Video content from singer-songwriter Jill Sobule.

Jill Sobule belongs to a rare breed of artists. Her work is at once deeply personal and socially conscious, seriously funny and derisively tragic. Over six albums and over a decade of recording, the Denver-born songwriter/guitarist/singer has tackled such topics as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence, and the Christian right. Did we mention love? Love found, love lost, love wished for and love taken away.

While her songs cover a huge amount of ground, they all have benefit greatly from Jill's subtle intelligence and skillful light-handedness. No sloganeering flag-and-fist waving here, but rather story songs about human beings, real and imagined, which allow us to step back from the issue, be it personal or social, and relate to it as we would a close friend.

In April of 2009, she released "California Years," her first studio album in five years, released on her own label, Pinko Records, and financed entirely by fan donations at her website JillsNextRecord.com.

In the words of New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles, "Jill Sobule can claim her place among the stellar New York singer-songwriters of the last decade. Topical, funny and more than a little poignant ... grown-up music for an adolescent age."