Joni Mitchell compiles CD for Sask.
TORONTO (CP) - Joni Mitchell hasn't made it a secret that she's fed up with the music business and would prefer to spend her time painting.
She's happily done just that for several years now.
But she recently came out of her painter's studio long enough to cherry pick 13 of her songs for a CD tribute to her childhood home, Saskatchewan, which is celebrating its centennial.
Songs of a Prairie Girl, out Tuesday, includes Let The Wind Carry Me, River and Raised on Robbery.
"I've retired basically," she said in an interview this week with Canada AM from Los Angeles, which she now calls home. "They wanted me to perform (for the centennial), but I don't do that anymore. I'm a painter now."
The compilation, she said, was her way to show respect for her homeland.
"You carry your childhood with you. Saskatchewan is in my veins," she said.
She jokingly admitted frigid temperatures play a big part in her memories.
"When I put this together I thought 'Oh dear, it's all about wanting to get out of the cold,"' she joked.
In fact, in the album's liner notes Mitchell urges listeners to "get yourself a hot beverage and stand by the heater as you listen to these musical tales of long, cold winters, with a hint of short but glorious summers."
Mitchell says she's disheartened by what she sees going on in the music industry where listener polls and demographic studies rather than artistry are used to formulate songs.
"The things that I've been told to kill in my work by my record company and management . . . had I done that it would have been a tragedy," she said in the CTV interview.
"The idea that our youth is being brainwashed by this sarcasm and bad potty training . . . this contrived money music. You hear young artists talking and they're talking demographics.
"There's no muse in this. There's a drive to be looked at. These are not creative people. These are created people."
Mitchell will take part in centennial festivities in mid-May at a gala dinner to be attended by the Queen and Prince Philip, among other dignitaries.
Pearl Jam announces big Cdn. tour
Pearl Jam may be hard at work on their next studio album, but that didn't stop the band from announcing details of their largest Canadian tour ever.
The 15-city trek, which spans from coast to coast, kicks off at GM Place in Vancouver on Sept. 2, and ends at Mile One Stadium in St. John's.
"It's the most extensive tour of Canada by an international band of Pearl Jam's stature that I know of, and it's incredibly exciting and welcome news for Canadian music fans," states concert promoter Paul Mercs, whose office is handling the promotion of the tour.
"Pearl Jam will play songs spanning their 15-year career on the tour, but Canadian fans will also be the first in the world to hear new songs from the band's highly anticipated next record," adds Mercs.
Guitarist Mike McCready recently told Billboard.com that the Seattle band are about "halfway there" with the new disc, the band's eighth and first album under their brand new label J Records/BMG.
Tickets for the Canadian tour are expected to go on sale to the general public at the end of May. On sale ticket information for each market will be announced on May 19. Tickets for Pearl Jam's Ten Club (fan club) members will go on sale today at www.pearljam.com.
Pearl Jam's 2005 Canadian tour dates are as follows:
Sept. 2 -- Vancouver, General Motors Place
Sept. 4 -- Calgary, Pengrowth Saddledome
Sept. 5 -- Edmonton, Rexall Place
Sept. 7 -- Saskatoon, Credit Union Centre
Sept. 8 -- Winnipeg, MTS Centre
Sept. 9 -- Thunder Bay, Fort William Gardens
Sept. 11 -- Kitchener, Kitchener Memorial Auditorium
Sept. 12 -- London, John Labatt Centre
Sept. 13 -- Hamilton, Copps Coliseum
Sept. 15 -- Montreal, Bell Centre
Sept. 16 -- Ottawa, Corel Centre
Sept. 19 -- Toronto, Air Canada Centre
Sept. 20 -- Quebec City, Colisee Pepsi
Sept. 22 -- Halifax, Metro Centre
Sept. 24 -- St. John's, NFLD, Mile One Stadium
George Lucas to Appear on 'The O.C.'
NEW YORK - The force is with "The O.C." George Lucas will guest star as himself on the May 12 episode, the Fox network announced Tuesday. The "Star Wars" creator will express interest in the graphic novel of the main character, Seth Cohen (Adam Brody).
Brody's character, an avid "Star Wars" fan, frequently has the good fortune of meeting his heroes. His favorite band, Death Cab for Cutie, recently played on the show.
Earlier this season, the trailer for "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" premiered during the program. The final installment of the "Star Wars" saga will open in theaters on May 19.
Fox recently announced that "The O.C." will return for a third season. It airs Thursdays (8 p.m. EST).
'The Simpsons' Hit 350th Episode Milestone
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - You know that a show has been around a long time when they start measuring milestones in episodic increments of 50. But it's understandable that "The Simpsons" should want to make a big deal out of hitting 350 episodes with this Sunday's installment.
As the legendary Fox series wraps up its 16th season, the denizens of Springfield are wading in some uncharted prime-time waters. When executive producer Al Jean boasts that "The Simpsons" "just enjoyed the best 16th season of any comedy ever," that's because no other comedy has ever made it this far.
How many episodes is 350? More than the combined total of "Seinfeld" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." "The Simpsons" will pass "Dallas" (357 episodes) on the all-time series list before 2005 is out. Then it takes aim at the only two comedies to have produced more segments: "My Three Sons" at 380 episodes and "The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet" at a somewhat astounding 435.
Can "The Simpsons" really make it to 435 -- a feat that would require the show see a (gasp) 20th season?
"You know, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's really not out of the question," Jean admits. "The cast is already signed through season 19. I think we'll get at least that far. It required such a long negotiation to get the cast under contract for four years that I think it's likely we'll do them."
The show is renewed through a 17th season. The only conventional entertainment show to run at least as many years was 20-year war horse "Gunsmoke," though it need also be noted, of course, that "Law & Order" is nipping at the "Simpsons' " heels as it looks to a 16th season come fall.
At an age when any other comedy would be sputtering on fumes, "The Simpsons" is still pulling in respectable ratings -- it's the only thing keeping the lights on for Fox on Sunday nights this season -- despite the fact that older episodes run at all hours of the day and night in syndication.
"My best hope in the beginning was that maybe we'd be some kind of cult thing like 'Fawlty Towers' that would go for five years," admits Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer and Grampa, among many others. "Now we're more than three times that far."
People often ask Castellaneta how all of this happened, how this "Tracey Ullman Show" spinoff could survive fickle tastes and prime-time comedy lulls and the dismissive industry tag of being a mere cartoon.
The usual explanations for its uncanny longevity surround the fact that the characters never age and the magic of animation allows the writers to go places where live-action could never tread.
"I have to say that it really does come down to the writing," he believes. "I've actually written a few scripts myself, and it's just amazing how much time and effort goes into it. There are rewrites, rewrites of the rewrites, tweaks. And there's no fear in the writers room. It's all about getting it as good as it can possibly be."
Of course, the conventional wisdom has it that "The Simpsons" has suffered a great nosedive in quality -- and that if it hasn't yet officially jumped the shark, it's clinging to the shark's fin. But Jean will have none of it.
"Have you ever known people to say that something is better now than it was in the past?" he asks. "Of course not. You have to take it all with a grain of salt. I remember during our fourth season, Entertainment Weekly wrote that we were going downhill. When the fourth season DVD was released, they said it was the 1927 Yankees of comedy.
"That isn't to say we don't do some bad shows now and didn't then. But I say that by and large, the shows we're doing now are just as good as any I've been involved with."
The Couch Potato Report - April 26th, 2005
This week The Couch Potato Report features a cinematic unfortunate series of events, a movie I am going to tell you very little about, and beaches.
My friends Chris and Debbie have two small children, Max and Ellie.
On my last visit to see them Debbie was kind enough to let Chris and I go out to a movie and bowling one afternoon while she watched the kids.
Due to their aforementioned children, Chris and Debbie don't get out to see movies much anymore. On the other hand, as I have no kids, I get to go all the time and I usually go and see films on the day that they open.
So, as Chris and I were trying to decide what film to go see we quickly realized that there was only one film that I hadn't seen.
As is his nature, he very graciously stated that we should go and see that one movie. Yes, there were films that I was willing to see again, but as he is a great guy, we went to see the one film I hadn't seen.
That film was LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, a movie based on the popular series of kid's books by Daniel Handler.
Kids books.
My friend Chris and I, both men in our mid to late thirties, went to see a film based on a series of kid's books.
And you know what, we both completely enjoyed the movie!
Yes, I really liked it!
I haven't read any of the books, and I have no plans to, but I am told the film LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is based on three of them.
After Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire's parents perish in a terrible fire, they are placed in the care of their uncle. Jim Carrey from DUMB & DUMBER and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND plays the Uncle, a mysterious actor named Count Olaf.
In reality, he may or may not be their Uncle, but -either way - he is plotting to kill them and seize their fortune.
Yes, it is a family film where one character is trying to kill the kids, but that is never the point. If he fails or succeeds is never the question. How entertaining is the film - that's the question.
And I have a one-word answer for you: Very.
It is very entertaining.
Billy Connolly, Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep all play supporting roles, but this is Count Olaf's film. He keeps appearing in the strangest of places and each one is more entertaining then the last.
And true to the movie's title, there are a series of unfortunate events.
The movie is a cross between THE ADDAMS FAMILY, some Dr. Suess and Roald Dahl books, with a little bit of Charles Dickens and Tim Burton thrown in for good measure.
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is a very entertaining family film that is even good for a pair of men in their mid to late thirties.
And I'll tell you one other thing; I will be buying a copy of this for Chris' kids. This way, the next time Chris and I see it, we can see it with its intended audience.
It is a great film, an was unexpected surprise.
Our second film this week was unexpected as well, because I didn't know anything about THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON before I started watching it, and I don't think you should either.
If I had known anything about it, then I would have known too much. By not knowing anything, the film had the chance to play out in front of me.
But, since my reason for speaking about THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON here on The Couch Potato Report is to tell you something about it, I will.
But I'm not saying much!
Sean Penn stars in this film as a man whose life - circa 1974 - has become unbearable. Since he is unable to take the blame for his own downward spiral, he chooses to blame the President.
And that is all I will say about the plot of the film.
No, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON is not a perfect film, and I can't fully recommend it as at times it is really slow and almost boring.
However, Sean Penn continues to be one of the best actors of this generation and every scene he is in is worth watching.
Yet even though I can't fully recommend it, if you would like to see an interesting character study about a man determined to leave his mark on the world, then you should see THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON.
And for the record, U.S. President Richard Nixon wasn't assassinated. He died on April 22, 1994 after suffering a stroke.
Enough said.
Hey, by the way, did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings.
Okay, well if I never told you that, I am sure sometime in late 1988 or early 1989 you heard Bette Midler's song "Wind Beneath My Wings" on the radio. The song came from her movie BEACHES, director Garry Marshall's touching drama about a 30-year friendship between two women, one wealthy, and the other seeking her fortune in show business.
Over the years BEACHES has remained a favourite amongst many friends of mine and they still find the movie touching and "worth a good cry."
For those friends, and you, if you are interested, there is now a BEACHES - SPECIAL EDITION DVD. There are no extra scenes as the film is great just as it is, but Gary Marshall offers his thoughts in a commentary, there is a blooper reel and some other features. Plus, if you haven't heard it enough already, the disc also features the "Wind Beneath My Wings" music video
I can't say I ever loved the film, but I did enjoy watching the movie again, and the extra features on the BEACHES - SPECIAL EDITION DVD.
It isn't the wind beneath my cinematic wings, but it is still a good movie.
BEACHES, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON and LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS are all available now on video and DVD.
COMING UP IN THE NEXT COUCH POTATO REPORT
Is the everything blows up real good film NATIONAL TREASURE, in which treasure seekers find a map written on the back of the American Declaration of Independence. Nicolas Cage, Sean Bean and Diane Kruger star in this really bad, but successful action film.
The POCAHONTAS - 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION is a look back on a film I wonder if anyone wants to look back on. In the animated Disney release a Powhatan maiden falls for English settler. Irene Bedard gives voice to the title character and Mel Gibson is the settler.
Finally next week is the film version of ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER'S THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. For the record, Lloyd Webber's name is actually part of the title. If you are unfamiliar with the incredibly successful stage version of this story, a masked figure falls in love with a singer he is tutoring. Gerard Butler is the cinematic Phantom and Emmy Rossum from MYSTIC RIVER is his student.
I'm Dan Reynish and I will have more on ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER'S THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, The POCAHONTAS -10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, NATIONAL TREASURE, and some other releases in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next week on The Couch!
New 'Batman Begins' Trailer Shows Superhero's Human Side
Summer's approaching, and you know what that means: leisurely picnics, lazy air-conditioned nights — and at least one incredibly dark, psychologically challenging and explosion-filled summer blockbuster.
"Batman Begins" is the fifth (or the sixth, if we count last year's execrable "Catwoman") installment in the big-screen franchise, and all indications are that this entry will be as much a journey into Bruce Wayne/Batman's psyche and his tortured past as it will be a high-budget, blow-'em-up thriller. In fact, the most recent trailer suggests that the film will explore Bruce Wayne's tragedy-filled past (the murder of his parents) and will also delve into his more amorous inclinations, particularly those having to do with old flame Rachel Dodson (Katie Holmes).
Most significantly, though, the film will chronicle how Wayne became Batman in the first place, traveling the globe in search of the means to fight evildoers and protect the weak and innocent.
With a cast that includes Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine and a host of other heavy hitters, chances are fair that the weighty subject matter will be handled with aplomb. But don't despair: Judging by the look of the new Hummerified Batmobile, for instance, there will be plenty of high-octane mayhem to keep the thespians and the audience on their collective toes.
Lucas: 'Star Wars' to Live on TV
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) The "Star Wars" movie saga is drawing to a close next month, but George Lucas says the universe he created may continue to expand on television.
Speaking at the biggest "Star Wars" convention ever held over the weekend, Lucas said he's approved the creation of two TV series to continue the franchise in the future.
"We're doing a pilot television series now called 'Clone Wars,'" Lucas told the audience at Celebration III, a huge "Star Wars" convention in Indianapolis. "Well, we're going to take that and turn it into a 3-D animated version full series."
The animated series will presumably pick up and expand the story of Cartoon Network's 2-D "Clone Wars" shorts, executive produced by Lucas and directed by "Samurai Jack" creator Genndy Tartakovsky.
The second project, Lucas says, will be a live-action series in the vein of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," which had a one-season run on ABC in the early 1990s. According to StarWars.com, Lucas says the show would take place in the time between the events of the forthcoming "Episode III" and the first "Star Wars" film, which follows "III" in the story's chronology.
"There's none of the main characters from I, II, and III ...," Lucas says, before pausing to correct himself. "Well, actually, that's not exactly true now that I think about it. We haven't really started the TV show, so it's hard to answer. There's a lot of issues that are connected, but you won't necessarily see a lot of the people that are connected."
Lucas expects work on the live-action series to begin in about a year. He says he'll be involved with getting the show off the ground before ceding day-to-day control to a showrunner.
"Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" opens in theaters on Thursday, May 19.
DualDisc breaks sound barrier
Springsteen's Devils & Dust arrives in stores today exclusively in the new DualDisc format — a single disc with CD on one side, DVD on the other. Devils' CD side is a traditional CD with 12 tracks, and the DVD has video of Springsteen talking about the music and performing five of the songs.
The booming DVD market is dominated by movies. But as CD sales have slipped in recent years, record labels have sought a way to make the visual medium work for musicians.
"There's nothing more powerful than the moving image," says Thomas Hesse, president of digital business for Sony BMG, which is releasing the Springsteen album. "You get more background flavor for what that artist stands for."
The two-sided hybrid — it can be played on either a DVD or CD player — is the latest effort to steer listeners away from free Internet downloads and back into stores. Springsteen is the biggest artist to release an album exclusively on DualDisc.
The format of offering audio on one side of a disc and video on the other side is less than a year old. The first DualDisc was Simple Plan's Still Not Getting Any from last October. Jennifer Lopez's Rebirth and Omarion's O were released as both CDs and DualDiscs this year, and about one-third of the sales were DualDiscs, according to Sony BMG, which also is releasing Springsteen's Devils & Dust.
"It's a huge vote of confidence from one of our biggest artists," says Pete Howard, editor and publisher of Ice Magazine, which covers music CD trends.
Just like movie DVDs, DualDiscs allow performers to record commentary that can play over the songs, discussing the writing, recording and ideas behind the lyrics.
"It gives the artists an ability to get a lot closer to the fans," says John Trickett, chairman and CEO of the 5.1 Entertainment Group, which has put out about 90 DualDiscs since October, many of them rereleases such as Lynyrd Skynyrd's Then and Now, Blues Traveler's Truth Be Told and Bob Marley & The Wailers' Soul Rebels.
Some DualDiscs include documentaries that explain the origins of the recordings, such as the recent DualDisc rerelease of Miles Davis' classic Kind of Blue.
Ice Magazine's Howard says that will motivate some buyers who want to hear directly from the artists about their work.
But "it only works for some artists," Howard says. "Bob Dylan has never explained how he wrote practically a single song. It could subtract from the mystique in a listener's imagination."
Springsteen's DVD also has a non-visual music track of the album that allows the songs to be played in 5.1 surround sound through a DVD player, enveloping the listener with sound.
"The artists really like that," Tricket says.
Devils & Dust retails for $18.98, about $1 more than music-only CDs. Many downloaders already have decided that cover art and CD packaging are worth sacrificing for free music, but they might have a harder time passing on the video.
"That, we hope, will drive people back to the store and away from taking a friend's purchased disc and just ripping it or going to the Web and stealing it," says Sony BMG's Hesse.
Howard says DualDisc "will be successful. But will it be successful enough to save the music business?"
Other upcoming titles to be released on DualDisc include:
Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth on May 3
Dave Matthews Band's Stand Up on May 10.
For another great story on DualDiscs go HERE
April 26th, New Tunage: Bruuuuuuce, New Order, Jo Dee Messina
Bruce Springsteen Devils and Dust (Columbia)
Bruce Springsteen's thirteenth studio album is, in many ways, his most conventional singer-songwriter record since his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Devils and Dust is twelve songs of assorted vintage and narrative setting, rendered with a subdued, mostly acoustic flair that smells of wood smoke and sparkles in the right places like stars in a clear Plains sky. There is no connected, redemptive urgency to these stories; this is not The Rising. And there is no E Street Band to turn Springsteen's trademark compulsion to save and be saved into fireball baptism: You get Steve Jordan on drums, producer Brendan O'Brien on bass and Springsteen on almost everything else, with his wife, singer Patti Scialfa, and E Street violinist Soozie Tyrell making brush-stroke appearances.
Yet Devils and Dust is, in striking and affecting ways, also Springsteen's most audacious record since the home-demo American Gothic of 1982's Nebraska. It opens with mortal sin -- the title song, a sand-caked letter home from a war where both sides kill in God's name -- and ends in death: "Matamoros Banks," a prayer for remembrance by an illegal immigrant who doesn't make it across the Rio Grande. With its tender fingerpicking, singing-wire curls of dobro and soft, billowing orchestration, "Reno" floats like a night breeze through an open bedroom window. But the sex inside is adulterous and graphic, and it costs: "'Two hundred dollars straight in/Two-fifty up the ass,' she smiled and said."
In the next song, "Long Time Comin'," Springsteen uses the word "fuck" for the first time on record, in the sense of swearing never to screw up again. There is no apology, though, in "The Hitter": A fallen boxer frankly recalls the brutality of a life in which a man is paid to all but murder other men for entertainment. Springsteen first played the song in his 1995-1997 solo acoustic shows; he sings it here with a vivid, craggy exhaustion. The knockout punch actually comes in the first verse -- the palooka is confessing to his mother. After that, it's all blood, shards of bone and universal guilt: "Understand, in the end, Ma, every man plays the game/If you know one different, then speak out his name."
"The Hitter" is one of several songs on Devils and Dust that Springsteen wrote almost a decade ago, in a concentrated burst of inspiration as he toured behind the spectral-country song cycle, 1995's The Ghost of Tom Joad. He reprises the dust-bowl topography and marooned spirits of that album with moving results. In "Long Time Comin'," a rustic sprint lit with square-dance fiddle and pearly steel guitar, a father prays for his children as the family sleeps rough, under "the sword of Orion": "If I had one wish in this Godforsaken world, kids/It'd be that your mistakes would be your own."
But Devils and Dust is also as immediate and troubling as this morning's paper. These people are our neighbors, and these worries are Springsteen's, too. He wrote the title song in 2003, after the start of the Iraq War, and it shows. His cracked, vocal agony when he looks his God in the eye ("I've got my finger on the trigger/And tonight faith just ain't enough") is as old as Stephen Crane and as fresh as Fallujah. "All the Way Home," in contrast, is much older than it seems, predating Springsteen's plunge into party politics last fall with the Vote for Change Tour. But he steps into the first lines -- "I know what it's like to have failed, baby/With the whole world lookin' on" -- with the grizzled force of experience. The specific echoes of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man" -- the bees-army buzz of sitar and tamboura coating the rolling twang -- are no accident either.
There are times, like Springsteen's outbreak of whispered falsetto in the campfire rockabilly of "All I'm Thinkin' About," when you can't help waiting for the E Street payoff that never comes. But many of Springsteen's best songs, going back to "Born to Run," are about the salvation just out of reach, around the next curve and over the next hill -- and what it takes to get there. The rewards are often slender here, when they come at all. Still, the promise never fades. "These days I don't stand on pride/And I ain't afraid to take a fall," Springsteen sings with gravelly swagger in "All the Way Home" -- like a guy already back on his feet. (DAVID FRICKE)
New Order Waiting for the Sirens' Call (Reprise)
New Order have nothing to regret. If they'd broken up when Ian Curtis died, they'd still be remembered as Joy Division. If they'd broken up after the 1982 single "Temptation," they'd be remembered for the most achingly emotional seven-and-a-half-minute New Wave disco twelve-inch of all time. If they'd broken up after Low-life, in 1985, they'd be remembered for the most influential electro-vampire post-punk limp-wristed goth-twit album of the Eighties. But they didn't break up. They just keep making brilliant new records and inspiring brilliant new bands, such as the Killers, Bloc Party and Interpol. They took a break in the 1990s, cleansing their systems of toxic chemicals and even fuglier side projects. (Revenge? Electronic? Monaco? Jesus!) If their 2001 Get Ready was a toe-dip return, Waiting for the Sirens' Call is their best since Technique, taking the "Blue Monday" beat into new wacked-out realms.
Bernard Sumner still sings and strums with his boyish air of distractable pique, and he writes some of the most genius crap lyrics around ("The world is a beautiful place/With mountains, lakes and the human race"). His secret is his sincerity, the way he whoops and yelps through blood-curdling poetry that a more clever singer would shame himself trying to play straight. But he'd be nowhere without Peter Hook, the Keith Richards of the bass, and drummer/pinup boy Stephen Morris. They outdo themselves with the sleek pop uplift of "Krafty," the robot clank of "I Told You So," the moody shimmer of "Turn" and the towering title track. Every song is great, except the one called "Dracula's Castle." What more could a fan ask? (ROB SHEFFIELD)
Jo Dee Messina Delicious Surprise (Curb)
The challenge for many mainstream country artists? Coming across as a rebel shit-stirrer even as you play by a strict set of musical and career rules -- rules that constrain Nashville divas more tightly than anyone else. Bouncing back from a painful breakup -- as well as her record company's shelving of her fourth album in favor of a 2003 hits collection -- Jo Dee Messina delivers a can't-fail reconfiguration of that lost disc. Recalling Shania Twain at her feistiest, the lead single, "My Give a Damn's Busted," zaps guys in their most vulnerable place -- the one that requires that women care about guys' problems. The Massachusetts-born, Nashville-based singer proves she cares plenty after all on rockers and ballads that exude positive thinking and post-relationship remorse. Unfortunately, her studio-scrubbed packaging often undermines her exuberant sincerity, particularly on "I Believe It," which glibly recycles large chunks of "Sweet Home Alabama" for no apparent reason beyond ensuring another smash. With a few exceptions, Delicious Surprise tastes as predictable as lunch at Arby's. (BARRY WALTERS)
From ROLLING STONE magazine.