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I had trouble sleeping Monday night. And I’ve only just now realized why.
See, I drifted off around 1, I think. I remember falling asleep with quiet joy to the Bird & the Bee, a new duo whose gentle pop gems I later confirmed are as wonderful as they seemed. Didn’t expect to finish it, honestly.
But then I woke up. Couldn’t have been more than an hour later. Might have been only a few minutes.
At least I thought it had been when I awoke. I figured I must have finished the Bird & the Bee album, at worst nodded off toward the last cut or two. I’d check those out later. For now, given the small mountain of worthwhile tunes about to come out, I’d try to squeeze another set in.
So into my ears flowed the debut from L.A. band the Broken West, “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On.” Turns out to be uncut power-pop heroin. I’m lost in it, riveted to every clever little twist. The first half is perfect, so I started hoping it wouldn’t falter.
Nope, couldn’t last. I was gone by the eighth cut.
Yet after what I think is at most 10 minutes - or was it another hour? Or two? What time is it anyway? - I’m awake again. Wide awake. Let’s-watch-a-long-slow-movie awake.
So on went the second half of the Broken West, which indeed did not falter.
Still alert, I called up Norah Jones’ new one, “Not Too Late.” Decided it’s time to give it an up-close examination after the afternoon’s preliminary listen.
Ha, yeah, right. I didn’t even make it into the second song. She came on lullaby soft over a soft loping acoustic-guitar waltz. “She pulls me in,” she sings, “she pulls me in.”
Yes, she does. Deep into a Norah coma.
I love albums like that.
Sounds kinda strange, I realize, though probably not as strange as me telling you that one of the initial reasons I got into Metallica was because “... And Justice for All” was so peaceful to nod off to.
Yes, peaceful. Trance-like. Tool is great that way, too. Something about the drone, I guess.
Norah uses a different approach - she’s all about stillness, quietude. I finally finished watching Antonioni’s early-‘60s trilogy of alienation after a month of ill-advised late-night viewing, so forgive a possibly obscure reference, but listening to Norah is a lot like watching the Italian master’s films - fascinatingly detailed and multilayered, for those times when you can fully concentrate and tackle them with wide-awake scrutiny, but utterly impossible to get through in the wee hours.
I bring up this potential for sleep-inducing because, well, that’s what Norah does first and foremost to some people - even fans. And “Not Too Late,” in stores Tuesday, is her sleepiest work so far.
It might well be the best thing she’s ever done, too, though that’s difficult to gauge just yet. It is, I believe, every bit as great a set of songs as her adored, massively purchased debut, and it’s certainly a better batch than her second album, which was hardly inferior to the first. What’s more, in several spots her songwriting, in collaboration with bassist Lee Alexander - the album was mostly cut in their home studio, and its intimacy is well-captured - has greatly grown in nuance and complexity.
She and her band are looser, more instinctual about even the most atmospheric feel. Her soothing, whispery voice, already a wonder in terms of surface beauty, continues to gain in soulfulness, her emotional range deepening and widening with every song. She’s believable and magnetic through and through, whether exploring social commentary with the drawl of Rickie Lee Jones and the eye and manner of Randy Newman, or wallowing in a case of Cassandra complex on the Tom Waitsian “Sinkin’ Soon.”
That one, by the way, has a divinely harmonized chorus straight out of the last two M. Ward records - so it figures he’d turn up in the background. Yet it, too, can work as convincingly as a double dose of Ambien. What can you say about an album whose pitch-clip on Amazon.com is a live performance of a hypnotic crawl of a song called “Rosie’s Lullaby,” a nighty-night dirge that makes Beck’s “Sea Change” sound as peppy as “New Pollution”?
Clearly someone realized they had a cure for insomnia on their hands.
That Norah likes it that way is testament to her vision; not for her the frills of modernity, and amen to that. But now that she’s three albums and more than a half-decade into a celebrated career that has positioned her as arguably the most important (albeit subtly so) female in popular music, I wonder if the inevitable slip-off will arrive. That is, will a segment of “Come Away With Me” fans stop loving the artist’s evolution and continue to spin only That One Album?
This happens to all the greats; even the most legendary performers are often remembered for just a handful of recordings. Besides, a seminal, taste-shifting piece like Norah’s debut is surely as good as having three lesser-loved albums in a row.
No doubt she’ll go platinum, of course, or more. But like James Taylor or Bonnie Raitt, she’s a careerist with a singular sound. Her popularity will always be secure, I figure - and enjoy occasional spikes of acclaim or sales, depending on the time and the title.
And then (yawn) 20 years from now we’ll (ahhh, pilllllowww) rediscover what a remarkable record (zzzz) “Not Too Late” is.
If we can stay awake.
