Here is another artist whose music I never was a fan of, Melissa Etheridge. Radio overkill on her singles and the constant labelling by critics really turned me off to Melissa's music to be painfully honest. What changed my mind? I just started reading her book after I read a segment of it in Rolling Stone and from there my interest in Melissa Etheridge and her new album "Skin" snowballed from there. After hearing "I Want to Be In Love" on the radio, that is all that convinced me 100% completely to buy her new album when it would come out.

After having listened to "Skin" three times today, I find myself amazed by what I have heard on this cd. The lyrics delves deep into Melissa's emotions as she was going through her painful breakful with her partner. I love how songs like "The Prison" and "Please Forgive Me" captured Melissa's emotions perfectly. I heard a yearning for true love in Melissa's voice in "I Want to Be In Love", and the song makes me want her to be in love again. Angst and sorrow is written all over "Lover Please" and "Down to One", and so well written too.

I love "Skin". Next to Lucinda Williams' "Essence" and Dar Williams' "The Green World", "Skin" is one of the best introspective albums I have heard in years. "Skin" may be short but it leaves the listener breathless and captivated, and wanting more. Truly a wonderful piece of art.

"Skin," Melissa Etheridge's seventh CD, like all her music, comes from deep within and is the refashioning of failed love into songs that will touch everyone who has wondered if it really is "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." For any still wondering, Melissa's answer is a life affirming "Yes."

I admit that I am a maniacal, ballistic Melissa Etheridge fan. Five of her albums, including this one, give me decidophobia each time I must choose one to play; they're all that good. If there's divine providence, Melissa Etheridge is God's gift to blues/rock after Janis Joplin left us thirty years ago. The woman sings her heart and soul out with American abandon and French "love hurts" pathos.

"Skin" is an apt title for an album so emotionally naked as this one. Melissa says it's "about shedding old skin. It's about new skin. It's about life." At first hearing, "Skin" seems downright embarrassing, an act of masochistic exhibitionism springing from the heartbreak of her failed long-term relationship with filmmaker Julie Cipher. Her fans are used to the scratching and crawling and screaming, the longing and aching and pleading ("To hell with the consequence"), but this recording is so personal that it would be depressing if it didn't turn its heartbreak into hope with a triumph of spirit and a determination that saves it from being maudlin.

All the stages of failed romance are here. The shock ("Lover Please"), grief ("The Prison"), guilt ("Walking on Water"), withdrawal ("Down to One"), and denial ("It's Only Me") give way to sheer will born of need to love again ("I Want to be in Love"), and by the albums end we know that there is life-even love-after love, and that like Janis ("Honey, ain't nobody gonna dog me down"), Melissa's "Heal Me" moves from "For a moment there I just gave up trying" to "I am a witness to my resurrection" and finally to "My battered heart will make a new start/Let everyone know I'll be coming home again." As Rolling Stone observed, "Skin" is cathartic and redemptive.

"Skin" is Etheridge's most technically innovative release to date. Not only is she an extraordinarily gifted singer and writer (she wrote all the songs), but on this studio album she played all the keyboards, harmonicas, and guitars. On "Lover Please," the opening track, her electric guitar articulates "This one's gonna hurt like hell," almost as clearly as a human voice. Six drum cuts by Kenny Arnoff and nine bass tracks featuring Mark Browne were laid down and mixed after her solo performance. There was no band, but you'd swear otherwise.

Buy this album and be amazed by the music and humanity of her hurting, haunting, hunting, and healing. Then, like me, try to decide what to play next time-"Melissa Etheridge"? Or "Yes, I Am"? Or "Your Little Secret"? Or "Breakdown"? Or "Skin"? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

I have always been one for deep and meaningful music. I have always enjoyed Melissa Etheridge. When I heard SKIN for the first time, I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven! Her emotional ballads, such as The Prison, had me in tears. I not only enjoyed the 'tunes' but the words as well. Her music inspires me to be happy, but sad at the same time, thinking of lost loves, very emotional but very satisfying, if you can understand that.

Melissa Etheridge's "Skin" is a masterwork in rock & roll. Her opener "Lover Please" is one of the best rock tunes of the decade, currently #1 in my own personal top ten. It's the kind of song one can't pass without hitting the repeat button. "The Prison" is a gorgeous melody with a slower beat and great lyric, "I held you so close I thought my soul would break, but you were just a ghost, the holiest mistake." "Walking On Water" & "Down to One" are another two favorite great tracks with gorgeous melodies and passionate vocals. "Goodnight" snakes with a propulsive beat, a sexy lyric & Melissa's expansive vocals. "It's Only Me" is another strong track with Melissa bearing her heart on vocals. The CD concludes with a midtempo masterpiece "Heal Me," "Amazing grace has touched my face & the sweet sound doesn't lie." This is a classic set by one of America's great rock singer/composers. Summer doesn't get any hotter than this! Enjoy!

I have listened to "Skin" more than often enough; and I find this is a perfect album to play when you're the most depressed; considering the circumstances of Julie Cypher leaving. "Please Forgive Me" personally rips me apart; perfectly detailed to the bone and I can almost feel her emotions on her lips, "It's been so long since I've touched/So long since I've wanted/and you made me laugh/and my heart opened..." and "It's Only Me" shows her at her lowest point, "Maybe you can just pretend/that maybe you can love again/oh babe i know better/it's only me/and wherever you are tonight/the satisfaction you invite/nobody knows better/it's only me." This is one of the few albums that I know by heart every word and every chord. This album is perfect. When a singer goes through trauma, as bad as it hurts, it does bring out beautiful and real music.