With all the bad publicity Jewel gets (this site included) I felt someone had to stand up for her.   Someone had to get in there and say what for and put her on a pedestal.   What better person than an Irish hippy with a somewhat obsessed nature in the Jewel community, who has flare for getting in the last word?   So I stepped into this role willingly knowing the honour I would hold just being in the presence of the Intrepid Prez himself.

In all honesty, Jewel has been cut a bad deal on this site and in general.   I wanted to make it clear than there is some light at the end of the ASPCJ tunnel and Jewel does have friendly fans in this world.

With that I bring you my contribution to bringing back the positive press that Jewel so obviously deserves (and let's face it, deeds).   I was elated with ecstatic joyfulness when the Intrepid President, himself (honest) asked little ol' me to begin the road to generating the balance of Jewel critique.

So I bring you, my review. Enjoy.

I was 13 when I first heard those wonderful catchy notes and simple but poetic lyrics of 'You Were Meant For Me'. I fell in love with her music instantly and made it my priority (there aren't many priorities in life when you're 13) to hunt down that album.

Being a kid in Ireland can be very frustrating when the time comes to buying music away from mainstream, at least it was in 1994. I saved my very small pay pack and hopped on the bus to the city centre. With excitement and trepidation, I finally tracked down my gold. It cost much more than the average album and would take all of my money leaving just enough to get back home. Would I do it? Could I not wait another week to save up for it? No, I had to have it. Her voice captured me to addictively that I needed the fix that made me feel I wasn�t alone in the world, someone else out there does feel and write about the same things I do. And hey, she's cool, she plays the guitar, like me. She dresses in that folksy, hippy, grungy kind of way, like me. Acceptance at last! And wow, a poet, just like me she was instantly my idol.

Jewel has proven to be an eclectic enigma. There is really no one else like her. No one else has her story, her background, her experience. This was the first musical artist that we had seen with the ability to apply their voice to so many genres of music and sound like their voice was made for it. Well, at least since Prince that is.

She is capricious, beautiful and multitalented. At any time, if the love of making music escaped her, she stopped, hence the long wait between Spirit and This Way. During this time Jewel was able to grow and reflect on times pass, think of the future, write and create and care.

It gave me the inspiration to be just as liberated with my own poetry and not feel ashamed for it. What a positive response to what her poetry portrayed not necessarily for its words or meaning. I am not the person to decide if Jewel writes good poetry or not and I don't think anyone is. It is an expression that poets understand. It is like a journal that maps our lives and our feelings and events that shape our futures and our opinions.

Jewel hasn't sold out. She has merely expressed a different side of her. Can she not change her style and taste to suit herself? If not, why not?

I ask you these questions in the hope that you will either support me in my challenge to bring back the acclaim Jewel so deserves. However, if you do not agree with what I have said here, I challenge you to a Dual of Jewel!

Bring it on!