SHERYL CROW – Be Myself [Target Exclusive +3] (2017)

After a short-lived period in country music, fortunately SHERYL CROW‘s new album “Be Myself” is a strong return to form. The new record reunites Crow with ’90s collaborators Jeff Trott & Tchad Blake and returns to the sassy, carefree, stripped down rock&pop that brought her massive success in that era. This “Be Myself Target Exclusive” release includes 3 bonus tracks.

It’s no surprise Sheryl Crow has grown into such a classic-rock sage – even when she was coming up in the Nineties, she relished the role of a grizzled road warrior who sang about still getting stoned and scraping mold off the bread.
Her new album “Be Myself” is her toughest and best in a decade, a full-blown return to her fierce rock-queen glory. She aims directly at the torn-and-frayed guitar groove of her Nineties records.
Crow flashes her nasty streak in the highlight ‘Heartbeat Away’ where her bluesy guitar sounds as pissed off as her voice.

It’s a slow open from ‘Alone in the Dark’, through ‘Halfway There’, ‘Long Way Back’, and the title track finally captures the return Crow, Trott, and Blake are intent on telling and capitalizing upon.
While “Be Myself” fully embodies the sound and style of Crow’s mid-nineties output, she still infuses the album with the work of a long career. “Roller Skate” effectively blends the longing for the mid-nineties with the pop of Crow’s early 2000s albums, while ‘Love Will Save the Day’ could be at home on Wildflower (2005) as much as it fits here.

The mood of the album changes drastically on ‘Strangers Again’, and the impact of harsher instrumentation and angrier lyrics creates a divergence from the album’s first half as well as seems to dispense completely with anything that followed Sheryl Crow (1996).
‘Rest of Me’ evokes both a softer approach and a direct appeal, and after the aforementioned ‘Heartbeat Away’ (with some Led Zeppelin on it), ‘Grow Up’ has an early ’80s radio-pop feel, while ‘Woo Woo’ is a little silly, little poppy tune that could have been a hit many years ago.

This Target Records edition includes 3 bonus tracks; the middle-of-the-road ‘Disappearing World’ which mix classic Crow with some electronic percussion, the sweet midtempo ‘The World You Make’ in a Sheryl Crow trademark style, and ‘Long Way Back (Acoustic Version)’, more stripped than the original but enjoyable the same.

Across her ninth album “Be Myself” Sheryl Crow and producer Jeff Trott, play with the style of her most successful records, and in turn create an album that acts like a greatest hits package.
The familiarity of her career is this album’s foundation, and a career as productive as Crow’s is worth exploring, and though the album may not inspire you to dust off her old records, it’s enjoyable, fun, and reassuring in its renewal.

01 – Alone In The Dark
02 – Halfway There
03 – Long Way Back
04 – Be Myself
05 – Roller Skate
06 – Love Will Save The Day
07 – Strangers Again
08 – Rest Of Me
09 – Heartbeat Away
10 – Grow Up
11 – Woo Woo
Target Exclusive Bonus Tracks:
12 – Disappearing World
13 – The World You Make
14 – Long Way Back (Acoustic Version)

Sheryl Crow – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, tambourine
Gary Clark, Jr, Audley Freed – guitar
Josh Grange – guitar, Mellotron, Pedal Steel, piano
Toby Gad – bass, Moog Synthesizer
Adam Minkoff – Keyboards
Robert Kearns – bass
Fred Eltringham – Drums, Handclapping, Percussion, Tambourine
Mark Douthit – saxophone
Doyle Bramhall II, The McCrary Sisters – vocal harmony
David Rossi – string arrangements
Jeff Trott – bass, guitar, Pump Organ, sitar, synthaxe, Wurlitzer, vocal harmony

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