Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Rating: 8.0 (out of 10)
Joanna Newsom returned last week with a 3-CD collection to follow up her magical 2006 hit Ys, which was the #3 album on the Vague Space 2006 charts. The new album made a little noise on the Billboard charts this week by becoming Newsom's first release to enter the top 100...
Joanna Newsom, the week's most-talked-about release, lands further down at No. 75. The long-awaited, highly-ambitious three-CD Drag City set "Have One on Me" sold more than 7,000 copies in its first week, and gives the critically beloved Newsom a new high on the big chart. Her 2006 effort, "Ys," debuted and peaked at No. 134.
I guess 7,000 copies isn't very much in the grand scheme of things but how many potential buyers are there of a $20 3-CD set by a harpist with insanely literate lyrics and a voice that challenges even her most ardent fans. Especially when it's pretty easy to find a free copy of just about any album made these days. So good for her. She deserves any success she can get.
Have One on Me is an obvious departure from both Ys and her first album Milk-Eyed Mender, somehow melding the two disparate styles into a completely brand new sound. While Ys was a song cycle of orchestrated parts telling wonderful stories in super-long tracks that Newsom somehow managed to keep her breath through, these tracks are more varied -- in length, in musical backing, in storytelling, with the only constant being Newsom's original voice and her harp. Her voice was grating on Milk-Eyed Mender, only appreciable after multiple listens, but it matured from her warbling rattle to something more sophisticated on Ys, and now, on Have One on Me, she almost sounds beautiful. The songs themselves are not as dense, nor lush, and only the title track runs over 10 minutes long. Of course, these aren't exactly easily accessible pop hits, as among the 15 tracks, most are squarely between 7 and 10 minutes long, but there is something to the sound, something magical and brilliant and beautiful that carries you through what is 2+ hours of music.
It's difficult to listen to the whole album as one and I've come to attack the album only in chunks, which is why the review is not coming until now, even though I've had a copy for over a month. On some songs, it's just Newsom and her harp, and on others just her voice and a piano and this spare approach is a little startling compared to the lush instrumentation on Ys. The songs seem mostly to be about love, from what I can gather from the lyrics, but of course, nothing in Newsom's words is so easily discerned, even if the opening track is titled, simply, "Easy."
I've been most drawn on my listens to the 1st of the 3 CDs, the one that includes "Easy" and "'81" and "No Provenance" and the wonderful title track, but there are gems on the other two CDs and there are certainly joys to be found in every track on the album(s). The quiet, spare "On a Good Day" that opens the 2nd CD is just perfect, while the closing track on the entire collection "Does Not Suffice" strikes just the right chords to close out a wonderful album. I struggled to put a number on the totality of the album for a rating. It's too big, too expansive, to just sum up with a single number or a single review. I hope you will check it out for yourself and find the joys in the songs through the hard work of listening, and learning, and loving everything Newsom sings about. It's worth it in the end. All good things do not come easy.
Comments