While alternative rockers such as Jewel are making forays into the Fresh Country market, ostensibly country performers like Shelby Lynne are preoccupied with blurring distinctions in the other direction. Lynne has positioned herself as quite the iconoclast, and in this successor to I AM SHELBY LYNNE, which was the first album in what is really the second act of a career that stretches back to the late 1980s, she further distances herself from her initial genre.
Aided by Alanis Morissette producer Glen Ballard, Lynne has come up with a diamond-hard pop nugget that's a world away from the faux-alternative country of its predecessor. With "Bend" she's in pop R&B territory, while "Jesus on a Greyhound" ploughs a "Me and Bobby McGhee" furrow, and "Tarpoleon Napoleon" recalls the torchiness of none other than k.d. lang. With the inclusion of a funky, drum-looped version of John Lennon's "Mother" as a kind of psychological finale, LOVE, SHELBY is a snapshot of an intelligent, eclectic artist in transition, making great music along the way.