Sheryl Crow Opens Up About Her New Album That Almost Didn’t Happen & How She Met Olivia Rodrigo

In 2019, Sheryl Crow said that her album Threads — a set of collaborations with artist friends such as Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt and Neil Young, among others — would be her last. Five years later, Crow has proved her own pronouncement wrong, releasing Evolution at the end of March, and she came to Billboard News to discuss how it, well, evolved, as well as her career journey up until now.

“I keep saying this is not an album — it’s more a playlist of new Sheryl Crow songs,” Crow says of Evolution, which was produced by her longtime friend Mike Elizondo. “It feels like an emotional download as opposed to a curated album.”

That download was spurred in large part, Crow reveals, by a decision she made in recent years to “really investigate what it meant to redirect my impulses,” which she endeavored to do through a curated psilocybin journey. “For me, nature is the only place I’ve actually been able to hear myself. And it felt like I was digging through dirt. Like those old science videos, where you see ants digging,” she says.

That experience led her to keep thinking of a favorite Peter Gabriel song, “Digging in the Dirt,” which she told Elizondo about. They recorded a cover, sent it to Gabriel, and he loved it — so much that he sent it back to Crow with his own voice added. “It’s just crazy. I’m a huge believer in manifesting, but I don’t know that I could have manifested that in a thousand years,” Crow marvels.

Evolution is, astoundingly, Crow’s 12th studio album, but her catalog has not diminished in relevance, as evidenced by the still growing number of young women artists who cover hits such as “Strong Enough” and “If It Makes You Happy.” That group includes Olivia Rodrigo, who Crow reveals she first met at Billboard‘s 2022 Women in Music event, where Crow presented the Woman of the Year honor to Rodrigo.

“I listen to her stuff and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I can hear the Breeders, I hear Blondie’ — she’s got that punk rock thing I haven’t heard in so long, but then she has great lyrics and great hooks,” Crow says. “And then I met her, and she came up in the business … but I liked how grounded she was. The fame thing wasn’t her major attraction. She just keeps writing her truth, she’s got the experience that backs up everything in her songs. I just root for her.”

To hear what else Crow had to say, watch at the link above.