Harmonium is the second studio album by American pop singer-songwriter 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". By January 2003, Carlton had written ten songs that she intended to include on the album. "You record more, you write more. I never put a stop to my writing process," she said. Recording of the album was originally scheduled to begin with producer Daniel Lanois after the conclusion of Carlton's 2003 European concert tour, which ended in February, and she wanted Jason Falkner and Nigel Godrich to co-produce the album;D'Angelo, Joe. "Vanessa Carlton Aims For Solo Girl Sgt. Pepper's". MTV News. January 12, 2003. Retrieved September 21, 2006. she said she believed collaborators would enable her to introduce into her music "tastes and sensibilities" to which she wouldn't normally be open.Newman, Melinda. "Carlton Prepping Tunes For second album". Billboard. May 23, 2003. Retrieved September 21, 2006. 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. She also mentioned her desire "to establish my place with an album that's undeniably me".Zaleski, Annie. "Vanessa Carlton Comes Clean" . Cleveland Scene. October 20, 2004. Retrieved February 11, 2007.

Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine suggested that Carlton co-write with Jenkins after Carlton played the album's first five songs for him."Bio" . VanessaCarlton.com. Retrieved September 21, 2006. 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.Lynskey, Dorian. "I Was Getting Dirty!" . Blender. October 2003. Retrieved August 17, 2006. She experimented with sounds reminiscent of the music of The Cure. Before recording began, Carlton and Jenkins conducted a series of "A-B-ing" tests to compare analog tape with Pro Tools (digital). Because they could not tell the difference, they used a mixing board that Carlton said was "similar to what a lot of the old [Led] Zeppelin tracks were mixed on, so basically we were able to get a very warm, easy-to-listen-to mix where it didn't come across as 'icy' sounding". Several instruments were tracked using analog tape, but Pro Tools was used for most of them.Roeschlein, Shane. "Vanessa Carlton: Harmonium, beauty in the word" . themusicedge.com. October 8, 2004. Retrieved February 13, 2007. 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." Carlton wrote each song with arrangements in mind and played it on the piano for Jenkins, who joined in on drums, and they began devising the arrangements. Recording was completed at The Record Plant in Los Angeles because, as Carlton put it, "When you're in the middle of a bunch of cows, the pace of things tends to slow down." The album, which took a year to record, was mixed at Olympic Studio in London, at Waystation Studio in Beverly Hills, California, and at South Beach Studios in Miami Beach, Florida by mixers including Mark "Spike" Stent and Tom Lord Alge. According to Carlton, her label "wasn't very happy" about the decisions she made during the making of the album.Corneau, Allison. . Quinnipiac Chronicle. April 6, 2005. Retrieved September 16, 2006.

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. "White Houses" was the first song Carlton and Jenkins wrote together, and Lindsey Buckingham of the band Fleetwood Mac played acoustic guitar on the track after Jenkins met Buckingham, who was recording in the same building (The Record Plant, Los Angeles), and invited him to listen to the song. Carlton said the process of Buckingham writing and recording the riff "happened very fast, and turned out amazing". Several other guest musicians worked on the album. Pharrell of the production duo The Neptunes, who were working with Good Charlotte, contributed backing vocals to "Who's to Say". Two of the three drummers on the album were Abe Laboriel Jr., who played on Be Not Nobody, and Bryan "Brain" Mantia ("She Floats"), formerly of the band Primus. Third Eye Blind guitarists Tony Fredianelli ("San Francisco") and Arion Salazar also appear, as does former Red Hot Chili Peppers member Jesse Tobias. Carlton said she wanted to record a duet with Fleetwood Mac lead singer Stevie Nicks but never got the chance; they did, however, collaborate on a song on Carlton's third album, Heroes & Thieves (2007). She said "there was nothing calculated about the collaborations [on the album], nothing corporate". A documentary, Pleased to Meet You, highlighted the process of recording the album and is included on an enhanced CD. Carlton said she thought it would "shed a lot of light the direction that I am going in and where I come from", mentioning that its working title was Pleased to Meet You: Vanessa Carlton, the New American Goth.

Composition Carlton said the album includes darker themes than those present on Be Not Nobody.D'Angelo, Joe and Pak, SuChin. "Vanessa Carlton Recalls Her Days As A Naughty Ballerina". MTV News. October 25, 2004. Retrieved February 11, 2007. 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.Moody, Nekesa Mumbi. "Pop Doesn't Define Vanessa Carlton" . Associated Press. November 24, 2004. Retrieved February 13, 2007. 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."Ives, Brian and Bottomley, C. "Vanessa Carlton: Cast Your Fate To The Wind" . VH1.com. December 20, 2004. Retrieved February 13, 2007. 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.Tranter, Nikki. "New and Improved: A Chat with Vanessa Carlton". PopMatters. January 24, 2005. Retrieved February 13, 2007. 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.Roberge, Nicole. "Vanessa Carlton Gets Harmonious" . Tuned In Music. March 2005. Retrieved February 13, 2007.

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."Smith, Kerry L. "Carlton Goes Dark on New LP". Rolling Stone. October 7, 2003. Retrieved August 2, 2006. This provoked a skeptical response from MetaFilter users, one of whom wrote "this girl needs to buy a clue.""Vanessa Carlton Goes Goth". MetaFilter. October 20, 2003. Retrieved February 11, 2007. 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.Carlton, Vanessa. "the truth" . VanessaCarlton.com. October 9, 2003. Retrieved September 16, 2006.