This is another one Moby found a while back, one of many great finds that I probably would never have made if not for the internet. I was again searching against the 10,000 Maniacs’ song ‘Gun Shy’ (off of their In My Tribe album) on Pandora when ‘For Wowser’ started playing…and I knew within the first few bars we had a winner.
Key of A Minor was released on Hollywood Records on April 18, 2000, and in my opinion is a really good pop album. It contains the single ‘Even Angels Fall’, from the soundtrack to the film ‘10 Things I Hate About You‘, and it helped Jessica gain some popularity for a time. She even had spreads in Maxim and FHM, which one is sure caught a few eyes at the time.
Though she was only 19 years old when the album was recorded and released, it has been noted in many reviews online that the topics in her songs and her delivery of them are well beyond what you would expect from ‘a minor’.
You’re the water in the desert, You’re the island in the sea.
You’re the flower in the snow, That grows strong and free.
You’re the power of the moonlight, knowing silently.
And you’re all the magic that’s been missing in me.
– from ‘For Wowser’ by Jessica Riddle
It is sad to say that she had only one full album to follow, 2003’s Chapter 2 (as Jessica Jacobs). It had a pretty decent single, ‘Gravity’, but is not nearly as great as her debut, unfortunately.
The first song from the album I heard, ‘For Wowser’, is about a girl who is “sixteen and the queen of high-school land”. It had a couple of the things I like to hear in songs by female singer-songwriters; basically, I usually enjoy a good piano part and a tempo that moves at least a little, not plodding and melancholic like so much indie music you hear. I could not locate a streaming sample, but the song has been uploaded to YouTube, so here is ‘For Wowser’:
Not too bad, eh?
There’s a few really good songs on the album and it’s likely you might have heard some of them. But the other song from Key of A Minor I wanted to mention is a cover of the Replacements‘ ‘Sadly Beautiful’. What I really like was the pace of the song, it’s very upbeat. But also the bass line is played in a higher octave than one normally hears, adding to the melody (or whats-it-called). Take a listen:
Again, not bad, eh? As I mentioned before, to date there has been only one follow up album, though some newer songs are available to hear on Jessica’s MySpace page, and she has a few videos on her YouTube channel as well. Her twitter account has been silent for almost a year now, as has her Facebook page. From the last posts Jessica made on social media, it seems she still likes to play live, but has started working for an airline as a stewardess to pay the bills.
Moby hopes more people will discover this and the other albums mentioned in these “For Your Ears…” posts. And Jessica, if your out there, you still have fans who would like to hear more from you. Hopefully, one day, there’ll be a third album for Moby to blog about.
