¤ milky moon ¤

I've been asked to write an article for a quite popular culture blog a friend of mine runs, she wants me to write about Joanna. I can write whatever I want really.

I was thinking of starting it something like this: (Obviously this is just in note form)

In the title track of her latest album, Newsom states 'All these songs when you and I are long gone will carry on', and this phrase pretty much sums her up. I would then go on to discuss the timeless quality of her music, how she doesn't compromise and works outside the cultural norms of music today.

Do you think that's a good way to open? What else shall I write about?

Thanksss

for whom is detinated this article? is this an introduction to people who doesn't know her? is this a review of her work?you can melt her history with her work, the "homemade album" "TMEM" then Ys and HOOM the evolution to living room to orchestra and very complex arrangement, etc...thaat's why she doesn't compromise, use very old and/or personal sheme: melodies, arrangementds, lyrics not the AABB form, song's time (to 15minutes), but that anybody can appreciate her work as her music is understandable at many levels...

Perfect milki that's exactly what I need.
Thankyou

Anyone else got ideas?

I'll post the thing up here after I've written it anyway.

It's aimed at people who may or may not know her, but who would be receptive to her as an artist. It's no hard sell.

I suppose a little enthusiasm can't go amiss. I wish I had more to contribute, but I think I've been kinda stupid since I came off my meds.
Uhh, I guess it really depends on the direction you want to take the article. You could go for a more sort of thematic approach, talking about what she writes about and how she does it so well, or you could do something more biographical: a sort of introduction to Joanna Newsom and her music with a few interesting points for extant fans. Or a mixture of both, though it could be a little harder to pull off. Of course, a lot of it depends on what sort of length, if any, you're limited to, or how long you want it to be. It would be pretty difficult to summarise the evolution from her early self-released albums through MEM and Ys to HOOM in 500 words. I don't know if it's cliché to pick up on some of the things she's said about her progress as an artist herself in interviews - the 'elements' thing, for example, seems to have been (relatively speaking) exhaustively discussed.
I suppose if your approach is to talk about her deviation from the musical norm today, you could speak about her unusual approach to her subject matters. She writes about love, as has everyone to put pen to paper since the invention of writing, but her strategy of creating a fictional or semi-fictional narrative in which to discuss it is fairly unique - Have One On Me being a case in point. Even in In California, which is fairly autobiographical, there's a certain novel-like quality to the song: jumping between scenes with all of the action occurring within the artificial boundaries of an altered world created by the artist. Her songs are full of the impossibly poetic, graceful and symbolic: the tallow-coloured wall-eyed deer, the picture window hit by a brown bird, etc. It always feels to me as if the events of every song take place in a dream, a distorted version of the real world that reflects all of its occurences. "And back in the world that moves, often, according to the hoarding of these clues, dogs still run roughly 'round little tufts of finch down."

Anyway, forgive my rambling. Hopefully you can salvage some kind of sense from that if you care to.

I do indeed care to, thank you Jordan. I feel like we should call you Jordalicious now. Anyway, reading your thoughts and stuff makes me want to get onto this. I may have a crack at it today.

Ooooh, this is so exciting. I'm betting it will be fantastic. My favorite things to read about Joanna are song/lyric analysis, so you should throw some of that in there as well, though I suppose you'd have to do it relating it back to her, sort of how you did the beginning there, quoting a line but using it to tell her story.

What about the contrast between being an I-hate-media folk singer and at the same time being dating with a public figure in the USA?

Does she hate media? She seems to like quite a lot of mainstream music, she's dabbled in modelling, she's had quite a bit of commercial success (especially in Europe), she's big on designer clothes... she doesn't seem to be particularly averse to consorting with mainstream media outlets.

+1