TIME Magazine: TIME 100: Norah Jones


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Norah Jones

Artists & Entertainers
	Mark Burnett Frank Gehry John Galliano Peter Jackson Nicholas Hytner Simon Cowell OutKast Norah Jones Jerry Bruckheimer J.K. Rowling Ken Kutaragi Bruce Nauman Katie Couric Charlie Kaufman Hideo Nakata Aishwarya Rai Ferran Adrià Nicole Kidman Sean Penn Guy Laliberté
	Leaders & Revolutionaries Builders & Titans Scientists & Thinkers Heroes & Icons Introduction Essay FROM THE ARCHIVE: Artists & Entertainers from 1900-1999

Calming Voice in a Frenzied Pop Age

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

CLAY PATRICK MCBRIDE/RETNA

FROM THE TIME ARCHIVE

	Come Away Again A year after her Grammy-grabbing debut, Norah Jones returns with a noisier CD, a new nickname and a game plan: to keep it saner this time [2/9/2004]

At a time when female singers regularly bare their bellies, their breasts and their souls, jazz-pop singer Norah Jones barely shows more of her body than her shoulders, gives few interviews—and yet outsells almost anybody else. Her first CD, Come Away with Me, sold 8 million copies and won eight Grammys. Her second, Feels Like Home, moved 1 million copies in its first week of release.

She is not Nirvana or Pearl Jam; she hasn't captured the passions or preoccupations of her generation; she is not a new flavor that launches 32 more. Instead, her success has called attention to the jazz-pop divas who came before her—Cassandra Wilson, Diana Krall and Madeleine Peyroux. Most pop phenomena are lightning bolts, flashing quickly and dramatically across the zeitgeist. Jones is a light rain, touching everything and seeping permanently into the soil. In an age when knob-twiddling producers rule and lip-synching pop tarts stalk the stage, she has reintroduced the world to the human voice. Jones is rooted by that libidoless, timeless and peerless voice—a calm, blue-tinted murmur that shies away from American Idol-style showboating. I like her jazzy, soulful first album more than her folksy, drowsy second. But in the serenity of her song delivery, this bold proclamation is issued: technology, publicity and sexuality have their place in music, but they are all subordinate to the pleasures and power of true vocal talent.

Oct. 22, 1990	Feb. 21, 1949	Oct. 13, 1967

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