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Joanna Newsom - help

2

2ManyBoxes

pfm Member
Just been 'listening' to Joanna Newsom - Divers. Hmmmmm.

I contend that it is not music, it is words with accompanying sounds of instruments. If you removed the vocals it would just be isolated bings and plucks. There is no melody and no rhythm, the words are everything and so they are songs in only the very, very loosest sense. Never has a lyric sheet been more necessary.

That would be OK if I had the faintest idea what she is on about. I've just played the first 3 tracks, Anecdotes, Shalakalian and Leaving the City. I think I understand what the last one is about, some brutish man drags her away from the wonderful city to the countryside where she is restricted in what she can do and isn't free.

The other two occurrences I have not even the faintest idea what she is on about. She seems to revel in opacity, the more deliberately obscure the better.

Kate Bush leaves her for dead. Her lyrics are totally obscure to me in places also but she always bothers with the music. They are always songs and so for me worth an awful lot more than Joanna Newsom.

Anyone make me an offer?
 
I highly recommend listening to some some Webern, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Boulez, Pierre Henry, John Cage, Anthony Braxton, late-period Coltrane, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor and Autechre.
 
I’ve got her first two albums, Milk Eyed Mender and the Ys double on vinyl, and the three hour Have One On Me 3xCD landed with a collection recently. With every album she seems to dig the hole deeper. Her first album being very much part of the ‘freak folk’ scene (Devendra Banhart etc), and a great ‘quirky girl with harp’ take on it and very accessible if you like that sort of thing. Ys is seen by most to be her high water-mark, a large twisting double-LP of very long songs, but I have to admit I’ve not put the effort in to get it yet, I must revisit it. I had a quick go with Have One On Me, but its just too big, too sprawling. Huge three-hour albums work for say Kamasi Washington’s epic soul-jazz groves, but it just doesn’t with folk for me. I don’t have that attention span! Apparently the legendary Terry Riley was a neighbour and family friend when she was growing up, so I see some of what she’s doing as trying to bring that sort of spaced hippy minimalism in at times, but I’m not convinced it fits the context. I’m pretty sure she’s a huge talent, but I suspect she’s trying too hard at present, though in fairness I’ve not heard the latest album.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
Just been 'listening' to Joanna Newsom -
..

Anyone make me an offer?
Click to expand...
No, I'm in the same boat as you. Personally, I couldn't get beyond the fey strangling - a-cat vocals on the well-received early tracks, nevermind the crap 'music'

(and I'm someone with immense time for atonal, bleep/squesk, inflation-of-cats jazz, and experimental music over a wide range: in fact this is a vast range I love, mostly often becasue the human voice isnt part)

In fact I think JS works falls into an 'uncanny valley' for me - it's not 'experimental'; it's neither great vocal nor instrument technique; it's not not compelling lyricism; is a-rthymic in the sense of ' a bit crap' - not the studied achievement of one who chooses to mess with time in a knowing , deliberate, srtistic way. it's not clearly work-in=progress either.But at best comes close to some of these enough it just doesn't work, for me.

So I agree, there's nothing I find musical here; but live and let live. Joanne Newsome is Clearly not some one who makes music to be appreciated by a bloke like me. That's fine; others greatly enjoy what she does.
 
Well, I can't say that I wasn't intrigued, as I had never heard of her.

I started with a skim through this (first up on YouTube, no other reason) - actually not bad at all, although I can't imagine buying it -

 
Have you given 'Milk-Eyed Mender' a bash? That's full of melody and excellent lyricism, which is much more palatable. I always get goosebumps when I listen to 'Sadie': as the time signature shifts and she laments 'This is an old song, these are old blues / And this is not my tune, but it's mine to use'. Superb.
 
Just flicked through this, sorry but vocals like this from a 6-8-year-old, OK, but otherwise.....

The music and lyrics, absolutely fine

 

This, from her first album, is the track that got her noticed. I really like it, superb harp playing that almost veers into Glass/Reich minimalism at times, quirky child-like vocal and just unique as a whole. One of the ‘big hits’ from the ‘freak folk’ thing of around 15 years ago.
 
Tony L said:
I highly recommend listening to some some Webern, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Boulez, Pierre Henry, John Cage, Anthony Braxton, late-period Coltrane, Derek Bailey, Cecil Taylor and Autechre.
Click to expand...

That's an uncannily accurate list of music that I just don't get at all. John Adams is another one. I suppose I could say that I'm glad when it's over but that's about it.

There was a series on Radio 4 recently about experimental music. To me it sounded like it had passed self-parody long ago and just kept it's foot down. How can you tell if it's not a group of students taking the piss?

The only reaction I had to it was that I couldn't ignore it and leave it on while I did something else. My brain kept trying to make sense of it so I had to switch it off.

Compared to them, Joanna Newsom is a melody freak of Mozart proportions.

There are atonal pieces that I do get, like David Shire's soundtrack for the original film 'The taking of Pelham 1-2-3'. He said the two halves represented the power and order of the city versus the chaos and disruption of the hold-up gang.

And I like Olivier Messiaen, another sell out pretend musician :rolleyes:
 
I just checked and found that I have ‘milk-eyed mender’ and ‘Y’s’.
I guess the fact that I had forgotten I had them says something about what I thought after a first listen.
 
I'm a big fan. Her melodies are extraordinarily moving, maybe more akin to composed music than mainstream pop or rock. It's interesting that she's worked with Van Dyke Parks and maybe sits in that baroque pop orchestral legacy . I'd recommend a few plays of Good Intentions Paving Company from Have One on Me as an example - and the lyrics are beautiful.


I think this song is a masterpiece and far from atonal or experimental. Have One On Me is long but has amazingly consistent quality across the three cds. I bought it when it came out and still get new things every time I play it.

There are similar songs on each record and moments of transcendent beauty in the arrangements. As Tony said they do get a little more esoteric as they do - Divers is my least favourite record. She was in relationship wit Bill Callaghan for a while and there are some similarities in their use of long song structures that are gratifying but not in any way immediate.
 
She’s not for me, not sure about Terry Riley either. I do really like Julia Holter though, a bit more accessible.
 
Woodface said:
...not sure about Terry Riley either.
Click to expand...

At the least try A Rainbow In Curved Air, it is a minimalist classic and very accessible indeed. One could easily spin it either very early or late on in a dance club, as one could with say Miles Davis In A Silent Way, which occupies a similarly wonderful ambient groove. Its almost impossible to imagine Tangerine Dream, Eno, The Orb etc without these albums paving the way.
 
I don't really see Newsom as in a minimalist tradition, almost the opposite in fact, its a far more baroque and ornate music. For me her music is closer to something like Astral Weeks, Nico's over orchestrated Chelsea Girls or even Laura Nyro with literature being as much an influence as music. The more she records the more her records seem about excess rather than sparseness - which might be why some find it so pretentious.

She talks about the '70s music she loves in this interview - from Vogue! ( and does mention Riley in passing)

https://www.vogue.com/article/inherent-vice-joanna-newsom-1970s-songs
 
For me she's a musical and lyrical genius, with a staggering grasp of prosody that is both intuitive and academic. She is a great harpist, her live performances often have extreme emotional power, and Have One on Me is the great album of the millennium so far.
 
I like her. Her lyrics are opaque then so were Bowie's but that doesn't bother most. He music does have hints of classical and melody, some beautiful melody actually. I love the sound and music of Kate Bush and see the similarities but find her lyrics to be the most irritating part f her music and wish she had spent time resolving these further.
 
Tony L said:
At the least try A Rainbow In Curved Air, it is a minimalist classic and very accessible indeed. One could easily spin it either very early or late on in a dance club, as one could with say Miles Davis In A Silent Way, which occupies a similarly wonderful ambient groove. Its almost impossible to imagine Tangerine Dream, Eno, The Orb etc without these albums paving the way.
Click to expand...
I think I am mixing this guy up with Terry Allen which is rather embarrassing.
 
I think Joanna Newsom (and all her albums) is great. Must’ve seen her live four times now.

The easiest entry point I can think of off the top of my head is “In California”, on “Have One On Me”. An atypical conventional singer/songwriter moment in her discography, but typically brilliant.
 
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