This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
I know artists love to reinvent themselves, but this is ridiculous.
After eight years and three solid, respectable albums of contemporary folk and rootsy pop, Jewel Kilcher has up and decided she wants to be — are you ready for this? — a dance-pop diva. No, seriously. On her fourth album 0304, the singer-songwriter trades in her jeans and flannel for day-glo duds from a Flashdance revival, buries her acoustic guitar under banks of thumping beatboxes, booty-wiggling basslines and squiggly robo-synths, borrows staccato arrangements and slick production from the Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync, and puts her angelic, crystalline voice to work on a slate of insubstantial fluff stuffed with deep and timeless sentiments such as, “I wanna hold you tonight / It’ll be alright.” No Jewel, it won’t. Sure, there are a few smarter cuts here that work — Leave the Lights On and Haunted mine darker trip-hoppy veins, while Sweet Temptation and Yes U Can revive the new-wave sugar-buzz of The Bangles or Missing Persons. And OK, I understand that Jewel wants to cut loose, get silly and dance. But geez, couldn’t she do in the privacy of her own home like everybody else?
