EDITORIAL REVIEWS
I Tried To Rock You But You Only Roll by Leona Naess

AMAZON
A Sheryl Crow with drum programmers as the motor of her dreams, singer-songwriter Leona Naess delivers an affecting second album. I Tried to Rock You could be an answer to the many listless Sensitive Guys clogging 2001 airwaves; Naess's vulnerability sounds not like a ploy to land her on teen-flick soundtrack albums, but like an honest reaction to the love troubles she's encountered since her debut. Open-hearted but never at a loss when it comes to tapping her own strength, Naess is arched-eyebrow funny when dissing and dismissing a lover in the title track, happily puzzled when admitting in "Sunny Sunday" that "I didn't mean to like u so much." Now that the press has lost interest in focusing on her beauty and privileged background (she is the daughter of Diana Ross's ex-husband Arne Naess), the field is clear for Naess's sensible love songs to resound--as it does perhaps most clearly when she reconfigures a pop-culture watchword to read "boys like you never cry." --Rickey Wright