Follow your muse

How pleasant it has been to hear songs from the new Norah Jones album on the radio these past few weeks. Soft, deftly performed, vaguely jazzy in that way that everyone likes, these latest songs sound almost completely indistinguishable from the songs on her first two albums. And why not? Those first two albums sold 31 million copies between them. She might have recorded a thrash-metal album this time round, or a symphony for banjo and orchestra, but fortunately for EMI, whose share price depends almost wholly on the performance of this record, Norah has her shtick and she has stuck with it. Each new song wafts through your head like a warm summer breeze after half a bottle of wine on an empty stomach, and when it ends you suddenly wake up, feeling a bit sick. I couldn’t be more delighted, as it spares me utterly from having to buy the damn thing. Funds are a bit short at the moment, and the last thing the household needs is another Norah Jones album that sounds just like the others.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the rest of the world feels the same way. Chances are that they won’t. Making the same album again and again hasn’t harmed Enya’s career. Each one sells its customary six million around the world, and then she goes back to her castle in rural Ireland and spends the next five years building the next album up from scratch. If you alter your approach too drastically, you risk alienating your audience for ever. In the late 1990s Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy took a couple of years off from his lucrative role as pop music’s favourite cravat-wearing fop with a Scott Walker fixation, grew his hair and recorded an album of useless indie rock full of guitars.