Music » Singer-Songwriter Pop Music

Release Date: 1996-05-07, Audio CD, Polydor / Umgd

"So I'm a little left of center, I'm a little out of tune," sings Michelle Branch on her debut album's "You Get Me." Well, maybe. Branch offers a well-produced pastiche of chiming and strumming guitars, hip-hop-lite beats, quiet-verse-to-louder-chorus templates, and positive thinking. At her best--"If She Only Knew," a propulsive love note to an ex--she rivals the likes of Sixpence None the Richer as likable radio-aimed fare. Catchy and self-expressive while breaking absolutely no ground, Branch also echoes everyone from label-mate Alanis Morissette to the solo Belinda Carlisle. She dies just a little in this crazy mixed-up world, escapes to her secret garden for sunshine in the pouring rain, and ultimately finds her reflection getting clearer. The Spirit Room could be the next bit of pop philosophy to dazzle mainstream audiences. --Rickey Wright

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007.

Release Date: 2001-08-14, Audio CD, A&M

This sorta folky, sorta bluesy, totally rockin' San Francisco quartet lives up to it's critical acclaim and then some. Linda Perry's pyrotechnics on "Morphine and Chocolate" would give Robert Plant pause. Jeff Bateman

Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing includes one 'hidden 'bonus track. Universal. 2008.

Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing. Universal. 2008.

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Five for Fighting is actually just one guy with a rather substantial chip on his shoulder who's taken his name from the amount of time a hockey player spends in the penalty box for fighting. Los Angeles native and erstwhile prodigy John Ondrasik really knows his way around a melody, bolstering it with a dramatic sense of timing and rhythm like a more modern and hipper Elton John. And that defiant chip does makes for powerful poetry, although oftentimes he sacrifices logic and clarity for the sake of iambic pentameter. While "Superman" is a catchy affair about the restrictions of being superhuman and the desire to belong ("I'm only a man in a silly red sheet looking for special things inside me"), it's doubtful that anyone who ever read a DC comic would believe that Superman would ever be "digging for kryptonite on this one-way street," since a loose fragment from Superman's home planet might turn him into a blubbering infant or a giant ant. At best, Five for Fighting follows in the narrative-based path paved by Counting Crows. --Jaan Uhelszki

Release Date: 1995-02-28, Audio CD, Island