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Pops Best & Worst Behaved


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Pop's Best Behaved . . .

February 8, 2004

By BEN RATLIFF

The atmosphere of "Feels Like Home," Norah Jones's second

album, is full of a tasteful quiet. Not a literal lack of

sound, of course: there's a lot of girlish exhalation, and

a bit of wry womanhood, and some ghosts of soothing 70's

radio hits and American roots music. But there is a kind of

void at the heart of "Feels Like Home": Song after song

about inaction.

Nothing much happens in a Norah Jones song, whether she

writes it or not. (She had a hand in 6 of the album's 13

songs, and most are written with various members of her

group, the Handsome Band.) She reflects, she wonders, she

grows wistful; she considers falling in or out of love, and

when she pledges it, as in the song "What Am I to You?,"

she does so in certifiable clichés about skies falling and

butterflies. One entire song, "Toes," contemplates the

possibility that its narrator will go swimming - but in the

end, as the chorus goes, her toes just touch the water. If

every pop star transmits a persona, hers remains sweet and

blank and diffident. To the extent that she has an idée

fixe, it's time and its passing. The first song, "Sunrise,"

is about staying in bed with the clock stuck at 9:15, and

by the sixth track the word "afternoon" has cropped up

eight times.

Despite Ms. Jones's obvious gifts as a singer, she's still

hiding out in work that's so low-key it verges on the

studied. Instead of being a cipher that nobody can identify

with, she has calibrated her crème-fraîche voice to the

point of becoming a singer that anyone can identify with,

if only in general terms. "Feels Like Home" (Blue Note) is

more one-size-fits-all than her first album, the

18-million-selling "Come Away With Me."

The persona in her songs - let's not call it Ms. Jones

herself, because her life couldn't be this dull - might

have lived practically anywhere in the developed world, at

any time during the last century. Somehow Ms. Jones's work

has managed to make a virtue of vagueness. (The virtue

wasn't quite so apparent when she played at the Beacon

Theater in New York during last year's tour for "Come Away

With Me"; she was too fidgety and lacking in stagecraft to

make her close-quartered music get over in a large space.)

This is multipurpose music: whatever your circumstances,

you can plug in your own life's coordinates and project

yourself into her songs.

Where she spends her money, aesthetically speaking, is on

creating a vibe. As co-producer of the album with Arif

Mardin, she mixes low volume with warm, slightly

antique-sounding instruments - electric piano, steel

guitar, accordion, acoustic bass. And her piano style comes

pretty much whole from the one invented in the 1950's by

the Nashville pianist Floyd Cramer, who helped create the

"countrypolitan" sound of Patsy Cline's records, among

hundreds of others. It's a cool, subtly kitschy choice, and

it trails through almost every tune on "Feels Like Home."

If all that sounds like a description of "Come Away With

Me," the new album is more buoyant than its predecessor,

which was weighed down by morose medium-slow tempos. (They

were like torch songs that were designed by Pottery Barn,

with natural fibers and sand-washed color standing in for

emotion.) The new album is slightly leaner, with more of

the snapping, boom-chicka-boom rhythm of early Johnny Cash;

it even upshifts to bluegrass for "Creepin' In," a song she

sings with Dolly Parton. But on balance it's the Norah

Jones you've already heard.

Ms. Jones's peek-a-boo act, coming through a lush voice,

isn't artless: that's a game she's playing with her

audience, and her voice is original enough to pull it off.

The musical influences behind the tunes are almost all two

to three decades old: Bill Withers, the Band, Neil Young,

Maria Muldaur, Bonnie Raitt, Rickie Lee Jones. Still,

there's an even stronger precursor for the general sound of

her records, over and above those memory trip-wires. Simply

put, it's hard to imagine this music without Cassandra

Wilson.

On a run of albums starting in the early 90's, and with her

original producer Craig Street - incidentally, the original

producer for Norah Jones's first album, before Arif Mardin

was called in to remake it - Ms. Wilson crafted an

upside-down version of what's considered elegant in jazz,

with the roots on top and the leaves on the bottom.

Saxophones were out; acoustic guitars and mandolins were

in. The usual cosmopolitan images were out; evocations of

rural America under dark skies were in. The Wilson records

smushed entire traditions together without a second

thought, with simplicity as a common denominator. But

underneath it all were elements that came unmistakably from

jazz: a sense of controlled soloistic ideas, an organic

feeling of a group playing together in real time, even

within the songs' pop brevity, and in her singing, a lot of

patience.

Ms. Jones, 24, inherited this blueprint, as well as a

similar feel for material. On "Feels Like Home" Ms. Jones

puts bluegrass, singer-songwriter pop, blues and Duke

Ellington's song "Melancholia" together on one aligned

field. Ms. Wilson once covered Robert Johnson; Ms. Jones

once covered Hank Williams. Two years ago, Ms. Wilson

recorded the Band's song "The Weight"; Ms. Jones hired the

Band's Garth Hudson and Levon Helm to play on "Feels Like

Home." The big difference is in vocal hues and styles:

where Ms. Wilson's voice is wisdom-weighted and draped

irregularly over bar lines, Ms. Jones's is young, fresh and

rhythmically regular.

Essentially, Ms. Jones's albums feel like the commercial

refinement of a brilliant idea. But even at their

second-generation remove, Ms. Jones's albums still retain

their little nubs of American identity, details that

connect with national myths and cultural memory, and for

some reason, soothe us. Those details are all over "Feels

Like Home," though shyly played and coyly low in the mix -

be it the modified banjo Kevin Breit plays on "Sunrise,"

Mr. Hudson's accordion on Townes Van Zandt's "Be Here to

Love Me," the pump organ Ms. Jones plays in "Humble Me" or

the box Andrew Borger taps on as the only percussion in

"The Long Way Home," written by Tom Waits and Kathleen

Brennan. But when Dolly Parton starts in on the second

verse of "Creepin' In," blazing forth with a flash of

melismatic mountain singing, suddenly here's a rock-ribbed,

authentic national music, instead of a glib pop

deconstruction. The eyelids, pleasantly lowered, suddenly

pop open.

Perhaps what listeners respond to in Norah Jones isn't the

honesty of the acoustic sounds, but the limited emotional

range of the music. Perhaps we want someone who sounds

self-assured, sexy, basically happy, talented, and

untroubled. ("No More Drama," as Mary J. Blige put it a few

years ago.) Is Ms. Jones making the world safe for

soft-rock again? I'm afraid she is. But that's not all

she's doing: she's a musician making clear connections to

several different traditions, from country to folk-rock to

jazz. One can imagine her lending star power to lots of

worthy musicians along the way, but she herself has enough

breadth within her for several careers, if she can just get

her clock fixed, rise up and wander away from her cozy

home.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/arts/mus...413663104bb1aee

. . . and Its Worst

February 8, 2004

By NEIL STRAUSS

Let's begin with what could have been an ending. In

October, an editor asked me to prepare Courtney Love's

obituary. Nobody actually believed that Courtney Love had

died, but many thought she was heading in that direction.

If she had a fatal overdose or sudden heart failure, we

needed to be ready. It was the first time, in 10 years of

newspaper writing, that I had been asked to write an

advance obituary for someone under 40.

I did not know Ms. Love personally: I'd never interviewed

her, talked to her or even been introduced to her. But a

few weeks before, I had been the victim of one of her

famous phone blitzkriegs. Somehow, she had gotten my phone

number and left five long, Joycean messages. "I'm charmed,

I'm cursed, I'm [expletive] up," she said before going on

to discuss her "bio-dad" and the way her daughter compared

her to Shrek. Her reason for calling was that she wanted to

"talk to a rock specialist."

Ms. Love's life seemed like a forest being gradually

consumed by an inextinguishable fire. It was safe to watch

from a distance, but not to get too close to. Nearly every

week brought new headlines: Overdose! Arrest! Lawsuit!

Tantrum! Feud! Public nudity! But the biggest surprise of

all was the news of a CD release. With all the hoopla, I

had forgotten that she was a musician and a performer - and

an exceptional one, no less.

It has been six years since she released a CD, and 10 years

since she released a great one. In pop terms, that's an

eternity. Generally, when your twentysomething fans have

reached their 30's without hearing a new musical note from

you, it's time to consider taking that job at the Guitar

Center and waiting for the day when the obsequious host of

VH1's "Bands Reunited" comes a-knocking.

The first question people ask about the new album,

"America's Sweetheart" (Virgin), is, "Who wrote it?" It is

an obnoxious question - one that would probably not be

asked of a male musician. Ms. Love is not only one of the

least respected rock stars working today, but she also has

to deal with - if not embody - the double standard applied

to women who live the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. After her

breakthrough CD, "Live Through This," there was talk

(always denied) that musicians sat in her management office

straining to hear if Kurt Cobain's vocals were detectable

on the master tapes. When her softer, deeper follow-up,

"Celebrity Skin," was released, her collaborator, Billy

Corgan, was given most of the credit. So, of course, the

wags are asking who's responsible this time. And the answer

is pretty much Linda Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes singer

whose work on Pink's "Missundaztood" has turned Ms. Perry

into the Diane Warren of the edgy set. (In fact, at least

two of the tracks sound like they could be Pink songs.)

But, really, who cares? Looking to outsiders for material

didn't make Johnny Cash's final 10 years or the Grateful

Dead's oeuvre any less credible. Some musicians go it

alone, others collaborate. And it is ultimately the

fiercely honest stomp and screech of Ms. Love, who is

credited with all the lyrics on the album, that makes this

CD sing. Linda Perry is simply the Dr. Dre to her Eminem.

This is no gratuitous comparison. Ms. Love has more in

common with Eminem than she has with most rockers. Both are

loose cannons, a gossip columnist's dream: they can dish it

out but they can't always take it. And so in the studio,

the personal becomes the musical. Both use their

angst-riddled, self-obsessed songs to answer critics past

and future. And both tend to be smarter than their

tormentors.

Where Eminem hints at a liaison with Mariah Carey, Ms. Love

alludes to one with Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, in

the song "But Julian, I'm a Little Older Than You" (though

reportedly they've only met once). Where Eminem sings about

destroying his spinal column on ecstasy, she discusses the

reasons for her pill-popping in graphic detail. She uses

drugs, she sings, because she's "famous," because "she's

bored," because "you're dead" (presumably Kurt Cobain),

because she is "the worst and best dressed," and because

she has certain unprintable problems.

One can hear a theme developing: Ms. Love is wrestling with

time. At 39, she intentionally understates when she says

that she's just "a little older" than Mr. Casablancas and

she takes pills because she's "more than 21."

The CD begins with the bellicose "Mono," in which Ms. Love

demands one last shot at the rock pantheon. "Hey God, you

owe me one more song," she sings, "so that I can prove to

them that I'm so much better than him." Though the pronoun

has already been attributed to several different rock stars

(from Kurt Cobain to Fred Durst), the lyric sheets add a

clue with the words, "Him . . . hmmmm . . . Eminem?"

Musically, the inspiration for "America's Sweetheart" is

punk bands like the Ramones (whose "gabba gabba hey" she

quotes) and their garage-rock predecessors. In fact, Ms.

Love even attacks punk's original nemesis, the virtuosic

bloat of classic rock represented by Led Zeppelin, in the

purposely misspelled "Zeplin Song," which is basically all

about how sick she is of hearing the same old song,

presumably "Stairway to Heaven." It is a target that seems

too easy and obvious for a woman who prefers hipper, more

personal enemies (such as Bikini Kill).

Though there is the occasional touch of 80's metal and the

odd ballad (one written with the Elton John collaborator

Bernie Taupin), "America's Sweetheart" is Ms. Love's

attempt to revisit the territory of her messy first CD,

"Pretty on the Inside," with a big-budget and a cast of

experienced musicians (among them Kim Deal of the Pixies,

Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and Scott McCloud of Girls Against

Boys). Nearly every song is about the pop trifecta of sex,

drugs and rock 'n' roll, along with its shadow, narcissism.

And its best lines are not quotable here, because curse

words are to Ms. Love what a sword is to a samurai:

essential, precise and deadly.

She may turn out to be the Cher of her generation, with a

career that, against all odds, outlasts those of her

contemporaries. She has extended what many thought would be

her 15 minutes after the suicide of Cobain into 10 years.

If she had just recorded a bad, sprawling CD, then music

fans could have written her off as a victim of her own

shenanigans and the moment would have waned. But "America's

Sweetheart" is good enough to renew the Courtney Love drama

for at least another season.

However, it is also too much too late. If the CD had been

released in 1996 (in the interstice between her second and

third CD's), it just might have given Ms. Love her rightful

standing as one of rock's most powerful women. But Ms. Love

the celebrity has eclipsed Ms. Love the musician. Being in

the news constantly doesn't sell albums; it only creates

brand recognition. Otherwise, Michael Jackson's

"Invincible" CD and Tommy Lee's Methods of Mayhem side

project would have fared a lot better in the long term.

While this CD should succeed on its merits alone, the fact

that it's from Ms. Love may end up making it a liability.

If the same venomous rock 'n' roll came from a newer

female-fronted punk band like the Distillers instead, it

would be received differently. Brody Dalle of the

Distillers is a fresh canvas to paint our fantasies on. But

the name Courtney Love already has too many coats of paint:

it polarizes music fans the way the name George Bush

polarizes voters.

For better or for worse, the moment in pop belongs not to

the Courtney Loves of the world, but to the Norah Joneses,

the Josh Grobans and the American Idols. Their songs can be

played in schools and in supermarkets; their promotional

campaigns are engineered to be as safe and scandal-free as

political ones; and their songs are so vague that no

listener feels left out. Pop culture certainly needs the

electric shock of an album like this one, especially since

even teen rebellion is packaged in the parent-friendly

wrapping of Avril Lavigne. And certainly, as the lyrics on

the album show, Ms. Love wants to be the matron saint of

rock disobedience. But Courtney Love today stands only for

Courtney Love. She is the girl who wants to belong so badly

that she doesn't fit in anywhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/08/arts/mus...1d2a20150a429e2

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For better or for worse, the moment in pop belongs not to

the Courtney Loves of the world, but to the Norah Joneses,

the Josh Grobans and the American Idols. Their songs can be

played in schools and in supermarkets; their promotional

campaigns are engineered to be as safe and scandal-free as

political ones; and their songs are so vague that no

listener feels left out.

Yep, that's what's wrong with pop.

I might give Love's album a try.

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For better or for worse, the moment in pop belongs not to

the Courtney Loves of the world, but to the Norah Joneses,

the Josh Grobans and the American Idols. Their songs can be

played in schools and in supermarkets; their promotional

campaigns are engineered to be as safe and scandal-free as

political ones; and their songs are so vague that no

listener feels left out.

Yep, that's what's wrong with pop.

I might give Love's album a try.

Nora Jones is no Josh Groban--nor is she an American Idol. The pop jazz vein she swims in isnt supposed to be cutting edge--it aspires to refinement and delivers. While I agree Courtney Love's rebellious streak is what rock should be all about, given a choice, I'll be listening to Nora Jones and loving it. As for Courney, I'll give it a listen--I just wont be plaing it over and over. These artists come from two different genres and appeal to two different audiences and the twain shall never meet.

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These artists come from two different genres and appeal to two different audiences and the twain shall never meet.

Agreed. What I was refering to is that the writer didn't really sound very excited about Jones' album. On the other hand, while he seems to have grown into a personal dislike for Love, he didn't make her album sound too bad.

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Agreed. What I was refering to is that the writer didn't really sound very excited about Jones' album. On the other hand, while he seems to have grown into a personal dislike for Love, he didn't make her album sound too bad.

He also seemed to take a crack at her last Grammy winning album. I think the purpose of a reviewer is to get someone excited about the medium they are reviewing, even if they dont like the artist or the genre. He sounds jaded...

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