Norah Jones Gets Her Revenge In "Miriam"

The dewy sweet girl next door Norah Jones that fans fell in love with in 2002 has been scorned and she wants you to know about it in her new music video for her exquisitely angry "Little Broken Hearts" ballad, "Miriam." As fans of Jones' new summer album already know, the song “Miriam,” is the most chilling she has ever recorded, and the onetime soft-jazz wunderkind throws us another curveball and takes one of her Danger Mouse-produced album's creepiest, most unsettling songs and gives it a full noir treatment.
The deceptively soft-spoken singer has always been known as somewhat quirky and mysterious, both musically and personally. Now it's Jones who is out for revenge and shows dark, twisted side in new album, where she dispatches with the calm niceties and unleashes a vengeful rage and fury few knew she had within her, after her boyfriend's infidelity sent her back into the recording studio. The spooky murder ballad "Miriam" describes the way she murdered her cheating boyfriend and his other woman respectively. Jones starts with what appears to be a nice stroll through the pond, but ends up taking a very dark turn.
"Obviously I care a little bit about what people think, but I try not to," Jones told Exclaim! Magazine "I feel pretty secure in who I think I am and what I know I do. It's not like I do anything crazily different [on 'Little Broken Hearts'], just a couple of songs were a little mean. It's not like I'm such a bad girl. I'm an adult. I'm not a little kid... It's not like I'm pulling one over on people. I am a nice person." The line between quietly soothing and disgustingly creepy has always been a thin one in popular music. A good music video can certainly help such a song over the borderline, as Jones' new clip does here.
Adding grim visuals to the already dark lyrics, the Phil Andelman-directed clip is the perfect visual marriage to the song. The camera moves slowly paced melodies create an uncomfortable sensation and snake-like, producing a video that provides a couple of shocking reveals and a juicy coda feel that song produces. It finds Jones, as a scorned '50s housewife, floats alone in a boat with a blood-speckled oar at her feet. The crime of passion, by a jealous lover, is deliberately laid out, though we never know for sure the method. However, the video solves that mystery.

Norah Jones Gets Revenge In "Happy Pills"

Alt-jazz songstress Norah Jones has released a video for "Happy Pills," the chugging first single off her forthcoming fifth Danger Mouse-produced breakup LP, "...Little Broken Hearts," is due for a May 1st release. Featuring Jones singing in various '50s-themed outfits and surroundings, the video tracks the middle and seemingly infidelity-induced end of a relationship. It's the perfect backdrop for Jones's retro, pleading croon, "Will you please just let me go now?"
"Happy Pills" depicts a relationship gone wrong, and it shows off what might be an unexpected side of the soft-spoken singer-songwriter. The '50s-influenced breakup track features Jones doing what she does best—musing with a sensual vocal performance, and deals conclusively with a philandering boyfriend. The song hints at the breadth of new sounds that Jones and producer Mouse (real name: Brian Burton) conjured for "...Little Broken Hearts," with the pair handling the majority of the instrumentals.
The 33-year-old Grammy-winning singer teamed up with the producer after she contributed vocals to his Rome project with Daniele Luppi. The song surprised Jones and Burton from the moment they wrote it. "We both were like 'Oh my God, this is awesome' at first and then went away and listened over the weekend, explained Jones. "We didn't know if it fit on the record. But I couldn't stop singing it, and neither could Brian. Eventually we decided it was too much fun, it had to be there." Jones looks absolutely luminescent throughout the video. She's downright dewy as her younger self and aging does nothing to dim her radiant beauty.
Jones isn't kidding when she says she wants you out of her life in the video for "Happy Pills." The Isaiah Seret-directed clip starts in the past - the late '50s or early '60s, and goes forward and back in time as she lives out a revenge fantasy against her cheating beau. She has it out for both the boyfriend and his girlfriend in the Hitchcockian tale, although, the video is a little hard to follow at times as various scenarios play out and time moves ahead. However, the ending is crystal clear as a cold, blue lake as an older Jones rides her horse through the woods back to the scene of the crime that she has kept secret for decades or not.

Norah Jones Premiered "Young Blood" On iTunes

The Grammy Award winning singer Norah Jones debuted The Fall's fairly non-rock "Young Blood" at Apple's "Rock And Roll" product conference in last September. Now iTunes offered the world premiere of her music video for "Young Blood" featured on her 2009 release critically-acclaimed, platinum-selling fourth studio album "The Fall" on digitally only. The video was directed by Toben Seymour, a British fantastical director and puppeteer who has also worked with Moby, will.i.am fan site, and Kanye West.
Jones is one of the most popular contemporary jazz and jazz-influenced singers of our time. Unlike the one-woman-and-her-sailing-brownstone vibe of "Chasing Pirates," these frames include Mondrian-like screen divisions populated with plenty of extras and set pieces literalizing the lyrics. The video makes creative use of split-screen storytelling by splicing in footage of Ms. Jones, alongside a literal interpretation of the songs lyrics.
Jones will be making her first-ever appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show on April 22. A performance on PBS Soundstage will air later this spring. Jones is currently on a North American tour in support of "The Fall," and has been receiving rave reviews all along the way. She has added several major festivals to her schedule throughout the summer including Celebrate Brooklyn, Bonnaroo, and Lilith Fair, as well as a run of European tour dates beginning in late June. NPR Music just simulcast Jones' performance at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia yesterday. The concert will be streamed live, podcast and archived at NPR Music, and will be broadcast live on WXPN.

Norah Jones Premiered "Chasing Pirates" Video

VH1 presented the world premiere of the new music video for the multiple Grammy Award-winning singer Norah Jones' "Chasing Pirates" on Tuesday, and will air on VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown at 9AM ET on Saturday, October 31. "Chasing Pirates" is the lead single from Jones' highly anticipated upcoming fourth album "The Fall" LP, which is her biggest step away from triple-A banality yet and will be released by EMI's Blue Note Records on November 17.
Norah Jones, the Dallas native, Anglo-American and Indian-Bengali descent' career began with her 2002 debut album "Come Away with Me," an adult contemporary vocal jazz album with a soul/folk/country tinge, that received five Grammy Awards. She has sold more than 16 million albums in the US and over 36 million records worldwide. "I've always written more on guitar than on piano," she says, "The thing that's really different this time is that I drove the rhythm more, because what I play on the guitar are rhythm parts. When I play the piano, I don’t really play rhythm, I just sort of sprinkle over the top."
Jones has taken a new direction on her latest album "The Fall," experimenting with different sounds and a new set of collaborators, including Jacquire King, Tom Waits, and Modest Mouse among others. Jones explained how "Chasing Pirates" came to be, "About a year ago, I did some demos in my home studio," she says. "I had some friends come in and we figured out a cool arrangement for 'Chasing Pirates,' with a cool drum part. It went somewhere I didn't expect it to go, and that became a direction to look in. For this record, I just had a sound in my head," says Jones. "I wanted the grooves to be more present and heavy. And I also just wanted to do something different I've been hanging with the same group of musicians for a long time, and I thought it was a good time for me to work with different people and experiment a little."
The video for "Chasing Pirates" makes Jones a sailor actually chasing pirates down the avenues of New York City, her hometown, by consulting centuries old maritime maps, plots her course with a periscope, strapping on pirate boots and a era-appropriate skirt, and steering her charming apartment building through downtown traffic. It was directed by Rich Lee, who was fitting for the video as he worked on the stunning visual effects for all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. "My mind is racing from "chasing pirates" and I don't know how to slow it down," she croons. "Chasing Pirates," which was featured on Rolling Stone's "Hot List," immediately announces a new direction for Jones. Entertainment Weekly wrote that "'Chasing Pirates' is a bluesy surprise and welcome change of pace," adding that "Jones' voice remains as lovely as ever."