"Serious. Stubborn. Silly."

Again, I tells ya, how can you not like this young lady? She's the anti-Britney, to which this blog says "Thank God." With the expectations surrounding her new release, it was, of course, inevitable that pundits and critics would try to knock her down a peg or three, but none of it seems to be taking, in part, I suspect, because she seems such a figure of sincerity and self-effacement, because she possesses a kind of natural next-door-girl quality that meshes nicely with what seems to be a genuine commitment to doing her own style of music regardless of popularity. She seems bereft of the egomania and pretense to which most of us have become accustomed, much to our own chagrin. She has a truly lovely voice that doesn't seem to need to demonstrate itself in gaudy displays; there's a fragile but constant dignity to her voice that expresses itself in nuance rather than extravagance. That's a beautiful thing. In a generation of musical divas that scream out desperately for us to look at them, Norah does her thing and she seems to be accomplishing the more important thing: she's making us listen to her. Go figure. It's just refreshing to see a young woman who really seems to be one, rather than a bethonged, sluttified caricature of one.

      And, let's face it: she's just plain adorable. So there. "Serious. Stubborn. Silly." I like that. Harrumph. So sue me.