Come Away With Me

2002  ·  Blue Note Records  ·  Album

The album that made late-night feel like a place worth staying.

Come Away With Me arrived in 2002 and promptly sold ten million copies, which is the kind of success that can make a record seem more ordinary than it is. Set against it now, the album holds up not as a phenomenon but as a quietly achieved thing: a collection of songs that know exactly how much room to take up. Norah Jones’s voice is warm without being cloying, and she plays piano with a restraint that gives the arrangements space to breathe. The production by Arif Mardin is tasteful in the original sense — it serves the songs rather than decorating them. There are no wasted moments on this record. Every track earns its place.

Put it on when dinner is finished and nobody has moved from the table yet. It suits the end of an evening better than the beginning — the point when the candles have burned down and the conversation has moved past the things you were saving to say. It works at low volume, on a Sunday when the apartment is quiet, or in the background of something that deserves a soundtrack. The title track and the closing number bracket the album with something close to a complete emotional statement. Not every debut pulls that off.

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VERDICT  ·  The album that made an ordinary evening feel worth having.

POUR  ·  A bourbon, neat and unhurried. Or whatever is already poured.

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