Harmonium (Vanessa Carlton album)

Harmonium is the second album by American pop singer-pianist Vanessa Carlton, released by A&M Records in the US on November 9, 2004. Carlton co-wrote some of the album with Stephan Jenkins, her then-boyfriend and the lead singer of Third Eye Blind, who produced the album. Harmonium debuted outside the top 20 on the US Billboard 200, and sales fell considerably short of those of Carlton's debut album, Be Not Nobody (2002). Its only single in the US, "White Houses", was not a top 40 hit; two other singles, "Private Radio" and "Who's to Say", were released only in Asia. The album was less commercially successful than its predecessor, which Carlton attributed to poor promotion, and led to her departure from A&M Records in mid-2005. She toured through the US during 2004 and '05 in support of the album.

Background

Writing

Carlton and Jenkins met and began a relationship in mid-2002, when she and rock band Third Eye Blind, of which Jenkins is lead singer, were on tour together. After seeing Carlton perform live, Jenkins entered her dressing room and expressed interest in producing her music, and according to Carlton they "decided very quickly, that we had the same vision for the album". she said she believed collaborators would enable her to introduce into her music "tastes and sensibilities" to which she wouldn't normally be open. She originally envisioned the album as a "solo girl" version of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, explaining that it would involve choruses, flutes and trumpets, "and it's just real", she said.

Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine suggested that Carlton co-write with Jenkins after Carlton played the album's first five songs for him. Carlton said she felt trepidation about collaborating with Jenkins and that there were "moments when things got intense" between them, but because they had similar intentions for the album and Jenkins "deferred" to and was "sensitive" to her style of piano-playing and the direction in which she wanted to take the album, she "trusted him completely" and called it "a cool collaboration". Carlton credited Jenkins with helping her to withstand and protect herself from pressures the record label executives, who wanted to influence the recording process, placed on her.

Recording

Carlton began recording the album in June 2003 at Morningwood Studios (owned by Jenkins) in San Francisco, before moving to filmmaker George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. During recording, Carlton cited Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey as additional influences on the album: "Sonically I'd like to use the same approach ... If you're going to hear strings, you're going to hear them squeak," she explained. She experimented with sounds reminiscent of the music of The Cure. According to Carlton, Jenkins was "generous" with his knowledge as a producer and taught Carlton about the recording studio, helping her to "realize the way the song is enveloped is sometimes more important than the song in some ways."

Jenkins also played instruments and performed programming and mixing work on the album, and he recorded backing vocals with Carlton on several songs, including "She Floats", in which their vocals were edited to make it sound as if a forty-member choir were singing. She said she was past the "diary stage" of songwriting, in which "you're kind of mostly narcissistic and dealing with yourself", and that as one grows up they "start to absorb [the] environment in a different way"; she called the album a reflection of a "different" and "more womanly" perspective of the world, as opposed to the "innocent and girlish" quality of Be Not Nobody. However, she has said that although "things get a bit heavier as you get older", she still has a "lightness of youth" and is "able to be as girlie in ways that I should be." She referred to the album as "bittersweet" rather than "just bitter" and stressed the importance of the lyrics on Harmonium compared to those on Be Not Nobody, which she said was focused more on the music: "I want the lyric to resonate as much as the chord underneath it," she said. She said that instead of an album with "one-two punch songs", she wanted to make an album that engaged people to the point that they want to listen to it repeatedly, and that they would learn something new each time. "[T]hose are the kind of albums I love and that I'll listen to for years and I'll want to listen to every single song on it," she said.

An October 2003 article in Rolling Stone magazine reported that "Private Radio" would likely be the album's lead single, and "San Francisco" the only love song. Carlton was quoted as saying there was "nothing piano recital-y" about the album, which she called "goth ... The Wicca in me has come out ... I've been able to kind of just merge the Wicca and the Eighties chick." This provoked a skeptical response from MetaFilter users, one of whom wrote "this girl needs to buy a clue." Carlton later wrote on her official internet messageboard that the article misrepresented what she was trying to say, and that her fans should ignore what is written in the press about the album until they own it.

"White Houses" describes a young woman coming of age and finding romance, and eventually losing her virginity; "I wanted to write a song that everyone could relate to, about situations that everyone faces." "Annie" is a song Carlton wrote after she met a girl suffering from leukemia while on tour. She said she liked performing the song and that audiences at her shows connected with it. it is about "letting go anchors of pain". "Papa", a solo vocal-and-piano piece, is not about her own father but a "different kind of daddy". The Fender Rhodes-driven "C'est la Vie" is an "angry" song and the only one on the album not to include the piano, and Carlton has said it is about the single time she was "dumped" and her inability to speak French; she said that to her, the phrase c'est la vie meant "f[uck] it", and that it helped her overcome emotional pain during the breakup. Carlton stated in one of her concerts that "She Floats" is about a ghost in her closet, the screaming in the song is her and her producer, Stephan Jenkins screaming. "The Wreckage", the album's closing hidden track, is about Carlton's boredom while driving and her desire to start car accidents. Carlton considered working with Be Not Nobody producer and A&M Records president Ron Fair on the album but decided not to do so, although Fair is credited as the album's co-executive producer. She said that much of Fair's "own aesthetic [and] tastes" were present in the arrangements of the songs on Be Not Nobody, in contrast to Harmonium, where "the dominant taste and aesthetic is my own". She cited the influence of live performances on Harmonium, as opposed to the "studio gloss" present on Be Not Nobody, in creating a feeling that is "a little bit rougher around the edges and a bit more comfortable in a raw form"; according to her, the tracks on Harmonium feature a lot of breathing space so that listeners don't feel there is "a million things going on... There's nothing going on that shouldn't be", and consequently, it is very "easy on the ears", organic and simple. According to Carlton, because she had more knowledge of the process of recording an album and elements such as arrangements, she had more creative control over Harmonium than Be Not Nobody.

| rev1 = AllMusic

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| rev4 = Entertainment Weekly

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| rev6 = PopMatters

| rev6score = 5/10

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| rev9 = Stylus

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Harmonium received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Slant Magazine stated, "From the rollicking piano arpeggios to the classically-influenced melodies, it's impossible not to invoke Tori Amos when discussing Carlton's songwriting, particularly in the last stretch of the album. And where Amos loses herself in abstract loopiness, Carlton often gets caught up in pretty but ambiguous metaphors (see the dreamlike imagery of unicorns and vampires in "Half A Week Before The Winter" and the "dandelions blowing in the wind" of the orchestral "She Floats"). But it just so happens that these are some of the most musically interesting songs on the album, the latter climaxing with a spectacular choir of voices and screams that wouldn't sound out of place on Björk's Medúlla. And while there may not be as many immediate hooks as there were on her debut, she does deliver a bit of pop perfection on the stylish 'Afterglow' and the slick 'Private Radio', which unleashes one soaring hook after another. It's intelligent ear candy for those who don't mind a sugar rush." Elysa Gardner of USA Today also praised the album, commenting, "Carlton's second CD is that rare coming-of-age project that feels neither corny nor calculated. Enlisting Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins as producer and sometime co-writer, the 24-year-old unveils songs that seem sharper and more intimate than those on her debut, yet still retain sweetness. The single, 'White Houses', and 'Who's to Say' capture the dewy wonder and confusion of young love, while 'Private Radio' and 'Half a Week Before the Winter' reject navel-gazing in favor of a crisply moody intensity. Few artists of Carlton's generation could make growing pains sound this convincing or endearing." Steven Erlewine from Allmusic also gave the album a good review, stating "Carlton's songs often read like diary entries, dealing with familiar adolescent themes as love and longing, and they sound even smaller when delivered in her thin but appealing girlish voice, but they gain stature when married to their cinematic arrangements, driven by her insistent, circular piano and dressed by light layers of strings, guitars, and vocal overdubs. Where her debut, Be Not Nobody, could sound endearingly awkward, Harmonium is confident and somber, a conscious attempt to be serious and mature that nevertheless still sounds adolescent, largely due to her earnest lyrics and overly ambitious music. Carlton seems to equate seriousness with a lack of hooks, either in the music or the production, so there's nothing as immediate or memorable as 'A Thousand Miles', which means there's nothing to lead a listener into the world she sketches on the album—only those already won over by the entirety of her debut will have the patience to dig deeply into this insular album. That's not to say that this is a difficult album, or even a challenging one—it's merely a transitional one, with some good ideas and some good songs that don't quite gel as a full record, even if Jenkins gives the album a cohesive sound. Ultimately, Carlton is so intent on being serious, so intent on crafting her songs and sound, that she winds up with an album that's admirable but for its intent, but not its achievement."

However, many critics had mixed feelings about the album. Stylus Magazine reviewed the album, saying "The first half of the record is primarily a happy ordeal. 'Annie', a song about a fan dying of an unnamed disease, even reaches ecstatic moments via its energetic backing track of Carlton's Glassian circular piano loops and verses that reveals that, yes, indeed Stephen Jenkins (Third Eye Blind, boyfriend) is the co-producer of this record. By which it's meant to say that they plod in a very enjoyable way. The clincher of this side of the record, however, is 'San Francisco' which sees Carlton revealing that she's attained her 'utopia' and that it's a 'we're' instead of 'I'm' that's back in the city. Even the saddest moment, musically, on the first side reveals Carlton as finally 'free' to do as she pleases, with the 'wind at her back'. It's on this second side, where things get interesting, that the major problem with the album begins to cut into the enjoyment of the disc however. Carlton's lyrics, as noted above, tend to veer towards the diary entry style that has come to define many of her contemporaries. Unfortunately, this doesn't help in cases where less is more—as on the aforementioned 'Papa' and 'The Wreckage'. It's only when Carlton wordlessly moans in 'The Wreckage' that the horror of which she speaks comes out. Needless to say, the last verse is an extraneous recapitulation, which could have been better served as a fade-out."

Chart performance

Harmonium debuted at #33 on the US Billboard 200 with 36,000 copies sold in its first week, before falling out of the top 40 in its second. By the end of 2004 it had sold less than 108,000 copies in the US, and it remained on the chart for just seven non-consecutive weeks. According to Nielsen SoundScan in February 2006, the album had sold 179,000 copies, an amount that compared unfavorably with the platinum sales of Carlton's debut album Be Not Nobody, which reached the top five in the US. Explaining Carlton's "predictable plunge" with Harmonium, the New York Daily News indicated the release date was partially responsible for the album's underperformance, and emphasized the low radio play for "White Houses": "Every holiday season, some acts wind up with nothing but a lump of coal... more importantly, radio found no hits on Carlton's sophomore CD". Slant magazine, also attributing the album's low sales to the failure of "White Houses", alleged a lack of promotion by A&M Records: "Whether ["White Houses"] wasn't promoted adequately or audiences just didn't connect with the more mature, narrative style of the song, the label decided to let the album languish on store shelves with little support". In Taiwan, the album debuted at #10 on the international albums chart the same week that "Private Radio", which was released as a single there, reached the top ten on the singles chart.

Promotion

Ron Fair noted that the approach taken to marketing Carlton was different from those for other pop singers such as Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson, who he described as "prominent media and television stars [whose] music is an extension of their overall image", as opposed to Carlton, who he called "a singer/songwriter in the classic sense". He cited the significance of the success of "A Thousand Miles" (2002), Carlton's debut single, in determining how to promote the album. Chris Richards, a Borders music buyer, said that a follow-up record from an artist who had a "huge" hit debut single was a "challenge", but that the album "retains the same qualities of the first. She is one of the pure-hearted girls, very squeaky clean and parent-approved". In early October, Carlton opened for alternative rock band The Calling on their short tour of Brazil, and a performance she recorded for Sessions@AOL was aired over the Internet. Later that month, Carlton travelled to Japan to promote the album there.

To support the album, Carlton embarked on a North American concert tour, which began on October 21 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and concluded on November 21 in Portland, Oregon; The newspaper Metroland wrote, "we tend to think time is most definitely not on her side — how else to explain the near-universal apathy to the release of [Harmonium]?" Harmonium was not re-issued to include the song. Carlton was quoted in a March 2005 interview with Fly Magazine as saying it was "difficult" for someone like her, a singer-songwriter who played the piano, to "reach a lot of people", but that "depending on what happens with the second single, I think it will do really well. I hope the record goes gold and all those things." A second tour, with Cary Brothers and Ari Hest as support acts for many of the shows, ran from March 9 (in Atlanta, Georgia) to April 30 (in Plattsburgh, New York). In April and May 2005, songs from Harmonium were featured on the WB teen soap operas Charmed and One Tree Hill, and Carlton participated in an exclusive performance with Ryan Cabrera.

During summer 2005, Carlton supported rock singer Stevie Nicks on her Gold Dust U.S. tour. Nicks said she was glad to give Carlton the opportunity to perform in front of a large, caring and loving audience, particularly because the poor state of the music industry meant that artists such as her weren't "nurtured ... I really respect her. I'll be damned if I'll let her go by the wayside. She is one of the great ones. She won't quit." In October Carlton embarked on solo dates in the U.S., Carlton said she was suffering from the lack of promotion the label gave to the album because of her non-conformist attitude, but that she felt she made the right decision with regards to gaining press attention and credibility that she wanted to maintain throughout her career so she could attract loyal fans. "That's really important to me," she said. After the conclusion of the Harmonium tour, A&M Records sent Carlton into the recording studio because they didn't feel that there was a potential follow-up single on the album. During her studio time, in which she wrote songs with Linda Perry and The Matrix, she had what she called a "revelation" about leaving the label to find another record deal.

In May, Carlton wrote to her fans on her official website that because "shortsighted (nonmusical bastards)" at the label did not believe the album would sell well if given promotion, there would be no second single released in the US. "[I] worked my ass off promoting Harmonium in the ways that [I] could control, but you can't sell records to someone in the middle of Indiana without a little help," she wrote. By the following month, Carlton had separated from A&M Records. The Herald & Review said that Carlton "[became] another one of the new millennium's poster children for what happens when music labels are taken over by accountants and artist development is abandoned."

Track listing

;Standard edition

"White Houses" (Vanessa Carlton, Stephan Jenkins) – 3:45
"Who's to Say" (Carlton, Jenkins) – 4:51
"Annie" (Carlton, Jenkins) – 4:48
"San Francisco" (Carlton) – 4:12
"Afterglow" (Carlton) – 3:56
"Private Radio" (Carlton, Jenkins) – 2:59
"Half a Week Before the Winter" (Carlton) – 3:27
"C'est La Vie" (Carlton) – 2:34
"Papa" (Carlton) – 2:39
"She Floats" (Carlton) – 5:00
"Where the Streets Have No Name" (Bono, U2) – 5:37 (bonus track for Japan, UK, 2023 digital reissue, and 2025 LP release)
"The Wreckage" (Carlton) (hidden track) – 2:17

;DVD (Japan)

Pleased to Meet You – 24:42
"White Houses" (dance rehearsal) – 3:34
Duet – 1:24
Extended footage – 8:19

Personnel

Vanessa Carlton – vocals, backing vocals (tracks 1–4, 8), piano (tracks 1–7, 9–11), keyboards (tracks 3, 7), Fender Rhodes (track 8), choir (track 10)
Stephan Jenkins – backing vocals (tracks 1–4, 8), percussion (tracks 1–2, 5), organ, electric guitar (track 4), programming, keyboards (track 6), drums (tracks 7–8, 10), mixing (tracks 9–10), choir (track 10)
Mark "Spike" Stent (Olympic Studio, London) – mixing (tracks 1–2, 6)
Arion Salazar – bass guitar (tracks 1–6, 8, 10), electric guitar (tracks 1–2, 6)
Lindsey Buckingham – acoustic guitar (track 1)
Jesse Tobias – electric guitar (tracks 1, 4–6), additional electric guitar (track 2), guitar (track 3, 10), mandolin (track 5)
Abe Laboriel Jr. – drums (tracks 1–6)
Ron Fair – string arranger and conductor (tracks 1–2, 4–6, 10)
Pharrell – backing vocals (track 2)
Louis Conte – percussion (track 2)
Dave Way (Waystation Studio, Beverly Hills, California) – mixing (track 4)
Lior Goldenberg – mixing assistant (track 4)
Tony Fredianelli – electric guitar (track 4)
Tom Lord Alge (South Beach Studios, Miami Beach, Florida) – mixing (tracks 5, 7)
Fernio Hernandez – mixing assistant (tracks 5, 7)
Sean Beresford – programming (track 6), mixing (track 11)
Jerry Hey – trumpet (track 7)
Gayle Levant – harp (track 7)
Jason Carmer – mixing (track 8)
Jun Ishizeki – mixing (tracks 9–10)
Brain – drums (track 10)
Endre Granat, Bruce Dukov, Natalie Leggett, Charlie Bisharat, Jackie Brand, Julie Gigante, Robin Olson, Mario DeLeon, Alan Grunfeld, Josefina Vergara, Roberto Cani, Phillip Levy, Songa Lee, Sara Parkins, Lily Ho Chen, Sid Page, Tammy Hatwan, Armen Garabedian, Sarah Thornblade, Berj Garabedian, Anatoly Rosinsky, Eun-Mee Ahn, Tiffany Hue, Joel Derouin, Franklyn D'Antonio – violin
Brian Dembow, Simon Oswell, Vicki Miskolczy, Marlow Fisher, Sam Formicola, Danny Seidenberg, Matt Funes, Roland Kato, Kazi Pitelka – viola
Steve Erdody, David Low, Cecilia Tsan, Larry Corbett, Suzie Katayama, Armen Ksajikian – cello
Nico Abondolo, Mike Valerio, Oscar Hidalgo – additional bass
Gerry Rotella – flute
Tom Boyd – oboe
Emily Bernstein – clarinet

Producer: Stephan Jenkins
Executive producers: Vanessa Carlton, Ron Fair
Engineer: Sean Beresford
Additional engineering: Jun Ishizeki, Lior Goldenberg, Tony Espinoza
Strings recording: Frank Wolf, Tal Herzberg
A&R: Ron Fair
Assistant engineers: Judy Kirschner, Dann Thompson (Skywalker Sound); Jun Ishizeki (The Record Plant); Scott Brannan (Mourningwood Studio)
Art direction: Vanessa Carlton, Drew FitzGerald
Illustrations: Drew FitzGerald
Font designer: Vanessa Carlton
Hair: Sarra 'Na
Makeup: Heather Currie
Styling: Arianna Tunney, Alyssa Leal
Photography: Sheryl Nields
Management: Arthur Spivak, Stuart Sobol, Deborah Klein
Legal representation: Tim Mandelbaum

Charts

Weekly charts

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

|+Weekly chart performance for Harmonium

! scope="col"| Chart (2004)

! scope="col"| Peak<br />position

!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)

|align="center"|52

!scope="row"|Canadian Album Charts (Nielsen BDS)

|align="center"|53