Sheryl Crow

Sheryl Crow used to put out a good bit of songwriting. Looking back at the dates, though, those gems come distinctly from 1996 and 1998. There is no bluesy "Redemption Day," no solid pop of "The Difficult Kind" and certainly no incredibly soul-baring "Crash and Burn" on her latest scattered offering, aptly named Detours.

While causes are no stranger to Crow, it seems every track is armed for a new battle: children's welfare, genocide, Bush's war, global warming, Katrina/homelessness, big oil... I could go on. Some are brief references, some constitute the subject of whole songs, but when delivered as an album with only a few non-agenda tunes thrown in, the collection ends up a brow-beat-down of preachy lecture fodder that needed to marinate a bit longer in the studio.

Crow's "All I Wanna Do" talk-rap returns on the Rolling Stones wannabe "Gasoline," while her insistence on double-tracking her higher range is cringeworthy on the single "Love Is Free." The lovelorn and surely autobiographical "Diamond Ring," "Drunk With the Thought of You" and "Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)" prove her more impressive vocal performances—natural and emotive—and the closest to hard-hitting, real and personal protest on the entire album. It's a clear case of been-through-it winning over just-singing-about-it.