“Good morning,” Norah Jones’ sultry voice opens before continuing “my thoughts on leaving/are back on the table.” Instantly the mood is set — this isn’t just another dose of enjoyable generic diet jazz, this is real.
Little Broken Hearts is a record about love, loss, anguish, heartache, infidelity, and revenge. Over the course of the album’s 12 tracks, Jones captures to perfection the melting pot of emotions left in the wake of her recent breakup. The eloquent production courtesy of Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse), who shares writer and composer credits, gives air and space to Jones’ emotional vocals.
Norah Jones became a household name when her debut album hit store shelves in early 2002. Jones followed up her debut with a string of pleasing, if somewhat generic, releases in the same vein — until she shook things up a bit with 2009’s The Fall, an album that showed a lot of potential, but not a lot of consistency.
With Little Broken Hearts Norah Jones has created an album that more than delivers on the promise of The Fall — and arguable also the most immediate, intimate, and evocative description of the end of a relationship on record. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars
