Who on earth is Paula Cole?

Fiona Apple may be more provocative, Shawn Colvin moro experienced, Sarah McLachlan more well-known (thanks to Lilith Fair), but Paula Cole, a shy former wedding singer from Rockport, Mass., has turned out to be the female performer to watch this year.

Many are discovering what Cole's longtime fans have known ever since this former backup singer for Peter Gabriel released her first album, Harbinger, in 1994. The record disappeared when her label had financial problems, but Cole, who describes herself as a super-overachiever, only came back stronger on her second album, This Fire, singing, "I feel free . . . I'm so tired of being shy, I'm not that girl anymore, I'm not that straight-A anymore."

Cole's rich, chocolaty voice, capable of hairpin turns from throaty growl to heavenly falsetto, is the conduit through which she conveys her passion and conflicted past, Her songs tell stories and share confidences, but they are also an exercise in purging for the reluctant former prom queen and high school class president. Though some may find the naked emotion, expressed through feverish, primal howls, a bit demonstrative and unsubtle, it's a rare moment of bravery that sets Cole apart. And there's no question that her direct, take-no-prisoners approach is connecting with listeners.

TRACEY PEPPER: OK, Barbara Walters question: How does it feel, Paula, to have been nominated for seven Grammys? By the time this article appears, the winners will have been announced, but I want to know how you felt when you got the news.

PAULA COLE: I'm still riot sure. I'm trying to reign in my emotions so I won't get too hopeful. I don't dare expect that would be dangerous, I already feel like I've won. It's so wonderful to be acknowledged.

TP: Many people don't realize that you're the first woman ever to be nominated for Producer of the Year.

PC: I think it's excellent, but it's incredible it hasn't happened before.

TP: You took a risk with This Fire by producing it yourself and, in a sense, working without a net. Did you ever worry about putting yourself out there that way?

PC: I knew' in my heart I would be successful, but I didn't tell anyone I felt it. I wondered if I'd be able to give up my anonymity. but the answer is that I just don't have a choice. Music is too strong in me. I don't want to censor anything. I put my blood into this album. It's a symbol of my standing on my own two feet.

TP: Did you always want to be a singer?

PC: When I was a little girl, my dad asked me what I wanted to be. And being this full-of-moxie, badass little girl, I said, "I want to be a star." [laughs] Of course, ten years later, I was mortified I'd said that.

TP: That's not so bad. A lot of little girls want to be a horse. What would you be doing if you couldn't do music?

PC: I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. My dad was a biology professor, and I'm also drawn to that. It's one way to answer the question, What is the meaning of life? Though I feel music answers it better.

TP: Let's talk about the fact that so many female performers broke through last year, when it used to be that radio programmers wouldn't have added your record because they were playing Tori Amos's. Now that female singers are like gold, the music industry, in its typically cynical way, considers "women in rock" a genre of music.

PC: They think it's a fad, which is really dangerous. I think so many women broke through because there was an incredible vacancy. But it doesn't matter what gender the music is coming from. You can't keep good music down.

TP: Do you think something has changed in our culture to make mass audiences more receptive to music that shows a sensitive, vulnerable side? it's not just female artists - Jakob Dylan and Maxwell broke last year too.

PC: And Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley before that. I think what you're talking about is a larger sociological and spiritual awareness. The end of the millennium makes people consider their mortality and the meaning of their lives.

TP: Your music has a fervor that could account for larger audiences connecting with it.

PC: I hope so. I know I need music. I wouldn't be alive without it. I got terribly depressed when I was in college at Berklee [College of Music]. I was trying to be the ultimate jazz singer - a female Chet Baker - but it became so cerebral, so filled with pressure, that I got really low. I don't think I would have committed suicide, but I certainly contemplated it every day. I hated everything that was coming out of my mouth. I really thought I sucked.

TP: Were you really bad, or are you your own harshest critic?

PC: [pauses] It was a bit of both. But then I started writing my own troths, which became songs. It shocked my parents. My more wrote me a letter, which 1 have kept to this day. It said, "The songs are so dark - are you suicidal? Can't you write something happy?" When I started making my own music, it was an explosion. It was the universe saying, "This is your path. This is your destiny."