Norah Jones once offered a piece of advice that should be taped to every studio monitor: I think if you’re going for perfection, you might be in the wrong business.
Norah Jones, in a High Times interview. The point is not anti-skill or anti-craft. It’s anti-illusion: music is a human art that gets its power from fingerprints, breath, timing, and taste.
Jones pushes the idea further: music is subjective, so you cannot build one flawless object that pleases everyone. Her mic-drop detail is the one that stings producers most: some of her favorite albums have mistakes, and she would not change them, even on classic Neil Young records. That is not a cute “authenticity” slogan. It is a working philosophy that explains why so many technically perfect recordings feel dead on arrival.
The ugly truth: “perfect” is not a musical category
Perfection is a math word people smuggle into art. In music, it usually means clean: no flubs, no noise, no pitch drift, no tempo wobble, no discomfort. But listeners do not fall in love with cleanliness; they fall in love with meaning.
Even the dictionary sense of perfectionism points to an inflexible standard rather than an artistic outcome, which is why it so often becomes a creative trap. It’s a mindset that can turn every take into a trial and every mix into an endless appeal.
Why Jones’s catalog supports her claim
Jones’s breakout era is practically a case study in choosing feel over flexing technique. Her early work sits in the pocket between jazz phrasing, pop songwriting, and singer-songwriter intimacy, and that blend depends on nuance more than fireworks.
Her debut album Come Away with Me became a multi-category phenomenon and is still widely referenced as a modern template for warm, restrained vocals and uncluttered arrangements, as heard across the album’s tracklist and credits. The record’s impact is not about perfection; it’s about a clear emotional center and performances that sound like people in a room.
Britannica’s overview of Jones highlights her cross-genre identity and the way she emerged from a jazz-inflected background into mainstream success, which helps explain why “human” touch is baked into her brand.
The “mistake” that makes the take: what listeners actually hear
When musicians say “mistake,” they rarely mean a catastrophic trainwreck. They mean tiny deviations that signal a living performer: a consonant that hits early, a note that blooms late, a chord that crunches slightly, a breath that lands like punctuation.
Those micro-events do three big jobs:
- They prove there’s a body behind the sound. Real-time performance carries risk, and risk creates attention.
- They communicate emotion faster than lyrics. A vocal that strains can transmit vulnerability better than any pristine take.
- They create “character” you cannot fake later. Many plug-ins imitate saturation and wow, but not conviction.
Some of my favorite albums have mistakes on them.Norah Jones, High Times interview
Neil Young as Exhibit A: the case for leaving the weird stuff in
Jones name-checking Neil Young is telling because his best-loved work often keeps the edges. Neil Young’s archive and official discography spotlight how his catalog spans raw, intimate recordings as well as bigger productions. The throughline is not polish; it’s presence.
That “weird stuff” Jones hears on favorite records is frequently what makes a track recognizable within seconds. For artists like Young, the imperfections are not errors to correct; they are evidence that something real happened once, and the tape captured it.
Perfectionism is not just annoying – it can be psychologically expensive
There is a difference between high standards and perfectionism. High standards help you finish. Perfectionism often prevents finishing, because “done” becomes impossible.
Psychologists describe perfectionism as multidimensional, and research literature links certain forms of perfectionism to distress, anxiety, and depression. In a creative context, that can translate to constant second-guessing, avoidance, and the slow erosion of joy.
The American Psychological Association’s discussion of perfectionism also frames it as strongly linked with anxiety and burnout, which should sound familiar to anyone who has spent three hours nudging one vocal syllable.
Modern recording made perfection cheap – and that’s the problem
In the tape era, editing was costly, time-consuming, and sometimes impossible. Musicians trained for commitment. Today, “fix it later” is a default mode, and the temptation is to edit everything until nothing moves.
Audio standards bodies like the Audio Engineering Society’s standards work exist partly because technology and repeatable measurement matter, and that work has made recording astonishingly consistent. But consistency is not the same thing as impact. If you chase technical flawlessness, you can easily sand off the very cues that make a performance persuasive.
A quick table: “perfect” vs “human” production choices
| Goal | Typical “Perfect” Move | Human Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Hard-quantize everything | Hand-correct only distractions; keep push-pull in the groove |
| Pitch | Tune every note to center | Leave expressive scoops and blue notes; tune only obvious “ouch” moments |
| Noise | Gate breaths and room sound | Keep natural breaths and room tone where it supports intimacy |
| Dynamics | Flatten with heavy compression | Use automation to preserve emotional rises and falls |
The subjectivity argument: you can’t win, so stop trying
Jones’s most freeing line is also the most practical: you will never make a track that every single person loves, because taste is subjective. That is not pessimism; it’s a permission slip to pick a lane.
So instead of trying to impress an imaginary universal audience, aim for the people who already want what you do.
How to apply Norah Jones’s philosophy in your own music
Most artists don’t need a new plug-in. They need a new stop-rule. Here are battle-tested ways to keep the humanness without sounding sloppy.
1) Decide what kind of record you’re making before you hit Record
Write down three adjectives that define the goal: “intimate, warm, conversational” or “aggressive, tight, futuristic.” If “human” is on the list, you already know you should not edit the life out of it.
2) Use “mistake budgeting” instead of mistake hunting
Give yourself a limit: you can fix three things per song. That forces you to prioritize what truly interrupts the listener, and it protects the performance from death by a thousand repairs.
3) Keep one take that scares you (because it’s alive)
Print a vocal or solo that feels like a high wire act. If you replace it with a safer take, check whether you just traded emotion for control.
4) Listen like a fan, not like an editor
Do a full play-through without stopping. If you cannot name the “problem” after the song ends, it probably does not matter.
5) Test your mix on a person who doesn’t care about production
Ask one simple question: “What did you feel?” If their answer is emotional, your tiny imperfections are doing their job.
A provocative claim: the most “perfect” music is often the least replayable
Replay value comes from personality. If every transient is aligned, every vocal is locked, and every bar is identical in energy, the track can feel like it has no weather. Listeners might respect it once and abandon it forever.
Jones’s perspective lands because it rejects the modern fantasy that art can be engineered into universal approval. Her own career, documented through official channels, shows sustained success built on taste, restraint, and letting performances sound like people.
Conclusion: chase intention, not flawlessness
Norah Jones is not telling you to be careless. She’s telling you to be honest. Perfection is a moving target, but intention is a compass.
If you want timeless records, stop asking, “Is this perfect?” and start asking, “Is this human, and is it mine?” That is the kind of “weird stuff” people come back for.
