“Good Intentions Paving Company” had me a bit spooked, but this is more like it. Joanna sounds much more in her element here. I love the minstrel-esque quality. Simply exquisite. The last three minutes damn near knock me out.

For those of you calling this one boring, I just don’t see it. There’s plenty going on in this song. It changes and blossoms constantly and is right up there with anything off Ys IMO.

Even though I’m not too fond of “Good Intentions,” I’m actually glad there will be material like that on the album. This album will be long and full of variety, and I think that’s a good and highly strategic move. So far we’ve heard “81,” which is a trinkety, short song hearkening back to Milk-Eyed Mender. “Good Intentions” represents her new live band direction, which is a sound that will bring LOTS of new people to Joanna’s music. “Kingfisher” is long and epic. It’s for the Ys heads. There will be something to please everyone.

My guess is that Have One on Me will have maybe an album’s worth of songs more like “Good Intentions.” The rest will be echoing her previous albums. All in all, I think it’s a brilliant idea. It may not be a definitive masterpiece like Ys, but it will be chockfull of amazing standalone pieces.

I’m not exactly sure what that second paragraph is getting at. (That sentence is like four miles long.) And I can’t tell if you’re calling me out personally, but Joanna is my favourite artist. “Then don’t read the articles with her name in it? I don’t piss on your Animal Collective parade.” I’m commenting on this post because this song is my territory. I’m not trolling on material that I have no interest in. You’re very right in that Joanna’s lyrics are masterful. They stand out like SO few artists these days.

Dear Eisen,

No, I didn’t bring it up. The other commenter attacked my comment not because of my critique of the song, but because I referred to Joanna Newsom as a folk artist. In no direct way did that attack address my actual argument. It just sidestepped it and created a tangent discussion, which I acknowledged. All that’s fine. We can talk about whatever the hell we want. No beef with anyone for challenging loud my comments. Obviously I was trying to invite some discussion with that initial comment.

I never dismissed this song because it goes the live band route, I dismissed it because it goes the live band route AND DOES SO POORLY (at least poorly in comparison to her catalogue at large). The argument is about quality. If this song was an A++++ live band song, I would’ve never spoken up. But that’s not what it sounds like to me. Just understand that I’m not (and wasn’t) praising all quiet folk and condemning all live bands. I just don’t like stuff that’s bland and unadventurous, regardless of genre/direction. A lot of times when artists change directions, the work is measurably worse than their older work because they’re in new territories, and they’re not as comfortable and genuinely less competent in those new territories. I’ve found that to be the case with many folk artists who go the live band route after their first few albums. Sometimes they’re just not in their element in this new territory, and their work suffers for it. And this dilemma isn’t exclusive to solo-turned-live-band folk artists either, and I’m sorry if you interpreted my initial comment as such.

In other words, keywords: “yawnsville,” “super bland,” “boring,” “sucking,” “tame.” These words measure quality, and they’re not exclusive to direction.

As for calling me a “dumbass,” why thank you! You are truly too sweet to me, deary.

Alan, if you’ve got a better genre label for Joanna, let’s hear it. Is she indie rock? Pop? Is she jazz? In a world of incessant genre tagging and categorizing, Joanna is folk as far as I’m concerned (and I’m definitely not a casual music fan… oh if you only knew). She uses almost all acoustic instrumentation; she admittedly emulates Appalachian folk singers; she writes intimate, trinkety songs that are not quite “poppy.” Just because she has a 21st century indie flair doesn’t exempt her from the folk tag. She’s as much a folk artist as Vashti Bunyan or Nick Drake or Olaf Arnalds or Shirley Collins or any other number of artists who have made essentially the same kind of music she makes.

Honestly, we could spend a billion years asking each other the definition of “folk” and “folk music.” It’s a pretty broad and subjective topic, so I’m game for just leaving it at that.