attention it did if LA radio hadn’t latched onto That Song and drained it of its lifeblood by giving it repeated hammerings every ten minutes. Back in '94, the Good People of The World washed their navy-blue BMW yuppie-mobiles with that song blaring from the speakers, humming along contentedly, completely unaware that the song (like the other great LA pop observation of that year, Francis Dunnery’s “American Life In The Summertime”) was a sharp satire on their uptight corporate lifestyle by a chick who didn’t give a screw about jobs and rules, as long as she could still mooch into her local at noon on Tuesday and find some drunken businessman to laugh at. Perhaps the Good People got sucked in by the effortless minor-key melody and decided that the perfect Los Angeles slacker guitar and bar piano sounded cool coming out of their Beemers’ new speakers.

Which is not to say that I’m not fond of “All I Wanna Do”, despite its radio ubiquity that year, because I am. I was completely obsessed with it when it came out and I still like it quite a bit. Admittedly, there are songs on Tuesday Night Music Club which I prefer, but I still maintain an affection for it because it so perfectly suited the lifestyle of myself and my friends when it came out. We were at school then, and every afternoon we would ride the bus home through the valley and back to our homework and our parents’ frosted-glass sapphire-blue and turquoise dinner settings. And, invariably, we would hear this song on the bus. And now, ten years later, the teenage American singer Amy Studt has done an equally cool cover version, changing the song’s protagonist from a bored 30-year-old free spirit to a bratty, sarcastic teenager who skips school and gets into a bar with fake ID to talk to drunk guys. Which is, like, way cool.

The song itself is tucked away modestly on Track 9, as if everyone will forget it’s there if they hear the first eight songs before it. I’d say the intent was to prove that Sheryl wasn’t a one-trick-pony, and that she could work in a variety of musical styles that didn’t fall under the heading of “slacker-grunge-pop”. The first example of this is the album’s opening song, “Run Baby Run”. It’s a slow, steely rock ballad which at times veers dangerously close to power-ballad territory. The musical accompaniment is sparse as Sheryl sings of a girl who grew up the child of hippie parents, who leaves her undisciplined home to go and make her own way in the world. It’s interesting enough, but sort of passes by without being noticed. Ballads have never been Sheryl Crow’s strong point, but the ballads got better as her career progressed (see “Home” and the marvellous “If It Makes You Happy”), when she was finally willing to write in the first person rather than hiding behind characters.

“Leaving Las Vegas” is another ‘slow song’, (which outweigh the ‘fast songs’ on the album six to five). I really am not very fond of it, but at least she writes it in the first person and there are some great lyrics in amongst the lung-busting choruses (“used to be I could drive up to Barstow for the night, find some crossroad trucker to demonstrate his might…”). Mostly, though, it’s a somewhat irritating whine from someone who, it has to be said, sounds like she’s never even been to Las VegAAA-aaa-as.

Tuesday Night Music Club’s other big single was “Strong Enough”. I infinitely prefer this one to the first two songs, because it actually shows some semblance of emotion rather than the detached-onlooker stance of “Run Baby Run” or “Leaving Las Vegas”. “Strong Enough” reminds me slightly of ‘Rumours’-era Fleetwood Mac, somewhere between “Landslide” and the original “Silver Springs”. Which, of course, can never be a bad thing.

Track 4 is where it begins to get interesting. The first ‘fast song’ is “Can’t Cry Anymore”, a wonderfully bitter and resolute kiss-off to a former boyfriend. That is, after she stole his car and drove it to Texas. One suspects she hasn’t the firmest intentions of giving it back, either. The song starts with a choppy blues guitar riff and soon brings in jam-session drums, bass and squealing organ while our heroine does the vocal equivalent of tossing her head, sticking her nose in the air and hauling ass to Lone Star with that loser’s gas card in her back pocket.

“Solidify” , which comes after, is even better. This is where Sheryl stands over some other jerk (presumably not the one whose car she made off with five minutes ago), sneering sweetly at his superiority complex like an updated Nancy Sinatra. “Guess you thought I’d throw confetti at your great and lofty thoughts!” Well, forget you, man! She’s in fine form here, her voice quavering over a swirling background of organ and disco-funk guitar, delivering the message like her nerves are made of glass, before exploding into the chorus. Fabulous!

While listening to the record for the first time, I thought that “Solidify” would be its high point. How wrong I was. The two absolute coolest songs on the album, I had never heard before, and had had no idea that the would be such revelations. I’m talking about tracks 6 and 8, “The Na-Na Song” and “What I Can Do For You”. The first is often criticised for being a bad attempt at jazz-rap, but it’s not like that at all. Miss Crow speak-sings her way through more woozy organ and an eminently danceable drumbeat, skewering America’s obsession with celebrity culture with perfectly-chosen words which flow together effortlessly. It’s not rap at all, just very… oh, how I hate to use this word… funky. Strangely enough, I like to listen to this song before I go out. It makes me feel beyond cool. It’s also notable for being the only time when I’ve ever heard Sheryl Crow say “fuck” in a song.

And I absolutely LOVE “What I Can Do For You”. It’s a fabulous gospel-tinged fuck jam that has to be heard to be believed. The intro! The drumbeat! The lyrics! Oooooh. It rocks, yes indeed it does. The disturbing, shuffling drums and ominous bass at the beginning usher in a story of a man and his controlling relationship with a younger girl. And I’m sure she’s enjoying it immensely, too! Who wouldn’t when the lyrics go “I’m so glad you’re awake, and that you’re not like the others/ ‘Cause they’re so strait-laced, and no fun/ And gosh that’s nice, that lingerie/ It makes me feel like… oh, I don’t know!” …Sigh. He promises to help her get a record deal or modelling contract or whatever, but only in return for her, er, friendship. Because, as he says, “what I can do for you, this no-one else on God’s green earth can do! Just ask anybody, they’ll tell you that it’s true, there’s no-one else on earth can do the things that I can do for you.” Oh, I’m sure. I just love it; It’s sexual tension wrapped up in a perfect, sarcastic pop song. And I’m sure this mature dude’s much more interesting than some idiot college boy, too.

Sandwiched in between these two masterpieces is “No-One Said It Would Be Easy”, a slow, morose country-tinged ballad of despair. Again, it’s one which I would usually skip. It’s trying to be the Cowboy Junkies’ version of “Sweet Jane”, but failing miserably. As I mentioned before, for a far better Sheryl ballad check out her second, self-titled album from 1996, which contains such gems as “Home”.

After “All I Wanna Do” comes another slow jam, called “We Do What We Can”. This song annoys me. In fact, you could end the record after “All I Wanna Do” and really not miss that much. “We Do What We Can” is five minutes of self-conscious jazz noodling with irritatingly simplistic lyrics which could have been written by a sixth-grader. Ecch. And there’s really not much else I can say about it.

Tuesday Night Music Club finishes off with the last of the ballads, “I Shall Believe”. Which, while not as grating as the previous song, still gets on the nerves slightly. For God’s sake, woman, stop being so neurotic! Please. I know you probably can’t help it, but it’s really quite depressing. Too close for comfort, I think. It’s another song about being unsure in a relationship, which is the kind of song that I really do not appreciate. The music and vocals are interesting enough (Sheryl harmonises with herself over smoky Mazzy Star-esque tambourine and dead-sounding organ which revives itself momentarily to play another Cowboy Junkies-style fill in the second verse). God, it’s gloomy.


Well, there it is- a non-fawning review of one of the most fawned-over records of 1994. Recommended? Only just, and that’s just for the five or so people who don’t already own it. The thing walked off the shelf back then. For anyone who’s new to Sheryl, I’d advise buying her Greatest Hits set, “The Very Best Of Sheryl Crow”, (which has “Strong Enough”, “Run Baby Run” and, of course, “All I Wanna Do”) and hitting up Kazaa for “What I Can Do For You” and “The Na-Na Song”. Tuesday Night Music Club is great in places, but overall the mood is so depressed and helpless that you just want to storm off and go play Green Day or Veruca Salt instead, because at least they sound alive while they’re whining. Of course, in 1994 nothing was cooler than declaring that Everything Sucks ™, but sometimes people can go too far, and this isn’t 1994 anymore, and “All I Wanna Do” is now a staple of ultra-safe adult contemporary radio. So there. Like, totally. Nyah.