I waited 'til I saw the sun

Continuing my trip back through the 2003 album charts.

20/04/03 : Come Away With Me - Norah Jones



We (along with everyone else in the country who ever had people round to dinner) owned this album, taking us to five for the year. I remember really quite liking it, but I've not listened to it for years, so it will be interesting to see what a revisit brings.

Hmmm - an interesting one. There's nothing really wrong with it, but there's also not an awful lot about it that's great - it's just ambles along pleasantly enough without really going anywhere. "Don't Know Why" and "Feelin' The Same Way" do stand out from the pack for me but the rest of it was all very much of a (nice) muchness. There's nothing offensive about any of it (except possibly its inoffensiveness) but it's also interesting to consider why everyone went so mad for it.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on her 51st week of a very impressive 123 week run, with it peaking at #1 in, quite obviously, its 44th-47th weeks - in total it's spent 152 weeks in the chart with it last being seen in '07. The rest of the top five are Coldplay (back at #1 in its 34th week), The White Stripes, Justin Timberlake and Avril Lavigne, with the highest new entry being a Run DMC best-of (#16) - I wonder if that's got more than two tracks on it?

Wikipedia has a reasonable amount on the album (253 milliPeppers - although I was expecting more) and it tells us this is her debut album, she recorded it when she was 22 (I have to admit it's a very mature sound for such a young age) and, errr, that's about it really, except for telling me the album had several cover versions on it, which I don't think I ever clocked. The critics were mostly very nice about it, but our old friend Robert Christgau complained that Norah's voice dominated the record - you do realise it's her album, Bob? It did very well at the Grammy Awards winning Best Album (beating the bizarre nominee rollcall of Eminem, Nelly, The Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen) and Best Pop Vocal Album and commercially, it just blew everything else away getting to #1 in a load of countries and selling 27 million copies globally at a time when album sales were dropping off markedly.

"Customers also listened to" Diana Krall, Lizz Wright, Melody Gardot and The Little WIllies - errr, OK! I enjoyed listening to this and there was certainly nothing wrong with it, but it's also interesting to try and understand why we all went so mad for it (see also, Dido).

13/04/03 - Considerably more bearable than expected
27/04/03 - Giving the fans what they want


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