Joanna Newsom: Ys or No?

I think Janyusay's demonstration of childlike enchantment is just what's needed from the listener to appreciate this record. In a similar way I recall the wonder my four year old experienced dancing to George Harrison's "Crackerbox Palace." Personally I prefer pretty much anything else Harrison ever did, but once and awhile a piece of music passes under the wire of the critical faculties & perhaps "Ys" does it too. However there's a fine line between the sublime & the ridiculous. For example, Jane Siberry did a beautiful stretch on "When I was a Boy," only to drive off the cliff into silliness in her next album, "Maria." Another one in this category is Scott Walker's "The Drift", which I think succeeds mightiy as art, but which like Joyce's "Finnigan's Wake" makes a difficult read & there are probably only a few diehards who make it to the end.

As a musician, she is an excellent poet. Her music has't grown on me yet, but her lyrics can stand by themselves.

I should qualify what I wrote above. It is Newsome's music, not her musicianship, that I have trouble with. What I said about her lyrics still stands.