Jonatha Brooke – Back In The Circus

One of the great mysteries of modern popular music is the ongoing obscurity of Jonatha Brooke, who ought to be close to a household name by now. She made exactly the right record at exactly the right time — 1997’s 10 Cent Wings, released the same year Lilith Fair made her brand of classy female-centric folk-pop all the rage — and found herself bounced from the major-label ranks for her trouble.

Somewhere betwixt Sarah McLachlan, the Indigo Girls and Shawn Colvin, there should be a place for Brooke, especially since she’s got more pop sense than most of the Lilith Fair types put together. Alas, Back In The Circus is not likely to reverse her luck, and Brooke sounds resigned to her fate. “I’m back in the circus,” she sighs wearily on the title track, over a mournful-sounding accordion. “Backed up against the wall, and nothing’s quite what I thought.”

Brooke is skilled as ever at taking romantic trauma and making it catchy, especially on “Better After All”, a bit of effortless ear candy on which she sort of admits that heartbreak is good for her songwriting (hence the title). The album does run out of gas toward the end, with one too many covers; her pass at James Taylor’s “Fire And Rain” is proof positive that the more iconic the song, the more you should just leave it alone.

But overall, Back In The Circus begs the question: What if you made a hit record, and nobody came?