Within the liner notes to her fourth album, 0304, Jewel includes a note to her fans, explaining, "This album may seem different to you," which is putting it mildly. For a singer who has been making low-key singer/songwriter albums so unassuming that on her debut the two singles had to be re-recorded for mass consumption, it is a big shock to put on 0304 and hear that she has abandoned folkiness and adult pop to make her dance-pop album, of all things. A move that's even more shocking when you consider that when this was released in June of 2003, the teen-driven dance-pop boom of the late '90s/early 2000s was over, so it doesn't necessarily even sound like part of the mainstream of the time, suggesting that this isn't a calculated effort to ride the latest hip trends. No, the music on 0304 is the wild, weird result of Jewel's desire to create a "modern interpretation of big band music. A record that (is) lyric-driven, like Cole Porter stuff, that also has a lot of swing...that combined dance, urban, and folk music." While the big band and Cole Porter allusions are a stretch -- although it is true that this is as lyric-driven as her previous three records -- with the assistance of producer Lester Mendez, she has managed to blend dance, urban, and folk -- complete with pop overtones, of course -- in previously unimaginable ways. Like Sheryl Crow's eponymous second album, this picks up familiar strands of contemporary pop music and familiar themes in Jewel's own work, but the way they're assembled is disarmingly idiosyncratic -- it has a polished, commercial sheen, but the songs take weird twists and turns in their arrangements, structure, and lyrics (another thing this shares with Sheryl Crow is a predilection for odd pop-culture references and name-dropping). More than anything, it's the weird juxtapositions in the production -- the accordions and dance beats on "Intuition"; the way her protest tune, "America," ends in an electro-crash; the muted jazz trumpets on her Nelly Furtado-styled "Leave the Lights On," to name just a few -- that make this an original-sounding album, something with more imagination than the average dance-pop record. Better still, it sounds more authentic (and boasts a better set of songs) than her previous records, which were either too ramshackle or too self-serious and doggedly somber to really reveal much character. Here, even if it's under the veneer of commercial pop, she puts herself out on the line more than she ever has, and she's come up with her best record, with her best set of songs and best music yet. As she notes in her message to fans, "It's the first record I enjoy listening to. It's fun!" She's completely right on that note -- against all, it's the first album of hers that's a sheer pleasure to hear.

The video of Jewel's new single "Intuition" contains a shockingly clever TRL parody in which one teen exclaims, "Jewel's music sounds much better now that she's dancing!" It's a joke, of course, but the Alaskan-raised folkie's music does sound better now that she's Madonna. Reinventing herself with sleek studio effects, plastic dance-rock hooks and pop-art irony is a major move for an icon of the unironic. Helmed by co-writer and producer Lester Mendez (whose credits include Shakira and Enrique Iglesias), 0304 is essentially a wanna-be version of Madonna's American Life. It even has its own State of the Union song, "America," with lyrics such as "We shed blood in the name of liberty." Even when she seems stiff and silly waxing lyrical about hot pants and bumpin' boots, Jewel is surrounded by pop of such undeniable catchiness that her fakeness somehow fits: She's found herself an artificial flavor that tastes good.

Why pick on a girl for taking a chance? After experiencing flagging sales, Jewel has become proactive and given herself a cosmetic and artistic makeover. But 0304 isn't the winsome thrush's first leap into the unknown. Hiring Shakira producer Lester A. Mendez to give her solemn, folksy songs a pop sheen and some dance beats isn't as radical as starring as a Civil War widow in an Ang Lee film. Besides it's a lot more interesting to hear her squeeze her chaste, malleable soprano around an accordion solo in the futuristic namedropping fable "Intuition" or her voice a beat-driven condemnation of the George W. Bush regime on "America" to see her sashaying on the silver screen in those tight bodices and hoop skirts. Although she has changed the very structure and sound of her songs, Jewel's undeniable talent shines through. She still has a way with words and her voice is remains as pure as an Alaskan stream.

Just cash in, Jewel whispers early on in 0304. The lyric begs to be cast as the rationale for the former van dweller's entire album, awash as it is in suburban-dance-club beats (courtesy of Shakira producer Lester Mendez), ingratiating choruses, and alphanumeric titles (e.g., 2 Find U). But unlike, say, Liz Phair, Jewel has no real roots to betray. Since 1995's intermittently charming pseudo-folk debut, Pieces of You, her discs have been notable mainly for teeth-grindingly didactic lyrics (Only kindness matters) and the absence of a signature sound.

Sellout move or not, 0304's unexpected dance-pop vibrancy makes it Jewel's best album -- or, for detractors, her least unbearable. The perkiest tracks, like the life-is-a-highway anthem Doin' Fine, are the best ones, even when they leave the singer in danger of sounding like Stepford Jewel: Life's a breeze for people like you and me, she chirps, possibly without irony.

But Jewel still hasn't figured out what she wants to be; the soul singer on the Purple Rain-like tune Haunted sounds like a different person from the Debbie Harry-style rapper on U & Me = Love. In the end, she offers herself as a work in progress, singing I am not yet born. To which we say, Hurry up.

In an unexpected move, alt-folkie Jewel has traded in her image as a sensitive singer-songwriter in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin for a racier one more befitting teen pop tarts Britney and Christina. In addition to giving herself a slick, neon-doused makeover, the Alaskan chanteuse has teamed up with Shakira producer Lester Mendez, who pumps up the grooves in her songs and injects them with quirky nuances, such as the French accordion and zippy strings on the beat-driven single "Intuition" or the muted trumpet threaded throughout the noir-ish grooves of "Leave the Lights On." Surprisingly, the musical diversions suit Jewel, who brings sharp lyrical sensibilities to a genre normally not known for them. Amid the swirling keyboards and driving tempo of "America," she embraces the land of the free while questioning its populace's fascination with shallow pop-culture icons such as the Osbournes and Anna Nicole Smith, and on the ethereal "Haunted," she looks at life from the perspective of a stalker. Likewise, Jewel succeeds when she takes a crack at the Cure-like "Sweet Temptation" or material like the kitschy '60s pop of "U & Me = Love," with its sitar-like guitar runs and doo-wop harmonies. Her creative risk could have culminated in career suicide; instead, with 0304, Jewel Kilcher has created a gem of an album.