Happy Town
Artist: Jill Sobule
Community Score: 8.95

Jill Sobule's summer-vacation success with "I Kissed a Girl" almost sank her in cement as a one-hit wonder, even though that fun tune surely got her all the dates she could endure for a while. Sporting a potentially dismissable, fresh-out-of-fourth-grade, alt-cute girl voice, she could easily fall into the princess-sized crack somewhere between... Read More

Rufus Wainwright
Artist: Rufus Wainwright
Community Score: 9.30

What separates Rufus Wainwright and the other second-generation singers who sprang up at the same time (Sean Lennon, Emma Townshend, and Chris Stills the most notable among them) is that Wainwright deserves to be heard regardless of his family tree; in fact, the issue of his parentage is ultimately as immaterial as that of his sexuality -- this... Read More

Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
Artist: Jeff Buckley
Community Score: 7.63

Jeff Buckley was a mess of contradictions: a perfectionist who believed in spontaneity, a man who was at once humble and vain, a musician who shunned his father's tumultuous legacy while creating one of his own. These are some of the reasons why he took his time writing and recording the material for his second album, laboring over many songs... Read More

This Euphoria
Artist: Davíd Garza
Community Score: 7.03

David Garza made his major label debut in a big, brilliant way -- compared to the almost genteel efforts on earlier albums like Eyes Wide Open, This Euphoria flat-out rocks. Call it a natural progression, call it what happens when there's big bucks to work with, but Garza came up with one of the best rock albums of the second half of the '90s.... Read More

Still Burning
Artist: Mike Scott

Still Burning finds Mike Scott returning to the grand productions and big statements that made his work with the Waterboys distinctive. Although he can still stumble over his own ambitions, there are still several sweeping songs on the record that should appeal to fans of Scott's "Big Music." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Read More

Let It Come Down
Artist: James Iha

During lulls on the lengthy Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness tour and before the Smashing Pumpkins returned to the studio to record Adore, James Iha made his first solo album, Let It Come Down. Fortunately, it is one of the rare solo projects from a member of major band that explores territory that could not be covered by the band itself.... Read More

Uncorrected Personality Traits: The Robyn Hitchcock Collection
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock

Hitchcock is an album-oriented artist with an extensive oeuvre, so this 20-track anthology of '80s material is best valued as a summary of selected career highlights for those who don't want to collect all of his full-length efforts. As such, it does a decent job, offering college radio hits like "Egyptian Cream," "My Wife & My Dead Wife," "The... Read More

Other Songs
Artist: Ron Sexsmith
Community Score: 9.50

The quandary of the whole solo singer/songwriter thing is that one listener's deeply personal and affecting music is another's boringly self-absorbed slop. And the fine line between them, between naked emotion and unadulterated pap, is the production, its intent, and above all, the talent trapped in it -- so highly exposed, after all. In this... Read More

Megiddo
Artist: Lauren Hoffman

It is unfortunate that Lauren Hoffman's debut was released in the mid-1990s. Record companies, after witnessing the success of Sarah McLachlan and her Lilith Fair, signed just about every female singer songwriter in the United States. Megiddo obviously got lost in the shuffle. What is disappointing about that fact is that not only is Megiddo a... Read More

Blurring the Edges
Artist: Meredith Brooks
Community Score: 8.50
Pieces of You - JAPAN BONUS TRACKS
Artist: Jewel
Community Score: 5.00

Pieces of You is a charming debut that is somewhat undone by its own naïveté. Jewel has a rich voice and an innocent, beguiling charm that makes "Who Will Save Your Soul," "I'm Sensitive," and "You Were Meant for Me" -- songs with slight, simple lyrics and catchy, sweet melodies -- quite endearing; they sound like a high-school diary brought to... Read More