Sheryl Crow makes 'em happy with a performance at MuchMusic last night. (PHOTO: Mark O'Neill, SUN)

TORONTO - Sheryl Crow has a genius answer when people ask her when she's going to marry Lance Armstrong.

"Sometime in the next 10 years," the fresh-faced and petite singer-songwriter joked yesterday in Toronto while promoting her new CD, Wildflower. "We're narrowing it down."

The 43-year-old Crow got engaged to the 34-year-old seven-time Tour De France winner in August and the nuptials questions haven't stopped since.

At the end of September, Crow's latest disc came out -- an introspective collection of pretty, melodic tunes about love, loss and the scary state of the world. But many critics lashed out at Wildflower's downbeat vibe, asking just exactly what she had to be depressed about since she was with one of the most respected athletes in the world?

"I guess in one way I'm glad that people are that invested," said Crow yesterday, who says she doesn't read reviews. "But there is a reason that you make the art that you make. Your life completely informs your art and if somebody my age isn't asking the questions that I'm asking on the record, or talking about the themes, then they're just trying to sell soap.

"I've done that. I've sold soap, and I'm not really interested in doing that anymore. I do have the luxury of becoming a singer-songwriter now. It's an amazing compelling time to be an artist and I'm seizing that."

Anyway, she doesn't think her album is depressing.

"I think the album is hopeful, but also I think it's a very conscious record. That may be depressing to people because, let's face it, the world right now is in a dire state of flux."

Crow also thinks reviewers have a hard time separating her music from her celebrity, which has only increased since her relationship with Armstrong began in 2003.

"They cannot remove the images that they have of you in People magazine," she gives as an example. She believes artists have the right to explore and to change, and, further, that they have an obligation to explore and change. Reviewers, therefore, have to let go of their preconceptions, she said.

Wildflower follows Crow's last studio album, 2002's overly-commercial pop-rock collection, C'mon, C'mon, which she described in an Entertainment Weekly interview as "the most unpleasant experience" she'd ever had as an artist.

"I just didn't want to be in the studio," said Crow, who had just come off the road. "It was really hard to make myself stay in there. I couldn't finish anything. I was irritable the whole time 'cause I was resentful that I was working. Yet, I wouldn't let myself off the hook."

She was also turning 40 at a time when youth pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were hot.

Just what was going through Crow's mind as she watched 19-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan badly mangle a two-song medley at the American Music Awards last week, an event at which Crow also performed.

"All I can say is that I'm grateful that I got in (to the music industry) when I did," says Crow, whose solo debut was 1993's Tuesday Night Music Club.

When she was coming up, the artist toured, the record slowly built up, the artist built up a fan base, and then started doing TV.

"You developed over the course of your first two or three records." she said. "I look at these young girls now and I think how much pressure there is on them to know that your first live appearances are in front of TV audiences of 10 million people."

Because popularity is hinged on celebrity, artists know that careers are good for only a few years, she said.

"I'm just grateful that I got to come up the way that I did, which was more organic. I got to hone my craft before I had to go out in front of that many people.

"The other thing is that it has to be stressful to know that you really can't sing. A lot of these young people, with the exception of Christina Aguilera, can't sing at all. It's just different now. The marketing dollar is so much stronger than artistry."

So if Crow was depressed about the state of music three years ago, what does she think about it now?

"I do think it's gone the way of singing contests and choreographers and lip-synching, but I do think there's slowly going to be a paradigm shift. There's going to be a shift towards people demanding real artistry."

Crow herself may fill that vacuum when she releases her next studio album, which is almost finished. She'll return to the studio in January, planning for a release by the end of next summer.

"I'm excited about it," she says. "It's more country-rock. And I like the songs on it, so it'll be fun to go out and play them.

Crow will hit the road for a proper tour in March in support of Wildflower. She did about eight U.S. dates and two in London, England, with an 18-piece string section last month, but can't afford to do it again in the spring.

"I'd love to do that, but I personally lost $400,000 US on this tour," she says. "But you know what, to me it's worth it to do that just once. It's expensive touring now. We're not the Eagles or the Stones. We don't charge $500 for a ticket."

The upside was that fiance Armstrong joined her on the tour bus for the first time.

"He came out with me and I think he really enjoyed it," she says.

"That's really the first real tour, bus and all."

And, yes, Armstrong does have some musicality.

"He can sing. He brang me guitars every now and then, and he actually has played drums with me once. He's good. He played (ZZ Top's) Gimme All Your Lovin', which is pretty strange, but he played great."

She likes to Crow about her man

Sheryl Crow and Lance Armstrong are clearly a so-called "celebrity couple."

But Crow told the Sun yesterday that it could be worse.

"We've been in the public eye since we got together, but we really enjoy a certain amount of quiet living just by virtue of he fact that we live in Austin and we really are careful about where we go. We conduct ourselves with integrity, so we're never going to be caught with our pants down, you know what I mean?"

Crow has expressed sympathy for what celebrity magazines put other well-known couples through, although she does suspect there is a measure of compliance in some cases.

"A lot of what goes on in celebrity magazines is fed by publicists and also by these young people," she says. "It's not my desire to be in those magazines all the time. It's fine if you're in them every once in awhile.

"I've been lucky that those magazines have picked up on a lot of the good stuff that I've done, a lot of the good stuff that Lance has done, a lot of the good stuff that we've done, and that's good publicity. To build a swimming pool in your hometown and have it turn up in People magazine is cool. That's not as titillating or scintillating as the most nasty stuff that they write."

Just last night, Barbara Walters' annual TV special named Armstrong, a cancer survivor, among her 10 Most Fascinating People of 2005.

"She interviewed me with him for a little bit of it," said Crow. "I think it's good. I think he's one of the most fascinating people right now because he means so much to people, not only because of his athletic endeavours, but also because he's experienced what it means to fight for your life. He has come out the other side and has a lot of worthy things to say about that."

Crow, who was present with Armstrong's three kids from his first marriage at the Arc de Triomphe ceremony in Paris, describes going through his final Tour De France in July as emotional. "It was also a great relief, because there's a lot of pressure to go out on top, obviously. Then the next day it's somewhat daunting to know, 'Okay, I have the rest of my life in front of me; now what?'

Crow says Armstrong plans to devote a lot of his time to finding a cure for cancer.

"He's just consumed with it," she said.