It is not too late for Norah Jones, whose third album is topping the charts again. Hailed by critics as her best work to date, it is the most pre-ordered album of all time and has given the music industry a much-needed boost after it has been in a funk with piracy and Internet downloading. This completes her hat trick with her previous two albums Come Away With Me (2002) and Feels Like Home (2004) also topping the charts. Reviewers see Not Too Late as a sign of the artiste maturing after her debut five years ago at the age of 22. It was a quiet debut for this former lounge singer with Come Away With Me, a mellow, acoustic affair with soul and country overtones. The album sold approximately 20 million copies, reinforced by an armful of Grammies. Next, the country-inspired Feels Like Home may not have sold as well but it established her as an artiste with a distinctive sound.

The distinctive sound is her voice, both celebrated for its finesse and dismissed as bland. In her own words, many listeners consider her albums “background music”. Purists, who jeer at her jazz-inspired mix of pop/soul/folk/country, dismiss her music as slow, simple and mellow. According to Slate magazine, “the trademark Jones style is paying diminishing returns”. She’s nicknamed Snorah Jones, the sleepy queen of the brunch hour. She herself acknowledged in a recent interview to The New York Times, that her music is putting people to sleep, “one child at a time”. Yet, it is this quality that has made her so popular. Her music is described as the intimate sound of a handful of musicians playing in a small room. In the contemporary music scene of harsh electronic bombast, she gives her listeners comfort music. Norah has made her peace with being “misunderstood”. As she says, “You’re never going to please everybody, so you shouldn’t try”.

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