Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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160 of 182 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A real gem, if you're game, April 1, 2004
Joanna Newsom will never find a popular audience. The idea of a classically-trained singing harpist who plays American folk music would pretty much guarantee that, but Newsom's vocals are also an acquired taste-- of the sort that probably causes most fans to endure accusations of just trying to be hip, and not actually enjoying the music.However, if you take in some of the samples and decide that you find Newsom's voice charming rather than grating, you're in for a special treat. For a young whippersnapper, her music manages to include many sophisticated elements, including a pleasantly reverent, old-timey, Appalachian sound that lingers beneath the atmospheric melodies. The American south that Newsom creates is highly idealized, but never so decrepit or depressing as to be gothic. The lyrics are as important as the music, and although they can sometimes be frustratingly obscure, they are often disarmingly witty ("like a slow, low-flying turkey/ like a Texan drying jerky"), and even make ironic use of the pretentious academic jargon that seems to have become the lingua franca of 'empowered' college women these days. Yes, it's smart and artsy, but it's also genuinely fresh and engaging. Keep up the good work, Ma'am.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow, March 25, 2007
I haven't had as strongly and immediately positive a reaction to an artist in years as I did when I heard some tracks from Joanna Newsom. I thought the only time I would fall so quickly for a quirky artist who can't sing would be that time I first heard Tom Waits playing at a record store years ago, but Newsom's incredibly catchy harp melodies, her unconventional lyrics, and her squeaky-hinge voice combined into something that absolutely knocked me over at first listen. I waited impatiently by the mailbox until I got this CD, with the tunes of singles "Bridges and Balloons" and "The Sprout and the Bean" running almost constantly through my head.
Once I got this album, I found to my relief that Newsom's work is consistent throughout and that it held my attention through repeated listens. Newsom's off-tune, off-kilter voice wears far better than one might expect and her tunes are pop-like in the way they hook themselves into the brain like Velcro. Her lyrics are a double-edged sword on repeat listens in that there is a lot of depth to them - they are more poetry than traditional pop lyric - but some verses (a remarkable minority, actually) are art-student twee.
The good in this album far, far outweighs the occasional pretension in the lyrics. I'm over the moon about Newsom and I listen to this album over and over. I imagine it is true, as other commentators have noted, that Newsom's singing voice, if you can really call it that, could be a stumbling block for many listeners. It usually is for me. But in my opinion, Newsom makes it work.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Subjectivity of Music....., October 8, 2006
I've just finished scanning most of the reviews to date. We've got those who loved the album from the beginning....like I did. Then there are those that hated it initially but found that it grew on them. Finally, we have those who hate it, find it either some intellectual joke played on them or the worst example of a singer who can't sing they've ever heard.
Like all of us, we can only truly discuss what WE feel....not what others feel, why they feel it and who's fooling whom.
This, to me anyway, is a transcendent album and Newsome is a voice I will not forget. (I know, I know, you detractors won't either!). It's a little girl voice with a big jarring sound coupled with odd phrasing and pronounciation (I mean, M.I.A. IS Sri Lanken, Joanna is American!)
I remember a time when I was still a teen and first heard free jazz. I was bowled over by its harshness but felt some of what has been suggested here. Were they kidding? Was this noise and nothing more? Then, rather slowly, it came to me. It came to me NOT because someone told me I SHOULD like it. It came viscerally. It was almost like pure emotion. The sax would scream, cry, howl, laugh....sometimes all in one piece. I still remember standing in the back of a local club, listening to a great local tenor sax player (Ernie Krivda) moving from a post-bop thing to some free jazz. He literally had me weeping with the emotion of the music he was playing.
As for folk singers, Iris Dement has that quality to her voice. I haven't a clue whether Iris' voice is pure or stylized, just like I haven't a notion about Joanna's either. I DO know that those who like Dylan's phrasing MUST know that his most famous version of his voice WAS "developed". Listen to him on Lay Lady Lay and tell me that the "other" voice we all know was unaffected. Why should we care? Art is art.
Anyway, Joanna's voice has that affect on me. It moves me. Just like Billie Holiday, Aretha, Ronnie Spector, M.I.A., Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Eryka Badu, Aimee Mann, etc. etc. Some of it is in the songs....whether I truly understand them is like wondering whether I truly understand Dylan....it doesn't matter....the words are as touching as the voice.
For those who despise Newsom, say no more. Find yourself singers more compatible to your sense of vocal style. There are those who love Dylan and Waits as writers...they just hate their voices. For me, that's like saying you enjoy camels except for the humps. There are probably hundreds of people who likewise feel sorry for me because I get nothing from Celine, Whitney and Mariah. Pity me no more.
This is a GREAT, GREAT album from a wonderfully unique new talent and I'll be seeing her live at Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland in a few weeks.
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