Norah Jones: Little Broken Hearts

Ten years after her hit debut, Norah Jones is trying out a new sound, said Dan DeLuca in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Helping with this “subtle, just-right makeover” is producer Danger Mouse, of Gnarls Barkley fame, who co-wrote all 12 songs with Jones and twisted the production knobs. The pair have moved Jones’s music fully away from the coffee bars where soccer moms first learned to love her, said Adam Kivel in ConsequenceOfSound.net. Not “anchored to the piano,” as past efforts were, the songs register as indie pop, complete with “fuzzy guitars, string sections, and tinkling pop synthesizers.” Listeners might find the sound “not edgy or different enough for indie rock, and too weird for the coffeehouse.” Still, at the levels of craft and invention, the Danger Mouse/Jones pairing “just works.” Jones is able to capture many moods with her “smoky, lithe, gorgeous voice,” and Danger Mouse “knows just which buttons to push” while pushing pop’s envelope.

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