With her new album ten cent wings, Jonatha Brooke has explicitly not made radio-friendly pop hits to compete with Sarah McLachlan or egad Shemoves. She has crafted her own bright folk numbers that have more in common with the Beatles than Joan Baez.

Brooke employs a wide range of musicians and instrumentation that make the songs interesting if not catchy such as the swirling sound of the xylopipes and the subtle dance mix on Glass Half Empty.

With a vocal magnitude and sound somewhere along the lines of Joan Osborne, Brooke uses her voice more as an astute tool of range in the calm The Choice and the trippy Last Innocent Year than as the focus of the songs. In turn, she has more to carry the tunes than solely sticking with her voice.

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Crumbs and Secrets and Lies are great songs within their own simplicity, which is probably why you won’t hear them on the radio, but whether or not this was Brooke’s intent is unclear.

ten cent wings proves it is not essential for singer/songwriters to write Top 40 songs for a credible recording career, but a catchy single couldn’t hurt here.