Norah Jones' "Little Broken Hearts" Streaming Online

Knowing that might make you more apt to listen to the music for the sheer voyeurism of it. But in the case of Norah Jones, turning on her new album Little Broken Hearts, out May 1, qualifies as pure entertainment.

A collection of moody, pop-driven sonic landscapes inspired by the likes of Fleetwood Mac and even the Violent Femmes, most of the record is told from the perspective of a wounded lover—namely Jones. In the time between finishing The Fall and beginning her collaboration with producer Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) on Little Broken Hearts, she went through a breakup.

“Guess you could say ‘life happens,’ because even though I thought I was done with that kind of song for a while, it all just seemed to come out as we worked," Jones said in a release. "We’d have these great conversations about love and relationships and the endless attempts to understand that stuff, and somehow they just seeped into what we were doing."

But in the end, channeling her feelings into the songwriting was cathartic for Jones—and she hopes it will be for listeners.

"That’s one of the great things about music, you can take the anxiety and anguish that you’re living and turn it into something that might really lift up somebody else,” she stated.

Little Broken Hearts is currently streaming on NPR as part of their First Listen series. You can check it out all this week for free and be sure to tell Carroll Gardens Patch what you think in the comments section.