Norah Jones - Featuring...

So here I go, yes I confess, I'm a massive Norah Jones fan, she's a massive guilty pleasure for an alternative kid like me and I have enjoyed her music since the massive success of debut album 'Come Away With Me' (which to date has sold over an impressive twenty million copies, not to mention the winning of not one, not two, but five grammy awards). How amazing is it then, that here in front of me I have 'Featuring...', a collection of collaborations amongst many other things with the likes of Foo Fighters, Dolly Parton, Outkast, Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, and the list goes on and on until your head is completely spinning with the thought.

Press releases will tell you all manner of things, usually bold faced lies and for the most part, the press release for this record is the same, stating that this compilation showcases Jones' diversity, when in actual fact, for the most part, the music spans very much what we already know from Norah Jones, it's a bit jazzy, it has hints of country and that works to her advantage because that style has always and always will, bring out the warm tone to her vocals. There are the odd occassions when the style does stray, 'The Best Part' is an eerie, slow and mesmerising track, while 'Life Is Better' touches upon a funk and almost hip-hop sound, and its good, but not great, and nearly every track on this record, regardless of style, can be accused of not really going anywhere, not to mention that Jones ends up making a fatal mistake for me, fade outs, it's fine with a few tracks, but when it covers almost all eighteen tracks on the record, it comes across as unimaginative song writing some what.

Lets be straight with each other here, records like this are frivolous, the result of a mass amount of media attention, not to mention a truck load of records sold and you'll eventually get a greatest hits, a b-sides album or a collaboration album. This isn't the worst album I've heard, but it is definitely far from the best and can only be solely recommended to Norah Jones fans, even that for me, is still pushing it.

2.5 / 5

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