And Now For My Next Trick: Norah Jones and the Difficult Second Album Syndrome

BY THIS TIME next week, Norah Jones will probably be nestling atop the album charts with Feels like Home, the follow-up to her multi-platinum, Grammy-grabbing Come Away with Me. Jones's success took the industry by surprise. She seemed to come from nowhere, with a style so resolutely ignorant of pop's passing trends that it simply failed to register on most observers' radars. I still hold to my initial impression: it is pale magnolia music for wine bars.