Sheryl Crow has made the transition to adult contemporary, the music of middle-aged housewives. Can you fault her, though? Crow is a 46-year-old mother herself. Long gone are the days of having fun on Santa Monica Boulevard and even soaking up the sun is probably out of the question. She has real world concerns, ranging from cancer and motherhood to war and politics, and she's willing to sing about them all.
Her sixth LP, Detours, comes from a the bleeding heart musician who wore a "No War" guitar strap at the Grammys, took shots at Karl Rove and suggested a ration on toilet paper. You can imagine how this album works, though you'd think that someone so quick to cast off toilet paper wouldn't have a cardboard album case and a thick book of liner notes, but who am I to judge?
When Crow wants to get on her soap box, she's barely worth listening to. "Peace Be Upon Us," transitions between Crow's wailing and Ahmed Al Hirmi's arabic vocals. It appears to be some kind of bridging between warring and the war-torn but it's trite at best. "Gasoline" offers a glimpse at a post-apocalyptic future around a late-era Stones composition and Crow doing her best Dylan, but the chorus being nothing more than "Gasoline will be free, yeah," cheapens the whole song and dance. If Crow is really into saving the world, her Revelations visions need to go just a bit farther beyond Thunderdome.
