Music Review: Jewel "Intution"

Intuition
Album: 0304
Year: 2003

After the success of her surprise club hit, Serve The Ego, Jewel now wants her fans to dance. Produced by Lester Mendez (Shakira, Enrique Inglesias), “Intuition” is a mish mash of folk, Latin and dance.

It begins with the promising, self-aware lyric “I’m just a simple girl in a high tech digital world.” Then she switches to her usual pop culture references, which are meant to be thoughtful yet fun. But they are not. Instead, they are out of place and too serious for the light tone she’s trying to convey. She shines on the bridge, though, where she sings cheekily that "if you want me/don’t play games/I promise it won’t be in vain."

The main problem with “Intuition” is the music arrangement. The French accordian in the beginning opens the song on the wrong note. More suited for Shakira than Jewel, it leads people to think it’s a Latin song. If Jewel had done this the right way, she would’ve hired William Orbit, BT or Todd Terry. With Lester Mendez at the helm, her music is aimless.

Jewel doesn’t really let go on the single. She plays it safe, writing the folksy lyrics to keep her old fans and changing the tempo some to lure in new ones. On the next album (if she decides to stay this route), she needs to loosen up, be unafraid to silly lyrics and embrace dance music entirely if she wants to it to be a success. Unlike Liz Phair, she doesn’t have any credibility to hold onto and instead should explore the dance music genre.

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