Melissa Etheridge is the queen of passionate American rock, in which she invokes the great love raw and unbridled with a 'now or never' feeling. This musical pattern and passion were cruelly disrupted when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the beginning of this century. The battle for love thus became a battle for life and she sang this, after a happy ending, openly and with religious undertones
… on her penultimate album The Awakening. Fortunately she is now completely the same on Fearless Love: 'I want fearless love. I won't settle for anything less'. Her voice is pleading, placating and furious in a solid repertoire that can be used to reach the farthest corners of a stadium. The strength of Melissa Etheridge is that she knows how to get every word through. She means it! And with that she transcends the flat stadium rock of colleagues such as Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi and Fearless Love stamps as thorough as it is meaningful from the speakers. (MR)more
