Tom Warke reviews his album of the week, Little Broken Hearts by Norah Jones…
Nine-time Grammy Award winner, Norah Jones, is an American singer-songwriter born in March 1979.
Born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar in Brooklyn, New York, she changed her name at sixteen to Norah Jones.
From an early age, Jones enjoyed music, singing in the school choirs and participated in a band. She also sang in a church choir and learnt the piano when she was younger.
Jones attended the University of North Texas where she majored in Jazz Piano, she also met future collaborator Jesse Harris who helped her turn famous in the music industry with his help.
In 2002, she launched her music career with the release of the album, ‘Come Away With Me’ which became commercially successful and was widely critically acclaimed. In that year ‘Come Away With Me’ was certified a diamond album selling over 20 million copies. This album earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, the Album of the Year and the Record of the Year.
Her second studio album ‘Feels Like Home’ was released in 2004. It sold over a million copies in its first week and went on to sell ten million copies worldwide. In 2005 she won three Grammy Awards, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for ‘Sunrise’, Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for her collaboration with Ray Charles.
‘Not Too Late’, her third released in 2007, sold over 36 million albums worldwide. In the same year she made her film debut in My Blueberry Nights along with actors Natalie Portman and Jude Law. In 2009 she released her fourth album ‘The Fall’, it was the first of Jones’s albums not to reach number one in the US, however it still sold 1.5 million copies worldwide and she was nominated in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category for her collaboration with Willie Nelson, singing ‘Baby Its Cold Outside’.
Her new album, ‘Little Broken Hearts’ was released on the 1st of May. For this album she teamed up with Danger Mouse, who has previously formed Gnarls Barkley with Cee Lo Green and has also produced with the Gorillaz. ‘Good Morning’, the album’s opener is a soothing track with airy synthesizers and strings played in the background over Jones’s husky voice, with high notes throughout. Other highlight tracks from the album are the upbeat cheerful tracks, ‘Happy Pills’ and ‘Say Goodbye’, the latter of which was recently performed on Jools Holland.
My favourite track from the album is ‘Out on the Road’ a song with a good rhythem and really shows the versatility of Norah Jones voice as she changes from soft notes to them high falsetto ones. Although this album has a negative feel about love and heartbreak, Norah Jones makes this enjoyable to listen to.
Little Broken Hearts is available to buy on iTunes for £7.99, with individual tracks available for 99p – click on the ad below to buy now.