Norah Jones - Chasing Pirates (Santigold and Snotty Remix)
I normally associate Norah Jones with middle-aged people with marginally better taste than their Coldplay-digging counterparts. These are the middle-aged people (the former) that I would like to be friends with. Norah's mass appeal is just about as detracting as Neko Case's, so it's with trepidation that I consider her new music. That said, new single "Chasing Pirates" is kind of fun. It doesn't take any risks, but it is an update to the sleepy-style-piano jazz of Come Away with Me. And Santigold and Snotty's remix takes it into even more interesting territory; by slowing it down and adding vibrating synths, it turns into a foreboding dark car ride through Bon Temps. It doesn't feel so family-friendly anymore, and the lyrics seem to describe something totally different.
Stereogum says it better than I can right now:
"Chasing Pirates" is a song about a mind wandering and a heart yearning. For Norah that meant the warm, stately lock of a quietly killer keyboard-and-drum groove, giving the angst a playful quality. But for Santi -- joined on remix duties by Snotty -- it's all about the desperation, rendered in darkened electro via sinister synths and killer drum tones its own. But the twist is the twisted take on Norah's vocal, masked and pitch-shifted, as if Jones never found those pirates and re-visited the song with her newfound L.E.S.-artiste friends after 20 years of smoking cigarettes and staying up too late at downtown clubs.
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Changing the tempo and such really does change the cute and sweet song... I don't know how to feel. It's definitely different though and so I appreciate it on it's own aspect, but hmm.
ReplyDeleteNorah Jones new stuff has been a bit more friendly to the younger crowd but she still has very mellow lyrics that you need the right mood for.