Norah Jones: Visions (Blue Note/digital outlets)

It's a fair observation to say that those who wail and rail against Yoko Ono's music have barely heard a note of it.

Okay, some of her music could be challenging, but not all of it. However that's something the naysayers don't know because cheap cynicism and prejudice usually means you don't have to make much of an effort, if any.

That infects some fairly mainstream artists too however: those who think it is the height of wit to say on Facebook “Taylor who?” when Swift's name is mentioned.

And for reasons which go beyond understanding – maybe her success which was as grating as Swift's to many – Norah Jones, a rather delightful woman in our time with her, also gets dumped on.

After the unexpected success of her 2002 debut Come Away With Me – a staple at dinner parties, restaurants and mainstream radio -- many wrote off her subsequent albums as more bagatelles from someone who'd stumbled on a formula between lounge jazz and lightweight pop.

Elsewhere has listened to most of her albums and reviewed a fair number of them, and always found discernible and distinct differences between them, within the constraints of her vocal style.

Texas-raised Jones made country music with The Little Willies (their original about Lou Reed cow-tipping is fun), and over the decades has collaborated with artists as diverse as Danger Mouse and Jack White, Ray Charles and Willie Nelson, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Foo Fighters and OutKast, among many others.

Those artists clearly respected Jones in a way the casually dismissive didn't.

Her ninth solo album Visions is produced by Leon Michels who co-founded the soul-funk Dap Kings, Lee Fields' Expressions and tours with the Black Keys.

So here Jones moves into low-key, old school R'n'B (on the country-flavoured swing of Queen of the Sea), dark emotional thoughts coupled with retro-pop (Running), unvarnished country-rock (Staring at the Wall), Southern country (the casual effortlessness of I Just Want to Dance) and a disturbing, melodically unanchored title track with Hispanic horns and a grim metaphor: “Visions in my head and everyone is dead . . . it's time to say goodbye to your world”.

Producer Michels and Jones – here on guitar as much as piano, which gives further weight to her musical divergences and differences  – have captured her diversity on an album of easy charm (the lightweight pop of Paradise and On My Way), left turns (the moody Alone With My Thoughts) and that lyrical depth too often overlooked.

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You can hear this album at Spotify here