Wildflower (2005)

Whether she's pondering the afterlife in ''Letter to God'' or blandly wondering ''Where Has All the Love Gone,'' Sheryl Crow clearly wants Wildflower to be a bit more somber and reflective than her recent, interchangeable albums. But while there's no denying the craft in the yearning ''I Don't Wanna Know'' or the sternly devotional ''Lifetimes,'' her fondness for overblown L.A.-rock clichés undercuts the intimacy she's after; the music sounds homogenized. Crow has become like my General Electric oven: dependable, reliable, and not very exciting.