Unlike, say,
Bon Jovi, it is no great leap for
Sheryl Crow to plunge into contemporary country on
Feels Like Home.
Tuesday Night Music Club, her 1993 debut, could've been called country-rock if it had been released in another era and she's never shied away from roots music, either giving it a crisp, classy spin or taking a full stylistic detour, as she did on 2010's
100 Miles from Memphis. In some ways, that soul excursion felt like a greater departure for
Crow than this 2013 album, as beneath the down-home accouterments of aggressive Telecasters, self-consciously country lyrics, the affected down-home twang in her voice, and the occasional fiddle,
Feels Like Home feels like standard-issue
Crow, the kind of record that could've been delivered after
The Globe Sessions. Indeed, the opener "Shotgun" feels like an inversion of
C'Mon C'mon's opener "Steve McQueen," "We Oughta Be Drinkin'" is a slower kissing cousin of "All I Wanna Do," "Easy" rolls along lazily but co-opts some of the clever cultural nods of
Sheryl Crow, while "Nobody's Business" and "Best of Times" are cheerful roots-pop tunes that'd feel welcome on any of her albums.
Crow stumbles when she tries to get a little too country, either by ratcheting up Music City melodrama or writing relatable blue-collar vignettes so brimming with clichés they verge on the condescending. Of course, part of the appeal of
Feels Like Home is its show biz panache, how
Crow cheerfully adapts to her surroundings and gives the people what she believes they want. That her instincts are often right speaks to her skills. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine