Come Away with Me


Come Away with Me is the debut studio album by American recording artist Norah Jones, released on February 26, 2002 by Blue Note Records. Recording sessions took place at Sorcerer Sound Studio in New York City and Allaire Studios in Shokan, New York.
Come Away with Me peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200, and received Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album. It was later certified Diamond by the RIAA on February 15, 2005 for shipments of over ten million copies in the United States, and has sold over 27 million copies worldwide as of 2016 making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Composition

Come Away with Me is an acoustic pop album that features Jones supported by jazz musicians: Kevin Breit, Bill Frisell, Adam Levy, Adam Rogers, and Tony Scherr on guitar; Sam Yahel on organ; Jenny Scheinman on violin; Rob Burger on accordion; and Brian Blade, Dan Rieser, and Kenny Wollesen on drums. Jones wrote the title song. Guitarist Jesse Harris wrote the hit "Don't Know Why". The album includes cover versions of "The Nearness of You" by Hoagy Carmichael and "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams.
Come Away with Me incorporates blues, jazz, and folk music. Bobby Dodd of All About Jazz writes that although the album features jazz standards, jazz purists and academics "may deny jazz credibility for her folk infusion".

Commercial performance

Come Away with Me debuted at number 139 on the Billboard 200 in the US upon its release in February 2002. Despite being released at a time when music piracy was high and album sales were declining, the album was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in August that same year. The album eventually climbed to the top of the Billboard 200 in January 2003, almost a year after it was released. By the time of the Grammy Awards the following month, Come Away with Me had already sold 3 million copies in the country. Jones' success at the award show resulted in the album moving another 600,000 copies the week immediately following the awards. In total, the album appeared on the Billboard 200 for 164 weeks and sold 11.1 million copies in the US as of March 2016. The album was certified Diamond by the RIAA in February 2005 for selling over ten million copies in the US. It was also the eleventh best-selling album of the Nielsen SoundScan era as of 2016.
As of October 2016, the album had sold more than 27 million copies worldwide. Polyphonic HMI's "Hit Song Science" software claimed to have predicted the album's success months before its release, contradicting skeptical executives. In Germany, the album debuted at No. 37. It remained on the German Albums Chart for 141 weeks and reached No. 2 in its 37th week on that chart, where it stayed for four weeks. Come Away with Me sold 750,000 copies, reaching 5× gold, becoming her most successful album in Germany and one of the longest charting albums on the German Albums Chart.

Awards and honors

The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The song "Don't Know Why" won Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Rolling Stone ranked Come Away with Me at number 54 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of the Decade.

Critical reception

Come Away with Me received acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 82 out of 100, which indicates "universal acclaim" based on 9 reviews.
The album received 3.5 out of 4 stars from both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Times reviews. AllMusic's David R. Adler wrote that "while the mood of this record stagnates after a few songs, it does give a strong indication of Jones' alluring talents." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice cited it as "the most unjazz album has ever released" and criticized that "Jones's voice dominates the record" because "her main writers are pretty anonymous", although he found it to be a "sincere" and "exemplary biz success story in which the good guys win." In his Consumer Guide, Christgau picked out her cover version of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" as a "choice cut",, calling it "a good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money".
The A.V. Club gave it a favorable review and called the album "A showcase for Jones' remarkable voice, the disc captures a singer whose rare instinct for interpretation always serves the song, rather than working against it." E! Online gave it an A and stated: "Gorgeous and intimate, the 14 songs on her debut disc ache with romantic maturity and a smart, slow-jam sexiness that belies the fact that, at 22, Jones is hardly older than Britney Spears." Kludge included it on their list of best albums of 2002.

Track listing

Bonus tracks

Personnel

Technical personnel

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Chart Peak
position
Czech Albums 47

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australian Albums 2
Australian Jazz & Blues Albums 1
Austrian Albums 9
Belgian Albums 3
Belgian Albums 2
Danish Albums 4
European Albums 1
French Albums 1
German Albums 6
Irish Albums 1
New Zealand Albums 1
Swedish Albums 3
Swiss Albums 4
UK Albums Chart 5
US Billboard 2002
US Contemporary Jazz Albums 1
Worldwide 1

Decade-end charts

All-time charts

Certifications

Awards

Grammy Awards
YearWinnerCategory
2003Come Away with MeAlbum of the Year
2003Come Away with MeBest Engineered Album, Non-Classical
2003Come Away with MeProducer of the Year, Non-Classical
2003Come Away with MeBest Pop Vocal Album
2003"Don't Know Why"Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
2003"Don't Know Why"Record of the Year
2003"Don't Know Why"Song of the Year
2003Norah JonesBest New Artist