The new record, Evolution, out Friday, is about “what’s happening in all of our daily lives,” including AI and social media negativity.
By Nick Krewen
Special to the Star
When she released Threads back in 2019, nine-time Grammy winner Sheryl Crow decided her 11th studio album would be her last and declared it as such.
How, then, does she explain the arrival of Evolution, her 12th, out Friday?
“Yes, I did announce (Threads) was my final album and I should really keep my mouth shut,” Crow good-naturedly responded during a Zoom call last month.
“I stand by my belief that people don’t listen to whole bodies of work,” she added, referring to the justification she expressed at the time that listeners cherry-pick songs from records and don’t listen to them top to bottom.
Crow, who has sold over 35 million albums and is known for such smashes as “All I Wanna Do,” “If It Makes You Happy” and “Everyday Is a Winding Road,” said she was intent on keeping her word, but a recent bout of songwriting “about things that have been on my mind” prompted her to call her producer friend Mike Elizondo and send him some sparse demos to arrange.
“I did it because I didn’t want to produce myself,” said Crow, who has overseen practically every album of hers since her self-titled sophomore effort in 1996.
“I didn’t want to hear myself doing the same thing I’ve been doing. These songs are very introspective and I just asked him to create movies around these little screenplays.”
Crow, who will perform in Toronto at Rogers Centre Aug. 14 as a special guest of Pink, said she was thrilled with the results.
“He just blew my mind,” she said. “And then before we knew it, we wound up with nine or 10 songs and it was an album.”
From the sizzling electric guitar riff and handclap rhythm of “Alarm Clock,” which opens Evolution, to the closing empathetic ballad “Waiting in the Wings,” the album offers a feeling of rejuvenation. Crow conceded this project “was definitely a gift that I gave myself.”
Delegating to Elizondo meant she spent only 12 days in the studio, compared to past albums on which she was busy dictating the sound.
“I loved the process,” she said.
Much of the subject matter on Evolution is topically relevant: the title track deals with artificial intelligence and its potential impact on artistry as well as authenticity.
Another powerful song, “Broken Record,” deals with the negative social media aftermath of the March 27, 2023 shooting at Covenant School in the Green Hills neighbourhood of Nashville – not far from Crow’s residence – that killed six people.
“I think everything on this record is what’s happening in all of our daily lives,” said Crow. “(The song) ‘Evolution’ stems from reading that the Beatles were going to use AI and it was before the song (‘Now and Then’) came out.
“Pretty quickly after that, I was in the studio with a young songwriter who had John Mayer, through AI, sing on her demo and I could not tell the difference. All of these factors started to feel very terrifying to me: the fact that we won’t be able to discern what is truth and what is not … what is reality and what is not … and what is algorithmically created and what is manipulated.
“Already, we’re grappling with not knowing what the truth is by virtue of the fact that all of our algorithms feed us back what we already believe. It has driven a giant chasm between all of us: you’re either right or you’re wrong, and if you’re on the other side you are to be hated.”
Crow pointed to the vitriol she received on social media after speaking out about the Covenant School shooting.
“It makes me start to fear what the nature of humans will become if, at an early age, they’re so informed by technology and not by soul, not by spirit and not by nature.”
But Crow says there might be a silver lining when it comes to AI.
“I mean, if AI can determine a way to find a cure for cancer, hopefully with pharma allowing for there to be a cure for cancer, it would be wonderful, a real game changer.
“I do think that at a certain point, everything has to be looked at from the standpoint of what is good for children. Because we’re handing them a giant ball of chaos, you know? And we’re seemingly not modeling for them how to discern and how to react with empathy as adults.”
Crow, 62, received an impressive accolade in November: she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Oh man, honestly, I’m still processing it,” said the mother of two. “It was such a high, but not like other awards shows: the high for me was that I had all these people around me that I love that have been through the entire journey with me, and I had my kids there. I think my kids really realized that I had this other life that was before them …
“In fact, I laugh, because my 13-year-old asked me if I was the Taylor Swift of my time. It was a beautiful, beautiful evening and it does mean a lot to me. Honestly, it is a club of people whose shoulders I sit on, who have made me who I am, who gave me the dream in the first place: to get out of my little tiny hometown.”
For the record, Crow’s tiny hometown is Kennett, Missouri, where she worked as a grade school teacher and played in weekend bands, until a producer named Jay Oliver hired her to sing jingles.
It provided good career discipline.
“He brought me in and had me sing on a commercial that wound up going network for McDonald’s and paid me more than two years of teaching in a grade school. That afforded me the opportunity to just sing jingles for a while.
“But he also gave me a lot of homework: ‘Listen to these singers, record yourself singing with them, and then listen back and see where you’re off, and see if you can manipulate your voice.’
“There are so many things that I took from that: that helped me not only control my voice, but find my own voice amongst the voices that were the greatest of all time. Those aren’t things that you necessarily learn anywhere other than in a studio.”