Norah Jones: Pick Me Up Off The Floor

Marrying catchy pop melodies with keen jazz constructs is but one of piano prodigy Norah Jones’ many fortes exercised in full across all 45 minutes of Pick Me Up Off The Floor. Jones has often worn her introspective sensitivity on her sleeve, and the album’s underlying theme of longing for connection in a disconnected world carries added weight in our collective pandemic-centric mindset. The perfect aural table-setting comes via the opener “How I Weep,” a veritable blueprint of Jones’ vocal-delivery mastery matched with the just-right minimal accompaniment of piano and strings. Each syllabic selection is no accident, either. The breathy nature of the verses and certain extended vowels sharing adjacent space with the way Jones likes to linger on the “s” both within and at the end of specific words make it feel like she’s sharing her deepest, darkest secrets in broad daylight. Meanwhile, the uplifting piano break in “Say No More” and the pervading resilience of “I’m Alive” each inject a tone of hope amidst the ever-present melancholy. A less abstract Astral Weeks for the here and now, Floor is further proof of how Jones continues to mop up the competition with unequaled style and grace.