This Is M.E.

Cowriting and producing this album with folks like Jerrod Bettis (Adele), Jon Levine (Serena Ryder), Roccstar (Chris Brown), and Jerry Wonda (Fugees) gives Melissa Etheridge her most modern-sounding hard rock album to date. Throughout the album, her producers add touches of 21st-century R&B (“All the Way Home,” “Ain’t That Bad”) or modernize her Midwestern hard rock (“Stranger Road”). Sing-along choruses sprout up consistently, but she’s mostly pushing her tough-girl roots into new territory. The first single, “Take My Number,” would be the album's most heartfelt tune if not for the piano closer, the lone solo Etheridge composition.