  This is where it begins for me. I saw Jump, Little Children for the first time in October of 1995.
And I became obsessed. In the psychological manic depressive sense of the word. And I dropped out of school and moved to the Atlantic coast and everything. This was a capital O Obsession. And it was mostly because of this album. And what can I say about this album? I do happen to know it pretty well. From Jay Clifford's sexy voice to Ward Williams' now missing falsetto.
The blend of pop and folk caught me square in the chest. And they had a cello! And I just happened to have had a crush on the head cello player in my youth symphony. it was a melding of a lot of things. But this is a pretty good record. Rough in some places, and early, but you can tell that there's talent here and if not anything new, than at least a fresh look at some things that don't totally suck.
A lot of energy. Now that I'm listening to the album again, for the first time in a good while I hear different things. I actually like different things. I prefer the melancholy wistfulness of "Matchbox Whistler" to the sunny danceableness (? ) of "Smiling Down. " Will the older and wiser Jenny still fall for the emotional pandering that is "Quiet"? It's a great song, but not unsimilar to your "Meet Virginia" and your basic Ellis Paul anything. Though, I still believe that "Quiet" has the greatest cello solo in all of popular music. There I've said it.
An interesting thing is happening as I'm relistening to the album. I'm bored with it. In my musical odyssey, I learned a lot about what goes into an album, and I realized I am girl who loves production quality. And this album has very little of it. The sound starts about three feet behind the front of your speaker and just sounds kind of weak. As opposed to the lush, big room sound of your Daniel Lanois for instance. Which means that this album gets by on it's merits, not production quality, but it just makes me think of what this album would have been with a budget.
But alternate realities are another blog. But I still do fall for the emotional pandering of "quiet," in case you wondered. (By emotional pandering, I mean, songs that make you feel special cause you're just like the girl in the song, until you realize that your mortal nemesis feels the same way about the song, and you could not be less like her, and so now, whenever you hear the formerly special song, you just feel cheap and tawdry.
But maybe I'm investing too much into that. ) And what does my darling daughter think of this the album that changed my life? She's fallen asleep. Sigh. 
