James Hagan
Published: February 18 2004
One of the most anticipated albums of 2004 finally has come out. Norah Jones, off her 2002 multi-million selling and multi-Grammy winning debut “Come Away With Me,” is back with “Feels Like Home.”
Many of the 13 songs on the album follow the same jazz-influenced formula as her previous release. There are the slow songs of unrequited love set over melancholy lyrics and beautiful piano balladry. It seems clear that the idea for this album was to give people more of the same.
That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Jones has the ability to weave a story and paint a picture in her songs that’s pretty unparalleled with most singers today. Not only do you hear about what she’s singing, you see it and feel it.
“Broke down on the side of the road/stranded at the outskirts of town/the Sun’s creepin’ in/baby’s in the back dreaming of better days/ I didn’t want to call but you’re the only one I had,” she sings in “Humble Me.”
However, she also takes baby steps into incorporating a different sound into her album. A few of the tracks have a country flavor. This is a risky step that could enrage many country aficionados. Her first album enraged many jazz purists because she was on the pre-eminent jazz label, Blue Note, but her recordings don’t fit into the traditional jazz genre.
Such fear aside, the country-driven tunes enhance the CD. The best song of the album is “Creepin’ In” an upbeat duet with country legend Dolly Parton. It’s the seventh song of the track and a welcome respite from the world-weariness of the previous tracks. Hearing two such superb voices banter back and forth on such a happy track is the biggest delight on the album.
Norah Jones has the best voice in music today. She could probably turn singing the words off a lunch menu into something beautiful and profound. Her voice has the husky and weary quality of such soulful jazz singers like Etta James and Sarah Vaughn.
“I will love you when you’re blue/ tell me, darling, true, what am I to you?” she asks in “What I Am To You.”
It’s easy to imagine hearing that line sung in a smoky upscale bar in the art section of town.
This album doesn’t reach the heights of her debut and frankly, it’s unfair to ask her to. “Come Away With Me” was one of the more unexpected chart smashes. It wasn’t jazz, it wasn’t pop and it wasn’t conventional. It just was really good.
This album also can’t be pigeon-holed to one genre. It mixes jazz, country and pop into a tasty concoction of beautiful music. It’s not the unexpected delight of her first album. Her songs don’t have any epic qualities; there isn’t a song on this album that will change your life. What is on “Feels Like Home” are 13 ruminations about the carelessness of emotion, the wanting of affection and the eternal chase that we all pursue to find someone to make us happy. This album is for everyone who sits at home waiting on a phone call at night from the one they love. “I seek confusion in all my conclusion/I know it’s only the warm blown wine that has you feeling this way/I don’t care but I want you to stay,” she declares in “Be Here To Love Me.”
Let’s hope she has a lot more confusion to sing about. And let’s hope that we all stay around to hear it.