Teenager
"Clichés come so easily," Jane Siberry croons on her new album, and she immediately proves her point by singing, "Your tears run through me again and again." The album, "Teenager," is the first to be released on Siberry's own label, and it takes its title from the fact that it contains 13 of the first songs she wrote as an adolescent. As one might expect, many of these songs reflect the self-absorbed angst, portentous symbolism and solipsistic philosophy of most teenage writing. And without the art-rock arrangements that have driven her major-label releases, the limitations of Siberry's voice and melody-writing become painfully apparent. Nonetheless, there are glimmerings of the lyric-writing talent that would later make Siberry's reputation.--Geoffrey Himes