Despite the photographic presence of an acoustic guitar (the rock & roll equivalent of a rubber bullet), the enviably lovely hair and the unassuming knitwear, Sheryl Crow is staring back at us from the cover of The Very Best Of with her chin resting on a fist clenched tightly with white-knuckled defiance. This is, after all, the girl whose wishful thinking led her to sing "All I wanna do is have some fun" while privately preferring to either curl up in bed for a very long time or roll over and die (she's recently come out of the closet with regards to her longstanding battles with depression).Yes, she's earned herself an armful of Grammys and has been damned with faint praise, but if you go easy on the relatively troublesome second half of Sheryl Crow's 10-year solo career (the poppy optimism of songs like "C'mon C'mon" and "Soak Up the Sun" seems strained), then this decade-acknowledging resumé serves as a reminder of her narrative talents for summarising the pitfalls of burdensome workloads ("Everyday Is a Winding Road") and problematic squeezes ("My Favorite Mistake") within an MTV-friendly pop framework. --Kevin Maidment
Thematically, Detours may not seem like much of a detour to Sheryl Crow fans. Her politics pour out of these songs the way you might expect them to if you caught wind of her epic cross-country bus trip, with the activist Laurie David, to promote environmental awareness months prior to this release. From the quiet, faraway-sounding opener "God Bless This Mess"--a novel in a song--to the catchy but thought-provoking "Gasoline," it's clear that Crow has more on her mind these days than soaking up the sun or having a little fun, à la the Tuesday Night Music Club era. Yet there's not a groan-worthy song on this standout rock/pop/folk/blues album. If the themes are heavy (in addition to the political songs, there's an almost painfully tender lullaby for her son Wyatt and one, "Make It Go Away [Radiation Song]," that touches on her breast-cancer experience), the mood is cathartic, determined, hopeful at times and sad at others. "Now That You're Gone" grabs at clarity through the clouds of a devastating love affair and gets it, and "Peace Be Upon Us" picks apart pettiness and arrives at a wide-minded beauty. George Harrison seems present in some of these songs, especially the more personal ones ("Drunk with the Thought of You," "Love Is All There Is"). And that may be the highest compliment that Sheryl Crow, who seems to admire his gentle soul and shares his big heart, could ask for. --Tammy La Gorce
