The Joni Mitchell - Best Album POLL

Clouds through Court & Spark is as perfect an album run as any artist ever IMHO.

blue vs hissing vs hejira, leaning towards hissing

For me it's Court and Spark vs. Hissing. Voted the former but will probably regret it.

blue vs hissing vs hejira, leaning towards hissing
^^^basically the same for me, except I'm leaning towards Hejira

Ladies of the Canyon seems pretty underrated on ILM but it's my favorite. I could do without the old songs at the end but e.g. "Rainy Night House" is heavenly.

head says hejira heart says blue

yeah "rainy night house" is completely beautiful - could do with going back in time and completely erasing "big yellow taxi" and "woodstock" from having ever existed though

xp

"Hissing...", just ahead of "Hejira" and "Court And Spark". Those three are largely in a league of their own.

High five, Geir!

"The Circle Game" is pretty weak too; I love how on Miles of Aisles she goofs on it, saying how it was written to be sung out-of-tune.
xxp

Court and Spark or Hejira, but someone should defend a couple of the late eighties/late nineties records. I always thought she had a way with keyboard technology. Dog Eat Dog has a couple of angry synth poppers, and Night Ride Home has a lovely airy sound.

Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Oh, I know - Blue, Hissing, Hejira, blah blah blah. All indispensable. But whether it's 'Talk To Me,' where she just doesn't shut up even when she pissed a tequila anaconda the full length of the parking lot, or 'Off Night Back Street,' where she wonders grimly, who left her long black hairs in our bathtub drain, this album creates a whole, autumnal world that is always entertaining and great. I do get sleepy during 'Paprika Plains,' but you're supposed to. Also, I successfully shoplifted this album in 1978 at a Hess's department store, which adds sentimental value. I went back minutes later and got caught with 'Parallel Lines' by Blondie and Handel's Messiah. It cured me from a life of this type of crime. I later bought all of Joni's old albums on CD, but I finally felt that my penance and restitution was complete when I paid full price at Starbuck's for the abomination 'Shine.'

Hejira

I could make a case for Hejira or Court & Spark & will even rep pretty hard for Night Ride Home but Blue straight-up changed my life. There may not be any record in the world to which I feel a stronger emotional connection.

Don Juan's for me, no objectivity here just love

"In my dweems we fwy"

i ended up voting for blue and predict a massive "silent majority" effect in these poll results

For what -- Wild Things Run Fast?

Dubya had her cover of "You're So Square" on his iPod a few years ago.

Court & Spark

blue, hejira or mingus for me. three different stages of a woman. i haven't decided yet. actuallky i don'tb think there is a best. but everything after wild things run fast was sub par.

kind of surprised she's done as many albums after mingus as before. even if it took three times as long.

mingus is odd, touching, underrated, i think bcz of how understated it is as memorial and testimony

the stuff around hejira, with the sort of variable-length wobbly-melodied lines, seems way better than anything else to me. that sort of structure stopped her from falling into hippie truism, which when she does such i loathe it

i still don't know about how i feel about jaco pastorius tho

don't get M@tt started on Jaco IIRC

I'm struggling here with why anyone would vote for anything other than Blue.

don't get M@tt started on Jaco IIRC

― Man Is Nairf! (J0hn D.), Friday, September 4, 2009 10:55 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol seriously i am a total asshole about jaco, believe j0hn

c'mon don't tell me no one is gonna vote for Hejira

hissing for me. saw an otherwise excellent doco on her a little while back and this album wasn't even mentioned :-(

C&S

My vote and my top 3 are the same as Geir's. Maybe Blue and Dog Eat Dog round out the top 5 for me.

For The Roses has crept back up in my estimation. Now it's equal with Hissing and Blue behind Hejira which is always and 4 ever my fave.

Spent many many hours listening to Blue and Court & Spark way back when. The voice, music and the half-tone slightly mysterious photos of Joni on those 2 albums - that was an awesome combo when I was 14 or so. Voted Blue, that was the first one.

xposts:"ended up voting for blue and predict a massive "silent majority" effect in these poll results"
"I'm struggling here with why anyone would vote for anything other than Blue"

"Spent many many hours listening to Blue and Court & Spark way back when. The voice, music and the half-tone slightly mysterious photos of Joni on those 2 albums - that was an awesome combo when I was 14 or so. Voted Blue, that was the first one."

agreeeed! in addition to Blue and Court and Spark, For the Roses always hit close to home, and either could be the top pick on any given day. Hejira then Hissing... round out me pee-oh-vee.

Feel like a total asshole for voting Miles of Aisles but there is no better combination of her songs on record!!! Don't hate me ILM, esp. if you include RAD live albums on career retrospective polls!!!

nah, Miles of Aisles is great, esp. the full-band songs.

I love Joni more than most music geeks, but I can't really pretend any other album comes close to 'Blue,' for me.

Yeah, see, I love Blue -- my first Joni, etc -- but I don't play it as much as C&S, Hissing of Summer Lawns, or Hejira.

Blue is really a very time/place/emotion specific record. It's really hard to listen to large parts of it if I'm in a very specific frame of mind (generally full-blown depression, anxiety, etc). C&S can really come on at any time, though.

Unless I'm in a very...*

I love Blue but I don't really get its mystique as this depressive mopefest of an album. A good half of it seems fairly upbeat to me.

Summer Lawns, easy. Weirdly, I have the exact same top 3 as Geir. Thought I could rely on him to complain about The Jungle Line being "insufficently melodic".

"Hejira" although really there's a few of these records that are so good that rating one over another is kind of pointless.

Blue because it touches my very soul and I know that sounds totally corny.

m@tt, please tell me how you feel about the playing of jaco pastorius purely on joni's mid-period work. including his solo spots on shadows + light tour if you wish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOqR84PtctA

jaco shreds

had to double check it wasn't an StS vid..............

Yeah, see, I love Blue -- my first Joni, etc -- but I don't play it as much as C&S, Hissing of Summer Lawns, or Hejira.

Exactly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

pffffffff

I don't understand why Ladies & Court are so low. :(

That is the right answer.

i probably would have ended up voting for "hissing of summer lawns" though honestly why choose?

btw what do people think of "both sides now"--the song?

these results still seem surprising.

I love "Both Sides, Now", and think it's the best song on Clouds. Oh, those vocal melodies: I swoon each time (listening now).

i would've thrown "shadows and light" a vote

the Lincoln Center (I think - big public-tv presentation w/orchestra) of "Both Sides Now" took my breath away.

also, thank you this thread for helping me realize what I need to listen to tonight in this faraway place.

YOU KNOW IT SURE IS HARD TO LEAVE YOU CAREY BUT IT'S REALLY NOT MY HOME

HOPE THEY FINALLY FIXED YOUR AUTOMOBILE/HOPE IT'S BETTER WHEN WE MEET AGAIN, BABY

You're gonna come now or you're gonna come later.

i like glen campbell's syrupy version of "both sides, now"

I'M GONNA MAKE A LOT OF MONEY/AND THEN I'M GONNA QUIT THIS CRAZY SCENE

what does it gotta feel like to know that you wrote this album

I guess I seem ungrateful / with my teeth sunk in the hand / that brings me things / I really can't give up just yet

The version of "Both Sides Now" on Joni's (otherwise) covers album with the same name from oh maybe five/ten years ago is pretty amazing. I dunno if there's ever been a song written by someone when they're young that is better suited to a wistful wizened "cover" by the same artist 30+ years on. It simply drips resonance.

My mother, who is not a music snob, became fascinated with that 2000 version of "Both Sides Now" after hearing it in Love Actually; she would play it over and over again, deeply moved. I'm pretty fond of it myself – the best use of Joni's nicotine-scarred pipes.

weird that Clouds got zero votes here... Both Sides Now is an amazing tune

I'll rep for Night Ride Home any day - I get the feeling most hardcore Joni fans will too - the songs are almost all great, the production serves her deepened voice, the groove is really pleasant & great; the album's well-titled in that regard.

it's a little too sting for me

I adore "Come In From The Cold"; the title track's okay.

man thought court and spark would get more votes

was gonna say!

I dunno, Court & Spark is a great album and it's probably a top 3 for lots of people, but I suspect anyone who really digs that vibe and is a big joni fan would like Hissing... more.

Likewise Clouds and Blue, I think.

but I suspect anyone who really digs that vibe and is a big joni fan would like Hissing... more.

I think this is true for me.

Been listening to Night Ride Home a lot - strikes me as an almost archetypal late-career autumnal album, recalling what you love about the artist's earlier work but with a sepia-toned faded elegance. Love the gentle, warm, 80s-into-90s production and the evocation of Hejira's loping jazz feel - esp. on the title track, "Passion Play", "Cherokee Louise", "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and "Nothing Can Be Done". Not sure how I feel about the recurrent use of vocal vamps on some of the other tracks; Joni always seems to run into trouble when she tries to borrow soul motifs.

I don't have it any more but my memory of Turbulent Indigo was of it being much less pretty than this and much more didactic.

Okay, kinda obsessed with this album now. Been listening on repeat since that last post.

Yes - I went through a period of obsession with Night Ride Home when I got into it. To me one thing about it is that while there's a great range to the songs - some more uptempo, some loping, some lighter & some darker - the overall tone, the shading I guess or coloration?, seems really consistent to me. This single dark and rich tone dominates - to me it's a dense blue-grey maybe. I know of few records better suited to headphones in the middle of the night.

How does it figure in terms of producton as a sticking point, I haven't heard it really since it's release and have a hard time finding a way through the other eigties albums mainly for that reason.

i haven't listened to it for ages. of course i haven't got here in berlin (i have moved). if my memory serves me well i preferred it to the one before, which was dull. but i think i liked "turbulent indigo", the one after better. i should definitely rip my vinyl albums asap to find out.

I know of few records better suited to headphones in the middle of the night.

Yes. I just bought some new headphones and just walking home on a wintry night (lol southern hemisphere) is perfect for this.

How does it figure in terms of producton as a sticking point, I haven't heard it really since it's release and have a hard time finding a way through the other eigties albums mainly for that reason.

Bits of the 80s inhere: there's some subtle tribal (or quasi-tribal) percussion on some tracks ("Slouching Towards Bethlehem"; "Nothing Can Be Done"), like a really quiet adult-contemporary version of The Commodores' "Night Shift" or Fleetwood Mac's "Caroline" - but much softer and warmer (which I think is as much a sign of the broader swing towards naturalism generally as the 80s turned into the 90s as a conscious decision) - but mostly the sound is built on spacey guitar, ghostly insubstantial keyboards and some jazz horns - very much what you'd expect Hejira to sound like if produced in 1991 rather than 1976.

But at any rate although it sounds like a 1991 record, it's very much a not the kind of record where the production overpowers the songwriting or singing - my word for all of it would be "sympathetic". The songs I like a bit less ("The Windfall", "Ray's Dad's Cadillac" - and this is relative) are more because of the vocals or the lyrics than the productions/arrangements.

I thought "Come In From The Cold" was too reliant on its chorus at first, but it's one of those tunes that seems (oddly) less tuneful the more you listen to it, and more exploratory and just... Is there a single word to describe that sense you get from some songs where subtle reiterations and shifts build on themselves to create a sense of... not intensity, but rather of sweep, like watching a person's face change through timelapse photography (actually this is almost the subject matter of the song so maybe that's not so odd). It's got that same sense of a sweep through a person's life and emotional landscape that makes "Amelia" and "Hejira" and "Song For Sharon" and "Refuge of the Roads" - this kind of thing feels perhaps uniquely Joni to me.

Those really amorphous, gauzy 1991 keyboards actually work so well for this, the way they seem to echo and shimmer around Joni's guitar to create a vibe of emotional waxing and waning, a subtle accenting more affecting for its lack of solidity.

I agree -- you get a sense that she's shaped the music to respond to the pull of memories.

Re Turbulent Indigo vs Night Ride Home:

I'm the opposite I guess in that I used to have Turbulent Indigo like 15 years ago but never took to it much - stuff like "Sex Kills" and "Not Too Blame" were too didactic and embittered, too much like Joni in interviews. On Night Ride Home the early stages of the nicotine thickening of her voice gives it this fabulous sense of regret and persistence through sorrow, but with none of that bitterness, it's a really gentle portrayal of middle-aged wisdom. Even "Cherokee Louise", which you'd expect to be kind of browbeating, is so evocative and empathetic. That bit where she sings "... I know where she is..." gives me chills.

It's been years since I've heard "sex Kills" (I owned Misses), but I remember its arrangement as a chillier iteration of the NRH sound; its plain-spoken didacticism is closer to Dog Eat Dog, actually, and is maybe a more successful attempt at capturing that ethos and sound.

I should probably track the album down again, it's over ten years since I last heard it.

Bits of the 80s inhere: there's some subtle tribal (or quasi-tribal) percussion on some tracks ("Slouching Towards Bethlehem"; "Nothing Can Be Done"), like a really quiet adult-contemporary version of The Commodores' "Night Shift" or Fleetwood Mac's "Caroline"

Really feel like starting a thread about this sorta stuff...

Add: George Michael's "One More Try"

"Passion Play" is one of my favourite songs ever right now. SO GOOD. Could anyone else right this kind of song?

ugh write.

Thanks to steep discounts on Record Store Day, I got a promo mint condition copy of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter yesterday. I've accepted the received wisdom that this thing is an outlier in Mitchell's oeuvre but a few tracks sound like Hejira outtakes only this time Pastorious is mixed too high or his playing is too busy.

I'd love some commentary as I absorb this thing.

Cotton Avenue and Paprika Plains are all time, really. It's interesting, but not a failing that the bass is the second most prominent instrument after Joni's voice, there are also sections where ether are two basslines.

a promo mint condition copy of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

For some reason this makes me smile. Isn't DJRD one of the most available second-hand records out there? Not disparaging the purchase, just amused, i.e. "I found a promo mint copy of The Final Cut"

agreed with poxen, those things are all over the place! Still nice to find an unplayed copy though.

Its immaculate condition – I doubt it'd been played once – is telling.

"Paprika Plains" has revealed its secrets to me.

SPOILER ALERT

after another long session with night ride home i decided to listen to her '80s records for the first time. wild things run fast feels slight but could also grow deeper the more i listen to it. dog eat dog, though! this is great! i love all of these synth textures

I suppose I should finally listen to Dog Eat Dog

I bought DED on cassette for $3 at a Best Buy in the summer of '98. "Fiction" is my favorite of the didactic songs, and the single "Good Friends" folds the Thomas Dolby filigrees into a fraught, shimmering minor classic. "Impossible Dreamer" isn't bad. The rest is failed experimentation. You can also hear her voice beginning to change.

how do you feel about chalk mark in a rain storm alfred? was going to listen to that one today

too many guests, not enough songs.

NRH is where she realizes that sound.

listening to it now i can definitely see that. still enjoying the explicitly '80s touches. dog eat dog in retrospect is a pretty big outlier in her catalogue

"lakota" is both embarrassing and gorgeous

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha "dancin' clown"

Night Ride Home is so good it's not possible. I feel like i'll even need to listen to Shine at some point on the off chance it's an unrecognised minor classic.

yeah night ride home kills me. been listening to it around 1 am every night for the past week and it goes so many places without moving very much at all

meanwhile clear standout of chalk mark is "the beat of black wings" which is fucking unbelievable

also janet jackson's favourite song

I like the Peter Gabriel duet.

My friend Inskeep wrote this for Stylus years ago:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/on_second_thought/joni-mitchell-chalk-mark-in-a-rain-storm.htm

Interesting take but he makes it sound as if Joni went straight from folkie to overproduced aging boomer

her politics are pretty simpleminded on those late records; she's casting aspersions all over the place. it's tiresome, even when the music is occasionally seductive. although it's pretty obvious her melodic facility nearly dried up some time around 1979.

Thanks to Tim F and John D's efforts, I've come round to the entirety of Night Ride Home, one of my favorite autumnal releases.

Yeah, Night Ride Home is a wonderful record.

So the whole time I've been in New York I've had "Song For Sharon" in my head on and off (though haven't actually listened to it). Only Joni could so deeply and indelibly imprint herself in my brain that I can be standing on a subway platform and suddenly think, "A woman I knew just drowned herself / the well was deep and muddy / she was just shaking off futility / or punishing somebody / my friends were calling up all day yesterday / all emotions and abstraction / it seems we all live so close to that line, and / so far from satisfaction..."

i had "free man in paris" in my head all day today

although it's pretty obvious her melodic facility nearly dried up some time around 1979.

given that some of the best melodies she ever wrote are on night ride home, lol

"come in from the cold" is so good

One of her best ever.

whole album is fantastic except for "Ray's Dad's Cadillac"

I've always found the lyrics to "The Windfall" a bit off-putting.

I don't know the details of the lawsuit, and that might help me enjoy the song

nahhhh "ray's dad's cadillac" is great too! love the brassy chord stabs that respond to the refrain.

I do like the overall vibe of the verses. I just hate the refrain so much. Focusing on the brass does help, though, so I appreciate the tip.

"stokin' the star makin' machinery behind the popular song" is just a beautiful turn of phrase

Seeing the love that "Come in From the Cold" is getting here is heartwarming.

I don't know if there are even that many songs about looking back on yr life from the vantage point of middle age anyway, but I can't think of one better, or with such a sense of sweep to it.

I love how the synthesizer responsible for the billowing sound effects is called the Billotron.

For the Roses holy hell

jason mantzoukas is not really my thing. But he recently revelealed that he listened to Hejira every night for 10 years or something, and it's enough to make me feel something for the guy.

Eh revealed obv

I found this pretty tasteless, given that afaik Joni is still alive, but by all accounts will very likely be part of next year's montage, which I believe operates as the morbid implication here

do they only sing songs for that montage from dead musicians? i personally wouldn't read too much into it. idk.

I'm probably just sensitive because I really want Joni to live forever. But no, I don't think they specifically typically use a song by a dead musician, but when I saw the headline, it made me think Joni'd died and I hadn't heard about it. And the elephant in the room is, you know, she's been very ill...

"The Silky Veils of Ardor" is killin' me tonight.

I came across this podcast a couple weeks ago when Lilly Hiatt did an episode, and now I've been going through the backlog listening to older ones.

John Oates spoke so glowingly about Blue that I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to commit to making myself like Joni Mitchell. Even if I never do, it was a joy to hear him talk this way about an artist and album he so clearly loves.
http://mrjeremydylan.com/post/151644261850/my-favorite-album-165-john-oates-on-joni

Also, Wimmels man, chill out. Both Sides Now is such a fixture in pop culture that it hardly even registers as a Joni song anymore. It's just a song everybody knows.

DOG EAT DOG is her best album fite me.

court and spark is my favourite, weird it only got 4 votes

which that outro to help me would just loop forever

c&s is my favorite too

court and spark
hissing of summer lawns
don juan's reckless daughter / hejira
blue
for the roses

the others ive listened to quite a lot but they don't feel familiar enough to me to rank

court and spark should have stormed this. Night Ride Home is underrated, if only because of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1j0j4r_gnw

Night Ride Home has "come in from the cold" too

Surprised Don Juan gets so overlooked. Feels like the second CD of a hypothetical Hejira deluxe reissue

Well, exactly. It's a good album but I don't think there are many listeners who like it a lot who wouldn't like at least one of Hissing or Hejira better.

don juan imo is looser, warmer, more spontaneous, and free-flowing than hejira, even if the quality is slightly lower. i reach for it more than hejira

The Guardian rank Joni Mitchell's albums.

Bit of a surprise in second place.

What begins promisingly (opening track Sunny Sunday is a reminder of her 70s work) soon disappoints with rhymes as basic as “And the oil spills / And sex kills.”

I love this couplet, thanks to her sandpaper-dry delivery.

Without wanting to sound contrary, I think Blue is my least favourite of the albums I've heard and maybe the reason I was originally put off by her music, as I'd originally pegged her as a simpering MOR singer-songwriter type. It doesn't have as much of the playfulness or experimentalism of the other albums I like.
Gun-to-head I'd go for Court & Spark (which is her 'Radioactivity' in that the songs are short and you can easily listen to it as a suite).

I had a mild argument on Twitter last Tuesday on that very point: Blue is my least favorite of the major albums. The lack of sonic play is part of it; also, I can't deny that the media line for forty years has been it's her best because it's Her Most Personal Album, which, you know, bollocks to that.

"A Case of You" and "Edith and the Kingpin" are two great songs with vastly different arrangements and intentions, but I'd rather listen to the latter.

Sometimes an album full of brilliant songs is more than plenty, there's tons of playfulness in the playing and writing on Blue. Not that I ever want to play the best of game with Joni

yeah i agree with dog latin and alfred, the arrangements on court & spark elevate it way above blue for me, and it also feels just much more melodically generous (which is also aided by the arrangements)

there's tons of playfulness in the playing and writing on Blue

otm, disagree pretty aggressively with this run of posts

the arrangements may not be as sumptuous or thick as on court or hissing but it keeps thinking up ways to be inventive without necessarily amplifying it, i'm thinking of the intro to "all i really want" with those guitars chicken-scratching away in the emptiness, an unsettled and yearning feeling that the rest of the album lives in. also needless to say the title track sets up for the roses which sets up the next few records etc. and this is not even getting into "the last time i saw richard" as a composition

This makes no sense to me, Blue is pretty much all about the quantum leap in melodic inventiveness and freedom and sheer fun. I love Ladies of the Canyon but it sounds very formal by comparison, you don’t get many couplets like “he gave me back my smile / but he kept my camera to sell”, or vertiginous melodic lifts like “onlyadarkcocconbeforeigetmygorororororororgeouswingsandflyaway”.

also it's just 10 great songs that slap and pierce emotional armor when you're least expecting it, i have very little interest in how any of these songs apply to joni's biography but they certainly have applied themselves ruthlessly to mine

xp

Also, rejecting the party line on its confessionalism is still buying into that party line. What matters about this album isn’t revelation or honesty or truth, but the way in which Joni uses a series of stylistic manoeuvres to move beyond sounding composed - the seemingly spontaneous expression of character which is in fact an exemplar or skilful performance.

brad gets it

Tim otm, Brad otm

I don’t see cross posts on my phone before posting unfortunately

I agree with you both, and the move to dulcimer signifies her sense of play, but having heard Blue before the others I realized what I wanted from Mitchell.

I mean, this is like me saying I like Far from the Madding Crowd least among Hardy's major novels, or saying Piccarda is the section of Paradiso furthest from God.

it's not that blue doesn't have that stuff, it's just court and spark has it even more

Yeah I know it's relative, but I think you can attribute some of the critical consensus around Blue to that seismic leap in her craft - and again, that's it such a contained, beautiful set of songs - as cult of the artist stuff

as much as

No one has been wrong so far.

Anyway, I admire the Guardian writer for ranking Clouds so high; were I posting my rankings today, Night Ride Home would be top five.

Obviously the critical consensus can tend to dwell on Blue at the expense of her subsequent albums, but I think this is a safe space where we don’t need to explain the charms of Court and Spark.

In any event the only Joni contrastanning i’m particularly interested in these days is for For The Roses.

That's the one where the complexity of the arrangements is beguiling in itself.

Of her classic run it is the only one that feels uncomfortable, I think, but fascinatingly so.

I love Blue but it's sad that it's shadow casts right over 'For The Roses' so comprehensively, ppl are all 'it's just more Blue', yadda yadda.

I basked in the title track, "Electricity," and "Barandgrill" for years without listening to the words.

I'm not taking away people's love for Blue here either, it's just never clicked as hard as some of the others for me. Definitely has some bangers on it of course

Brad and Tim F otm, Alfred otm re: "Night Ride Home".

"The Last Time I Saw Richard" is perhaps the best lyric of all time? I don't know. I can't think of a better lyric. The thing with "Blue" is that it's like, is there a bad song on it? even a "not classic" song on it? "My Old Man" is typically cited as being the preemie of the litter but idk, "he tells me all his troubles / and he tells me all his charms"? wow. I think the sentiment expressed on that song (my man is good) is just somewhat simpler than the more complex emotions that the rest of the album conveys. And that's what's so brilliant about that album, it's not the "confessional" whatever, it's that the songs are attempting to express sentiments that are so complicated and so deep. I feel the stripped-down production of "Blue" heightens the potency of Joni's lyrical brilliance; this is not to underrate her tendencies on other albums toward dressing her shit up, it's just that on "Blue" alone, the music was in service of the lyrics and she is SUCH a lyricist.

"For The Roses" is highly underrated, the albums prior to "Blue" are highly overrated (though the song "Conversation" remains an inexplicable favourite of mine). I don't agree with that Guardian ranking putting "Both Sides Now" so low and "Travelogue" in comparison so high. I'm intrigued that they rated "Shine" so highly, to which I have never listened.

"he tells me all his troubles / and he tells me all his charms"

yet even here she reveals his narcissism while her vocal lets us know she loves him regardless

Isn’t it “tells me all MY charms”?

lol yes

I went from being unfamiliar with all but a few of her songs ten years ago and blowing her off as minor compared to her peers, to her being one of my favorites and at least the equal of Neil and Van. This accelerated the last year as I’ve picked up many of her classic albums on vinyl for cheap.

Some of this probably has to do with getting older. To me there is something so “adult” about Joni - a level of sophistication musically, lyrically, and thematically. She isn’t an adolescent like Bob or Neil. I don’t know much about her, but I almost get the sense some of this comes from her being a woman in a male-dominated field and having to navigate that world. I like the way some of her songs roll their eyes at the men in them - “I love you but come on”. Like she is smarter than everyone around her, but she humors these guys. Anyway, I love her.

Ladies of the Canyon was the first one that got me. Circle Game still spends days in my head at a time. I haven’t bought Blue yet, but have listened to it before. Carey and Last Time I Saw Richard are just incredible, so full of life. Sound and style wise I think I like Hissing the best.

Clouds is... not a particularly great record in my opinion. LOTC is almost as much a quantum leap above it as Blue is above that. Ranking it second is mystifying to me.

About the best thing I learned about David Crosby from the otherwise middling documentary is that he was genuine in his admiration for Joni and couldn't stop talking about her greatness; he even accepts responsibility for fucking up her debut's final mix, which mitigates the air of I-discovered-her.

There's a softness and grain to a lot of the vocals in Hissing that I've never been able to figure out maybe it was it an unusual mic choice, a little like the sound of Douglas Rain as HAL 9000, it's really appealing to me.

there is something so “adult” about Joni

As a so-called grown-up in a steady long-term relationship, I connect with her lyrics far less than when I was a single teenager, partly because I've become indifferent to hearing my personal experience echoed in the words of others, or even my own. Not trying to be contrarian here, I just don't think it's as clear-cut as you make it out to be.

I half-agree with that - the album I now connect with the most emotionally is Night Ride Home perhaps because it is coming from a middle age perspective which I haven’t quite arrived at myself: the “glance back at the sweep of history and destruction” vibes maybe seem more romantic because I am still just about able to romanticise them.

Whereas the lyrics on the seventies albums speak to me more in terms of their craft.

As a so-called grown-up in a steady long-term relationship, I connect with her lyrics far less than when I was a single teenager, partly because I've become indifferent to hearing my personal experience echoed in the words of others, or even my own.

I can understand that. I guess my perception is coming from a fan of Dylan, Neil, etc, where there is something very juvenile about them, which Joni is anything but juvenile.

many xxps fuck I thought I double-checked the pronouns there oh well

Write-in vote for "Song For A Seagull", it doesn't scrape the sky so effortlessly as her later albums but it is an unbelievably ambitious first effort and often overlooked

*To, not for

I think the sentiment expressed on that song (my man is good) is just somewhat simpler than the more complex emotions that the rest of the album conveys.

To me, the bridge ("But when he's gone ... ") seems to temper the feelgood vibes and implies that, as great as he is when he's around, he has a tendency to stray. Which makes the lyric bittersweet.

when i was listening to blue the other day i marveled a little at the line "the bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide"

just a really evocative way of portraying domestic absence amid domestic bliss

her lyrical development on every record after blue is exponential but there's also a world of richness in the relative simplicity and specificity of blue, lines jump out at you even after years of listening and reveal they have worlds inside of them

i was going to make this point earlier but blue and court and spark feel to me like they're looking at each other from the opposite sides of the same river, like they both seem to say you can have complexity and intricacy and still have it come out as pop, as these compressed gems of narrative and inwardly searching chords refracting from a thousand angles; for the roses, and then hissing and hejira seem to stray from this deliberately, trying to assemble scenes with their own language and staying true to it. a lot of value in both approaches

can't tell if these observations are facile or not, just having a good day thinking about joni

facile

Nah, it's good stuff.

was going to make this point earlier but blue and court and spark feel to me like they're looking at each other from the opposite sides of the same river

from both sides now?

*skates away*

btw how do you musicians rate Joni as a pianist? I never see her rated yet she plays it as much as she does guitar.

I'm listening to "Let the Wind Carry Me" and am in love again with her runs.

Oh she’s excellent, not especially gifted technically but continuously inventive. Considering how reliant she is, creatively, on lots-of-tunings in her guitar writing, it is lovely to hear that her piano writing is just-as-inventive

I spent a day over Christmas sight-reading piano transcriptions of her songs, and developed an renewed appreciation for her skill on that instrument

i've only listened to dog eat dog a couple of times but "the three great stimulants" came on in a mix i was listening to (this one specifically https://www.nts.live/shows/bumpin-on-sunset/episodes/bumpin-on-sunset-8th-august-2019) the other night and wheeewwwwwwwww it gave me chills, a song full of open space but i still found it hard to breath easily until all its tension is released when joni sings "oh these times, oh these changing times"

Yeah, I get why that album is maligned in the context of Joni's catalogue but I adore it-- so much more than Turbulent Indigo and Taming The Tiger

Sorry to toot a horn but I love that Mingus-to-Night Ride Home period so much and Joni is impossible to cover but nevertheless I am proud of this hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS-Ive-mkJE

Oh wow, great cover. Makes me want to dig out my copy of Night Ride Home before bedtime.

that is a great cover, indeed. somehow i had forgotten about the magic of that song. all her albums after "wild things run fast" i found really disappointing when they came out. though "night ride home" was a huge improvement on "dog eat dog" and "chalk mark in a rainstorm".

can't tell if these observations are facile or not, just having a good day thinking about joni

― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, August 15, 2019 6:09 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

qft

I find Chalk Mark In A Rainbow quite interesting to think about. You can hear Joni straining toward the sound she mastered on Night Ride Home but not getting there. Even more than Dog Eat Dog, Chalk Mark feels defined by its 80s production values, but I don’t think the problem is the production per se; rather it’s that Joni doesn’t really have a strong grasp on how to structure her songwriting around three arrangements, so the vocal lines feel unmoored, never quite building to anything satisfying.

Whereas Night Ride Home is about momentum: even more than Hejira, its songs thrive on their endless repetition, the swapping out of specific lyrical detail from verse to verse underscoring the reiteration of the same melodic and narrative themes.

But it’s very small distance from say “Snakes and Ladders” in Chalk Mark (a tune I quite like but which never quite rises above being a tribute to Peter Gabriel’s So) to “Nothing Can Be Done”, Night Ride Home’s most eighties-sounding track but also a supremely hypnotic and entrancing song (pro tip: put it on a mix with The Commodores’ “Night Shift”).

One of my favourite bits of random trivia is that Janet Jackson is obsessed with the rather middling Chalk Mark track “The Beat of Black Wings” and has even covered it.

Tim, the Gabriel collaboration "My Secret Place" is to me the aural John the Baptist for the Night Ride Home-Turbulent Indigo sound: singing slightly behind the melody, the squiggles of sax/guitar, the keyboard patches, the seductive modesty of the recording.

Yes, “My Secret Place” definitely feels like a precursor to songs like “Cherokee Louise”: effectively all the stylistic elements are in place; though again, it feels like it relies on its arrangement structure to give it purpose (and once you look past that: what exactly is the anecdote about watching a film in NYC that was shot in Colorado supposed to be about or for).

Whereas on Night Ride Home, almost everything feels purposive regardless of how tight or loose the song structure. So on “Cherokee Louise” when the first verse (“Cherokee Louise is hiding in this tunnel in the Broadway Bridge”) is partially repeated in the second verse but this time replacing the innocuous detail “We’ve got cold cuts from the fridge” with the admission “...I know where she is”, the effect is chilling.

Of her entire catalogue, only this album and Hejira and Hissing of Summer Lawns so completely inhabit this lyrical style of endlessly accreting detail that, rather than dilute the impact of any particular phrase, deepens their portent, makes everything feel dangerously loaded with meaning and resonance.

then there's this beauty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXn9TH5TdlQ

Oh yes but “Two Grey Rooms” is so good and unique that it doesn’t seem fair to place it in any sort of comparative context.

Except perhaps to say that it is to middle age what “The Last Time I Saw Richard” is to turning 30.

Just heard a great interview with Thomas Dolby where he expounds on the ‘Dog Eat Dog’ debacle.

He says she was totally unfocused and wouldn’t let him construct his Dolbyesque vision he had for the album (vis a vis the “I don’t need an interior decorator for my album” quote).

She also became cruel and vindictive when he asked for a writing credit on one of the songs and also said the record company had foisted him on her.

I actually came out of it feeling a huge sympathy for Dolby, sounds like she psychically damaged him which is a shame because I think it could have been a great album. ( I actually still think it’s very very underrated record ).

I love this thread

XP - could you link to that, interested!

Pt 1

https://open.spotify.com/episode/08telglUDX0FYbnQHIqqG4?si=FntW_lHxT5q9a-41vaWdtw

Pt 2

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DeBaUVU1E0hWtuZUhI3Rm?si=6Vys8f_JQ2atwLrWvTLMUA

The Joni Mitchell section is part 2

Thank you!

Well. There goes my morning.

In David Yaffe's bio, Mitchell's quite clear that she and Klein hired Dolby to act as a glorified engineer (which is what producers are, no?).

wouldn’t let him construct his Dolbyesque vision he had for the album

It's also that he feels she didn't understand what recording a state-of-the-1985-art record would entail. Dolby would prepare a keyboard sound for a minor overdub which she would then decide would become the main keyboard part of the song, which would involve him changing other elements that had already been recorded. It wasn't like sitting down at the piano and just playing the song.

she and Klein hired Dolby to act as a glorified engineer

There was definitely miscommunication about his role between the two parties. In a contemporary interview she suggested that he was trying to be "creative" when his purpose there was "technical".

I think nowadays producers often are expected to shape the sound somewhat, sometimes to the extent of playing the studio as an instrument, like Eno.

An engineer is more of an assistant that helps the producer or musician capture their sounds, like Albini.

There's a series about Joni on BBC R4 at the moment, presented by Jesca Hoop. It's listenable enough but of the four I've heard so far (up to Don J's RD) they all end with her retreating from the limelight after anjoying popular success, scarred by fame, an artist at the crossroads...

I feel ancient these days, so toss one more vote in for Both Sides Now.

Court and Spark for me.

Me too, that one is a high water mark.

Really enjoyed the Court and Spark Demos album that came out on Record Store Day.

(Hejira is my real vote)

Dolby maintains that she knew exactly what he’d been hired for and was a big fan of his productions. He thinks she was trying to sideline him and give the producer role to Larry Klein. Not sure how true that was and Dolby didn’t exactly endear himself ( he doesn’t sound like a yes man) but sounds as though he was treated pretty shoddily.

Although lines can become blurred Producer and Engineer are two distinct roles. I’m sure Thomas Dolby is adept at working a desk and outboard equipment, the late great Mike Shipley definitely was the engineer and recorded the project. Some producers would not have a clue how to work any of the equipment in a studio.

That's true. I can't imagine Jimmy Iovine dirtying his hands.

As it so happens I seem to recall Jimmy Iovine did have a background in engineering. Rick Rubin, Gary Katz and Arif Mardin a three who come to mind who did not.

I figure folks like Iovine are really good “project managers” and music biz schmoozers who know all the right technical ppl, musicians to hire? And keep things “on track” or whatever

But it’s funny when you read about Kreator or The Eagles hating their relatively clean cut by-the-book producers and getting along better when they switched to producers as rowdy as themselves

Get over it!

To be fair to Jimmy Iovine he definitely took the teaboy/ assistant engineer-Engineer-Producer path and ascended it pretty quickly but there are plenty of producers who lucked out probably because they’re a ‘good hang’. Never been entirely sure what Rick Rubin does exactly but probably just me…

I think he produced "Reign In Blood" and some hip-hop in the 80s, iirc

Yeah but he doesn’t come from an engineering or musician background…he admitted it in an interview

:) I was being cheeky

I bristled last year when there was a media blip about that Rubin interview, whereby people were claiming he was some kind of a fraud. (If only people know what role movie producers play in the creation of films, people who are basically organizers and bookkeepers and bankrollers more than directors/actors/writers/editors!)

The fact too that Eno got sideswiped by some commentators as if the only thing he does in studio is sit in a corner with his box of cards; ridiculous!

Rubin may be known, at his most detached, for being “the producer who doesn’t even come into the studio, just stays home getting blazed and listens to the day’s mixes on MP3s through stock Mac headphones and replies ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” but he does do much more than that; at the very least, he owns a fantastic studio filled with fantastic gear and staffed by fantastic techs. (I haven’t worked with him, though I’ve met him, and immediately wanted to spend all my days in the same room with him; I have worked at his studio with his gear and his techs and it was “all that”, as promised.)

It’s true that there is little-to-no comparison between a Rubin and, say, a Rundgren (or a Timbaland or an Antonoff) but that doesn’t mean his production style is illegitimate or fraudulent imo

yeah Eno's almost always played instruments with his clients.

I may have related this story before, because it’s one of my favourites, but, Laurie Anderson on Eno, paraphrased from memory:

“We only worked together once, I believe, but it was a memorable experience. Eno was at the board, and we were recording. Suddenly one of the channels started acting up. Eno got so excited, like, “ooooh! A PROBLEM!” That something like a channel failing would not compromise the recording experience, but rather enrich it.”

whereby people were claiming he was some kind of a fraud

still inexhaustibly making that claim wherever & whenever his name arises

if I die and you want to talk to me after just stand over my grave and praise Rick Rubin, I'll be right up

rubin's also gone out of his way to cultivate this red hot chili peppers yoda ~vibe sherpa~ bullshit, like claiming on 60 minutes he doesn't know how to operate a board which is verifiably false

https://povmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Tom_Petty-scaled.jpg

i mostly hate the fact that he's this modern day buddha when in actuality during the 80s he was a coked up little shit, as kate schellenbach attested to in the beastie boys book

Maybe he "he doesn't know how to operate a board" the way Eno claims he "doesn't play an instrument" - he's a talented amateur rather than a technician.

Sorry I sidetracked the thread…The Thomas Dolby interview is great though

Wish that Dolby interview was available somewhere other than Spotify. I ain't goin' there.

his autobio (The Speed Of Sound) has all the details, his summary is "despite all that, I cannot fault Joni"

-TD otm

Inspired by this thread I have been going back thru Joni's 80s and 90s work, Night Ride Home towers over the 80s stuff, but I had not stopped to appreciate how much "Passion Play" is a direct reworking of "Hejira", even down to the arrangement, and of course riffs on a lyric from "Coyote". Has she ever talked about the decision to revisit that song?

also - great cover fgti, nailed it

omg you saw that? Thank you. Honestly my fave Joni song after “…Richard”

Yeah I love fgti's version too.

This thread always makes me return to Dog Eat Dog to try to engage with it more/better, but I always founder. I discussed this some time ago upthread, but it's not the production that I have an issue with (in fact I really like the production), but the approach to songwriting. The songs feel fragmented, a series of disconnected vamps assembled at almost random - this sounds like an interesting quality in theory, but it leans hard away from one of Joni's key strengths as a songwriter, which is how she can use the connective tissue within her songs to build intensity and momentum, whereas these songs don't have much in the way of connective tissue (maybe one reason for the heavy-handed subject matter is to provide a narrative through line to make up for the arrangements and performances).

Using "Passion Play" as a counterexample, the first half of the song is structured very repetitively melodically, so that when she first introduces the variation on the chorus ("Oh, enter the multitudes / the walking wounded / they come to this diver of the heart of the multitudes") it's like a sudden deepening and intensification of what was already there, even though the shift is quite subtle.

And - a quality Night Ride Home shares with Hejira - because of the sheer density of her lyrics, each iteration of a verse melody needs to be slightly different to accommodate the syllables and phrasing, the stresses falling on different words and notes in order to tell the story effectively.

Both albums capture this very evocative sense of changing same.

"Fiction" strikes me as the DED song whose arrangement matches the synths.

Yes definitely has the Dolby touch…’Shiny Toys’ and ‘Lucky Girl’ also both have an unmistakable Dolby vibe…hadn’t listened to DED in years but surprised by how well it stands up…possibly my fave of her 80’s output

because of the sheer density of her lyrics, each iteration of a verse melody _needs_ to be slightly different to accommodate the syllables and phrasing, the stresses falling on different words and notes