Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me (2010)

Review By Chris Nowling: Should you be inclined to make such a superficial judgement, you can tell quite a bit about a Joanna Newsom album by its cover. Her amazing debut, 2004's The Milk-Eyed Mender, is adorned with a colorful collage of drawings and photographs both personal and stridently quirky—the music follows suit. Two years later, much changed. Newsom’s sophomore effort (and most would claim her masterpiece), 2006's Ys, featured more refined, mature artwork: a detailed drawing of the singer-songwriter dressed in ornate, Renaissance-era garb displaying an air of confidence and grace. Fittingly, the album is much more lyrically and musically ambitious, and Newsom creates an otherworldly, fantastical listening experience. Four years on, the tradition continues. Joanna's third and most anticipated release, Have One on Me, features artwork of Newsom sprawled out on a couch, nearly obscured by a wealth of exotic furs and other assorted finery. Calling it “busy” would be an understatement—it’s a visual overload—but given the size and scope of this record, nothing less would be appropriate.

Have One on Me is a whopping 124 minutes, consisting of three discs and 18 tracks. Newsom is no doubt pushing her luck by offering such a mammoth amount of music in one release, even to an audience that revered the dense, twisting 55 minutes (and five tracks) of Ys. But while Have One is in some ways the most unwieldy project in Newsom's catalog, it could also be considered her most accessible effort. Her growth as a singer is astounding—the squeaky affect evidenced on The Milk-Eyed Mender only occasionally spikes out from the delightfully smooth, beautiful croon she now favors. And while Have One On Me is still primarily a folk album, focused on harp and vocals, the addition of horns, piano, and other instruments—along with warmer, more immediate melodies—make this the most pop-oriented album Newsom has made. Her twisting song structures and extremely detailed lyricism are present, as expected, and there’s plenty here that seems a natural extension of the album that preceded it, but Have One on Me shows identifiable progression and growth from those previous efforts that makes it just as great.

The record’s three discs divide the experience into more manageable 40 minute sets, each nearly as effective alone as they are together. Approaching the album section by section (disc by disc) isn't an unwise choice, but it's truly remarkable how Newsom can hold your attention for two solid hours (should you have time to take in the thing in one sitting). The first six-song set is no doubt the strongest, beginning with the dramatic string and vocal intensive “Easy” and ending with the reverently gorgeous “Baby Birch,” with the focus resting on the album’s most notable cut, “Good Intentions Paving Company.” The latter, a bluesy piano-pop tune, features percussion, guitar, and horns complimenting Newsom’s impressive vocal performance (easily her best yet). There’s nothing else as fun and exploratory as that track to be found during the remaining 12 songs of Have One On Me. But there are a wealth of new approaches that further develop Newsom’s musical personality. Among these, the brief but disarming “On a Good Day,” the twisting and lovelorn ballad "In California," and “Kingfisher,” which brings to mind the stately, regal nature of Ys' best tracks.

As well sequenced and uniformly strong as Have One on Me is, it will still likely be too much for some listeners, especially given its frequent, deliberate diversions and lengthy song structures. It would be unfair to call Have One a bloated album, just as it wouldn't be right to categorize any of its songs as “filler”; the record is simply very, very long. It requires patience to enjoy and to appreciate, but its length is very much justified and even necessary. It’s a shame that the meticulous structure Newsom's given her album will undoubtedly be broken as it gets divided up for playlists or burned as a single disc consisting of “highlights.” Some of these songs immediately stand out from the others—and Newsom has no doubt produced some of her most striking singles (if you can label them as such)—but there is magic to be found in the listening of Have One On Me as it was intended to be heard, despite the commitment required to do so. Majestic and complex, yet intimate and personal, Joanna Newsom’s third ambitious effort in a career already full of them both encompasses the qualities that first impressed us and demonstrates a further progress and maturation. Consider her status as one of today's most revered and obsessed over artist's firmly cemented.

Last Word: Joanna Newsom’s latest is extravagant in both size and scope, yet the inimitable musician’s considerable reach never exceeds her grasp and she offers another breathtaking, absorbing, and complete work.