Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Critic Score
Based on 34 reviews
2010 Ratings: #11 / 924
Year End Rank: #16
User Score
Based on 998 ratings
2010 Rank: #4All Time: #117
Liked by 197 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Irish Times
Many loved its high arcs; others balked at the shrill notes, but no one doubted Newsom’s originality – and indie harpers are rare enough.
100
musicOMH

Have One On Me is winding, long-winded, densely poetic, and often challenging; but never tedious or self-indulgent.

100
Mojo

Have One on Me is a very mature work indeed, even its resonant, discursive themes are underpinned by Newsom's usual playfulness.

100
Uncut

To devotees ... it sounds very much like a second masterpiece: a different kind of epic to "Ys," and one with enough hooks and charms to ensnare at least a few Newsom agnostics.

100
The Skinny

Whether being swept up in the delicate instrumentation or contemplating the meanings within, it is, at times, a transcendental experience. Some four years in the making, Have One On Me will continue to reveal aspects of as-yet-undiscovered beauty for that long again.

100
No Ripcord

Have One On Me is so enrapturing, so imaginative and so delicate, that it feels safe to say that in five or ten years time, you’ll go back to it and discover brand new things - whether they be the meaning of a song you’d never fathomed before or a simple amuse-bouche of a beautifully constructed oboe phrase.

100
Consequence of Sound
They say you can’t please everyone, but Joanna Newsom has managed to combine two radically different song-writing styles and make a third that is very much her own, and very much an experience with a record like no other.
92
Pitchfork

The best songs feel more like conversations rather than artworks to be hung on the wall and admired from several paces away. Newsom seems to sing from somewhere deep inside of them, and her earthy presence has a way of drawing you in, bringing you closer to her music than you've been before.

91
Entertainment Weekly
While Newsom remains the most intricate lyricist currently working outside of rap, her melodies have become cleaner, her arrangements less mannered, and her singing more straightforwardly heartfelt.
90
Drowned in Sound
It is a stunning and ambitious piece of work; one for the ages.
90
Prefix

Have One on Me isn't at all a ploy for greater likability. It's an affecting, indulgent, and thoroughly fleshed-out monument to Newsom's considerable ambition.

90
Sputnikmusic
I feel like I can whittle away my days listening to this album and only this album for the rest of my life, and never have to feel anything except what this album makes me feel. Which is to say, everything.
90
Under the Radar
Stripped for much of the time of the horns and orchestral adornment of the first disc, Newsom turns a celebration into a confessional. Just when it seems Newsom couldn't possibly have any more rabbits in her hat, the third disc contains some gospel flourishes that concentrate her voice in a whole new way, bending down low to grab some bit of soul.
90
Beats Per Minute

On her new album, Have One On Me, she lays on a couch in a glamorised setting with peacock feathers, exquisite lamps and animal statues around her. All these items on these covers have their obvious symbolic connotations but as Newsom pointed out in an interview, these items are also not as objective as they may appear.

85
Paste

It’s difficult to imagine another situation in which plinking pixie sounds, recurrent madrigal noises and radiant folk poetry could be categorically described as honking huge, but for all its girth, Have One On Me is packed with magic.

85
Coke Machine Glow

The thing Have One On Me absolutely excels at is the creation of remarkable moments amid its rambling odes.

80
SPIN
She simply delves deeper and gives what few artists can deliver: a self-contained world of warmth, crystalline detail, and intimacy that lies far beyond a Twitter feed.
80
Evening Standard
It's like enrolling on a course, demanding stamina and commitment. Most of all it's a towering creative achievement, capable of delivering new pleasures for months and years to come.
80
Tiny Mix Tapes

Were brevity the chiefmost virtue of popular music, “Baby Birch” would be a turgid waste of time, rather than the deft and skillful creature it is. The same sentiment goes for the rest of the album; there is a depth to the material here that rewards — nay, demands — repeated scrutiny.

80
Q Magazine
This is a record so richly involving that it promises to throw up fresh delights weeks, or even months, down the line.
80
The Telegraph
Each song creates a specific world, full of haunting imagery and precise, poetic evocations of mood.
80
NOW Magazine
For long-time fans, this three-disc (or vinyl) release won’t disappoint, though it’s not a total departure.
80
NME

It’s unlikely that you’ll often listen to it in one bout, but whether beguiled one day by its exotic petals and blooms or the next by the less showy trees in the background, Have One On Me is an Elysian record that you’ll return to again and again.

80
The Guardian

Grand, long and bold – Newsom makes it sound like the first word she sings here: easy.

80
Billboard

Newsom's wispy singing style may still be too inaccessible for some, but hardcore fans will savor the growing vocal confidence during the two-hour-plus running time. In an era of quick musical fixes, Have One on Me is a spacious artistic statement too original to pass up.

80
FACT Magazine

Have One On Me’s scope and ambition is as commendable as it is slightly exhausting – it demands you immerse yourself in its world.

75
A.V. Club

Musically, Newsom sounds, relatively speaking, downright conventional on Have One. After the odd, goading arrangements of 2006’s Ys, she seems to have prioritized clarity and space, whether on simple songs for just harp and voice, or more elaborate ones for up to 14 players.

70
AllMusic

At its best, these songs have the feel of an intimate live performance; at their worst, they’re lovely, but exhausting. Have One on Me is quite a technical achievement, but since Newsom has proven she can do just about anything, next time she shouldn’t try to do everything.

70
Rolling Stone
Her latest firmly establishes her as a singer-songwriter to be reckoned with.
40
Slant Magazine
The end result is a strange, and strangely pretentious mess: an album pitted deep in the psychic world of stories that nonetheless can't figure out when it should begin, when it should end, or which parts are even worth the audience's attention.
40
PopMatters

It’s too bad really, that Have One on Me is so overdone because there’s a decent album hidden somewhere in there. It’s an album the Newsom we saw in 2006 would have found, formed, and made shine.

vivi
100

Joanna Newsom’s ‘Have One on me’,
her third studio album produced entirely by herself. Running in at over 120 minutes in length and containing 3 discs of music, it is her longest album to date.

I knew that this would be one of those albums that takes a lot to digest, each lyric has meaning - which meant that I would need to go through the tracks and their meanings extensively because how could I not.

Joanna’s music has really grown on me recently, and she is becoming ... read more

hellodecatur
96

"Damn, Joanna! There's no way you can make a worthy follow-up to Ys unless you, like, record a triple album that's somehow more ambitious in range yet also more accessible in content or something!"

JN: "Hold my drink."

patricia4221
100

100 followers? Damn, that's quite a lot of people! So, from the bottom of my heart, I'd like to say thanks! Especially to every single user who has made me feel welcomed ever since I joined this site!

And now, I want to talk about Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom’s gigantic triple album. If I were to summarize how I feel every time I listen to this album, it would simply be pure awe. Joanna somehow managed to create an album that matched the ambition of Ys, while also crafting one of the ... read more

Raiksheen
85

Stunning

vivi
100

Joanna Newsom’s ‘Have One on me’,
her third studio album produced entirely by herself. Running in at over 120 minutes in length and containing 3 discs of music, it is her longest album to date.

I knew that this would be one of those albums that takes a lot to digest, each lyric has meaning - which meant that I would need to go through the tracks and their meanings extensively because how could I not.

Joanna’s music has really grown on me recently, and she is becoming ... read more

Periidoritos
100

meanwhile i will raise my own glass to how you made me fast and expendable, and i will drink to your excellent healt, and your cruelty. will you have one on me?

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Track List

Disc 1
1Easy
6:03
96
2Have One On Me
11:02
96
3'81
3:51
93
4Good Intentions Paving Co.
7:01
95
5No Provenance
6:25
92
6Baby Birch
9:30
96
Disc 2
1On a Good Day
1:48
92
2You and Me, Bess
7:12
92
3In California
8:41
96
4Jackrabbits
4:22
90
5Go Long
8:02
96
6Occident
5:31
92
Disc 3
1Soft As Chalk
6:29
93
2Esme
7:55
93
3Autumn
8:01
92
4Ribbon Bows
6:10
89
5Kingfisher
9:11
94
6Does Not Suffice
6:44
96
Total Length: 2 hours, 4 minutes
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