Sheryl Crow stopped by on a new episode of Q with Tom Power to discuss her new album, including her thoughts on AI music and support of Olivia Rodrigo.
LISTEN NOW: Q with Tom Power | Sheryl Crow: How AI is crushing the spirit of music, her new album Evolution, and speaking up through song
Despite believing she would never release another album, Sheryl Crow has found herself promoting a new LP titled Evolution on the latest podcast episode of Q with Tom Power. The 9-time GRAMMY winner told host Power that her 9-track album was more-or-less created by accident, and out of her own fears. “It was the morning that I saw on social media that the Beatles were using AI to bring back John Lennon,” she began, before admitting that she found the concept “horrific.”
“You know, it terrifies me that artists can be brought back from the dead.”
Her greatest fear is not only the use of an artist's voice without their permission but that a need for perfection will erase the artistic “spirit” of the music itself and art’s “need for humanity.” Thus, she began writing the title song “Evolution” from which the remainder of the new album stems. And Crow wastes no time advocating for her art, with perhaps the most pointed and powerful lyric of the song being: “No matter how well you can outdo me / There is one thing you will never do and it's feel.”
“At a time when, already, the truth is so up for grabs, with algorithms feeding us what we already think and villainizing the other side, I feel like art is our only safe haven,” Crow said of her AI worries. “Art is the thing that throughout history has documented who we are at any moment in our evolution as a brain-oriented society, a spirit-driven society. And yet now we're challenging that.”
“I'm waiting to see if the best of us will rise up and say this cannot be, because our kids need to understand that truth is truth. There is a truth. And the rest of it is non-truth. How do we help them navigate that?”
“The record is not a downer! I promise!” Crow jokes, with the reassurance of Tom Power quickly following.
No, the record is not a downer. Rather, Crow lovingly calls it just “a bunch of songs” that she felt compelled to write into a series. And though she’s said it before, Crow believes this will truly be her last full album. She told the podcast that she found it “counterintuitive” to make an album as a full statement piece when streaming is more about individual songs. “I also love the idea now of just being able to put out a song and not have to wait for a whole album's worth of work to follow it,” she said. And that may just work out better for Crow in the long run, as she also noted that she “feels like writing all the time now. I feel like my best work is happening now. I’m gonna keep doing it whether anybody hears it or not. It’s the only thing I know how to do. And for me, it’s my antidepressant.”
“So this is it. This is the last Sheryl Crow LP?” Power asked point-blank. “I think it will be,” she replied. “Never say never, but you know, I think it might be.”
In this way, Crow will still make music, just not in the same format. “It's not a sad thing,” she clarified. “I love making records. I've loved producing my records. I've loved producing other people.”
Other people like Olivia Rodrigo, perhaps? The up-and-coming pop star performed alongside Crow for her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction last year, and Crow has been an outspoken supporter of Rodrigo ever since. “It’s funny, the more I’ve gotten to know her, the more I’ve even liked her music,” Crow said. Yet as host Power pointed out the similarities between the two artists’ launch into mainstream music, Crow said she may not have the most groundbreaking advice. “I’ll be honest with you, the kind of machine that she has to navigate -- it’s mine on steroids,” she said, citing the rise of social media and artist marketing.
“The only advice I said to her was, ‘Stay out of the reviews.’ Because that for me, after my second record, was something that, for my own mental health, I really needed to just shut that down. You can’t tell someone to stay out of social media… but we did talk about it. That was my advice to her - don’t take any of it too seriously, stay in the work. ‘Cause the work is what is gratifying.”
To hear more of Sheryl Crow’s and Tom Power’s extensive conversation, check out the podcast episode above and on the free Audacy app.