joanna newsom
24 February 2010
confession:
I’d say a good 5 years ago my good friend Bardhi Haliti tried to get me into Joanna Newsom. She’s this crazy woodland sprite with a squeaky soprano (I tried to find what was higher than soprano, but couldn’t get a clear answer from Google and Wikipedia) that plays the harp. The harp! It wasn’t hard to see her indie cred, but I had a hard time actually getting into her music.
And then in 2006 she released “Ys” and I kinda thought: that’s a little pretentious… an album name that’s not even a word… but all I did, I’m sure, was display my own ignorance. The album was critically acclaimed as one of the best of the year. I didn’t give it much of a chance.
And then, on a total whim, I go to npr.org today—not to listen or read any stories, but just to look at their playlist functionality for site that I’m working on. I’m haphazardly clicking on any story that has a [+] icon next to it, and I happened to add two stories about Joanna Newsom to my playlist. And, for once—even though my original intention did not include actually listening to anything—I gave her a shot.
And, sadly and predictably enough, she blew me away.
(also surprising to me, because I thought she was creature from the middle ages, she happens to be quite beautiful… definitely giving indie-darlings, Jenny Lewis and Zoe Deschanel, a run for their money)
Anyways, she released a new album, “Have One on Me” on Tuesday and it’s really good. Granted, it is much more accessible than her previous two, but in just one listen today (it’s 2+ hours long) I was blown away. Check it out on NPR—they’re streaming it for free right now.
