[1999] Jennifer Brown - Vera

Title: Vera Artist: Jennifer Brown Audio CD: 1999 Number of Discs: 1 Genre: R&B Format: flac Track Listing: 01. Tuesday Afternoon 02. Two in the Morning 03. Walls 04. Paper Crown 05. Alive 06. Nobody Knows Me Like You Do 07. Naked (When I Take off All My Clothes) 08. Chico (Painted Hands) 09. Trembling 10. Rose Colored Glasses 11. Past Life 12. Daddy's Gone Artist Direct Review: Jennifer Brown releases VERA, her third album on BMG. The 25 year-old artist steps out and to the left of her previous releases on a multitude of levels. Writing every song on the album (unlike her past records) and even co-producing a track (Daddy's Gone), Brown delivers in full-measure, bringing forth a more mature, confident and relaxed presence to each song. With VERA, she has branched out and developed in a way that any bored pop artist would dream of: to not take yourself too seriously and just be real. VERA is a diverse collection of attention-grabbing songs written by Brown and propped by the album's production: an unusual collage of Hip-Hop and slow Jungle loops, electric T-Wah, live strings (arranged by Stockholm's Janson & Janson Brothers), acoustic guitars, DJ scratches, and a vocal performance that penetrates to goose-bump proportions. This is 21st century pop. Produced by young Philadelphia song-writer Billy Mann (Chaka Khan, Carole King, Celine Dion, Diana King, Az Yet and Boyzone), VERA pulls together a unitarian co-operative of musical genres that subtly blend folk story-telling with 70's soul, contemporary hip-hop/R&B; with alternative rock chord structures and employs a fresh lyrical standard as the thread to stitch this album. All this with absolute pop accessibility. What is most striking is the open vulnerability in Jennifer Brown's voice both as lyricist and vocalist — as performer and woman. On her previous releases, you would almost exclusively find the lyrical content to be predictably about love. VERA dives much deeper into an incredibly honest and risk-taking place in the re-born Brown's life. The first single, "Tuesday Afternoon", confidently reveals the details of a young girl whose irresponsible hunger for the wrong kind of love through sex and drugs leads her into the Mission Room Bar only to be lured into the bed of a barfly ruffneck, and is narrated by Brown as her concerned phone confidant. Does this sound like the Jennifer Brown we once knew? Which leads to the next questionà. did we ever really know Jennifer Brown, or are we meeting her for the first time? A poignant question, especially when you consider on this album SHE is the one writing all the songs, not to mention that all the songs are hooky, above-board pop songs that don't talk down to the listener but rather engages them like a folk singer. If Maxwell and Jewel could have a child, who knowsààà VERA holds the key to another dimension of Jennifer Brown. Reflected in the range of issues each song deals with and in their lyrical depth, this is a side we've not seen before. Highlights include "Alive", a stunning tribute to the gifts of freedom and life, the questioning "Chico (Painted Hands)" that deliberates on the judgements made against a drag-queen and "Paper Crown", which tells the story of a former cheating lover who then acts like a victim. The fear of intimacy is expressed in the "Walls" we hide behind, and the sad state of single-life in the 90's is examined in the uplifting "Rose Coloured Glasses". The power of the vulnerability Jennifer has dared to step forward with on VERA is evident in songs such as "Daddy's Gone" which bears witness to the legacy of an absent father, and a woman's fear of marriage, unearthed in "Trembling". For those who have often wondered what lies inside the soul of Jennifer Brown, here she stands. With VERA she has come out on her own terms, willing to answer only to herself

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