Joan Armatrading's sweet and passionate songs are deceptively sharp. A lyricist of great insight, she made her name with late-'70s power-pop songs like “Me Myself I” and “Drop the Pilot,” which are full of clear-eyed, unromantic sentiment. But boisterous hits like “Down to Zero,” which mixes Dylan-style pop-folk with jazz and soul, stand in contrast to the yearning intrigue of scathing ballads such as “The Weakness In Me.” Her swooning masterpiece, “Love And Affection,” is a rolling smooch of a song: Jazzy and seductive, it sounds like she's trying to talk herself into the very idea of romance.