Track Listing

1. I Know Why
2. Perfect Lie
3. Good is Good
4. Chances Are
5. Wildflower
6. Lifetimes
7. Letter to God
8. Live It Up
9. I Don't Wanna Know
10. Always On Your Side
11. Where Has All the Love Gone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18039 in Music
• Released on: 2005-09-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .23 pounds
• Running time: 54 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Since her 1993 debut, Tuesday Night Music Club, Sheryl Crow has been churning out unassailably appealing CDs in an unassailably appealing voice. Which means, according to the rules of the pop music cosmos, by album six it's about time for a misstep. Natural law, fortunately, will have to keep checking its watch. Wildflower moves Sheryl Crow one step closer to Hall of Fame status as she shunts the established rock star's impulse to get all experimental, but instead sprawls, rambling rose-like, across the substance-spiked pop landscape she helped pioneer. Three ingredients, glistening vocals, flawless production, and catchy songs rub up against one another in all the right places. These ingredients will cause you to hold your breath on the beautiful piano ballad "Always on Your Side." They pop up again on the George Harrison-esque "Where Has All the Love Gone" reminding you that Crow can reflect and reveal as convincingly as she can rock. If there is a ripple that runs through Wildflower, it's a pensive one. On the spacy "Chances Are," she sings of being "...lost inside a daydream." The measure of her talent, ripe and reappraisal-resistant, is her ability to consistently bring us inside the bubble with her. --Tammy La Gorce

From the Label
9-time Grammy Award winner Sheryl Crow returns with her 5th studio album. With stripped down production and lush orchestration, this album cements her status as America's premiere female rock star.

CD Description
On her fifth studio album, singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow leaves her carefree rock tunes by the side of a winding road, traveling forward with a subdued, introspective set of songs. The result is akin to Beck's SEA CHANGE, a record that largely eschews upbeat pop in favor of quieter, more thoughtfultracks. (In fact, Beck's father, David Campbell, provides string arrangements for almost every song on WILDFLOWER.)
Although there is a notable chamber-pop feel to this 2005 album, with an orchestra present on all but one track, the strings never eclipse Crow's pensive songs, and the focus here remains on her immediately recognizable and strikingly emotive vocals. "I Know Why" opens WILDFLOWER with gentle acoustic-guitar and banjo lines, while the Eastern-tinged "Chances Are" coasts over a foundation of subtle synthesizers and tabla-like drum programming. The disc's most energetic moment, "Live It Up", hews closest to Crow's past hits, but the overall mood of the record is beautifully autumnal, revealing that, even more than a decade into her solo career, she's not afraid to challenge herself or her listeners

Customer Reviews

A beautiful if not so wild flower
This album is a departure from that good old american rock chick attitude we know and believe it or not, it's refreshing.
In a general manner, it takes quite some time to warm up to all the songs, but patience will eventually bring you an enjoyable slice of pensive pop. Wildflower lacks any instant hit, but every song is relevant, though some will find the album a bit bland, mainly because of its perfectly handled production free of any daring sound.
I know why: thoughtful and sad. The melody takes time to unravel its true potential.
Perfect lie: good lyrics, slowly burning.
Good is good: the song's good but this is maybe the only bland moment of the album, because the lyrics are a little predictable and the music reminds the listener of past material.
Chances are: Gut-wrenchingly beautiful. A dream song coming from the cracks in us.
Wildflower: i wish there was a more elaborate instrumentation, for the melody is stunningly beautiful. But then again, the fact that it is kind of stripped is relevant concerning the lyrical content. A bonus pop mix would have been a cool idea.
Lifetimes: You think it's gonna be groovy, but it's not. It does have a slight hint at her past efforts. An interesting moment.
Letter to God: maybe the most compelling song. It is a perfect fusion of her past influences and her newly-found spirituality. It does remind me of Osbourne's "one of us". Great lyrics.
Live it up: somehow this song doesn't fit, because of its commercial side. It is good, but not very interesting.
I don't wanna know: simple and moving, but you wouldn't put it on repeat though.
Always on your side: a very beautiful piano-led song. Really that's all one can say.
Where has all the love gone: well, i do like it, but you have to be in a certain mood, plus it's a little clichéd.

Overall this is a fine record, but these new ideas need improvement. Oh, and i wish there was more songs: this is why I put 3 instead of 4. Forget about the rocking, this is all about introspection now. The next album will be perfect if the flower really gets wild this time, meaning a more daring production and the introduction of new instruments perhaps. Enjoy. Thanks for reading this.

A new direction, nicely done
I really do like this album. Musically sophisticated, its subtle, well-crafted tracks just drift into each other, and it's terrifically easy to listen to without being bland.

Yes, it's not the blatantly feel good, happy go lucky, Sheryl Crow of old, but is it really reasonable to expect an artist to produce the same stuff year after year? I'm pleased that she's decided to try something different, with such a high degree of success, and there is still the odd bit of slide guitar for die hard fans, with a couple of more toe-tapping tracks - notably Live it Up and Lifetimes, with (for me) I Know Why the other standout track.

I wasn't a huge fan before and bought this album for my girlfriend, but I have new respect for her scope and variety after this work, and as M Saxby says, can you go wrong for £4? Worth a listen.

Different...
Different good or different bad?

Well, that's difficult to say. If like me, you've always liked Sheryl Crow's easy going rock style, then this will, initally, seem a little too different.

The album is very 'love, peace, summer days and flowers' in its style, with little sign of Sheryl's sassiness in the tunes or vocals. If it wasn't Sheryl Crow, I might love it, but I know she can be sharper and I miss that.

Give it a chance though and Sheryl's class shines through. She knows how to craft a good song and there are some interesting lyrics (especially given her recent split from Lance Armstrong, which the album predates by some months), so you'll probably not recoil in horror.

What you might do, though, is wonder if this Sheryl is as good as the one from her earlier albums and wonder if this is too different for you...

Nothing stands out as really great, the way All I Want, Leaving Las Vegas, If It Makes You Happy, Everyday is a Winding Road and loads of others do and I didn't even know she'd released this album until 2006.

I'm sure, though, that anyone new to Sheryl Crow will judge it differently and there's no doubt that she's a class performer.

For £4 it's worth a punt, isn't it?