Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

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Norman, it's funny that you mention Joan Baez in relation to this. Joan Didion has this essay about her in which she writes: "When it was time to go to high school, her father was teaching at Stanford, and so she went to Palo Alto High School, where she taught herself "House of the Rising Sun" on a Sears, Roebuck guitar, tried to achieve vibrato by tapping her throat with her finger, and made headlines by refusing to leave the school during a bomb drill." I love the myth that's suggested by these facts, esp. in relation to the setting.

as i am allergic to the entire countryside, i liked that they paved over paradise and put up a parking lot: asphalt = better than pollen dust, IMO

1. The completely unique sound she gets out of an acoustic guitar on "Blue". 'A Case Of You' = classic.

2. "The Hissing Of Summer Lawns": my definition of Pazz & Jop. Also includes Burundi music way before it was fashionable to do things like this.

3. A band like Nazareth can do great covers of her material. Also her vocal lines are ideal fodder for bootlegs (as Fluke demonstrated years ago). Recontextualisation and all that.

4. She kept Jaco busy - hence fewer shitty Jazz Rock records were made.

(I'm joking about No.4 alex!)

and/or multiple alternate tunings, some of her own invention, i believe?

she's one of the greats, compositionally, subject-matter-wise and maybe persona-wise. and yes, arguably hot, if you like the personality. and probably harder than anyone who thinks she's "twee".

Both For the Roses and Court and Spark are arguably better than Blue. Her best singing (and guitar-playing?) may be on the otherwise middling though convenient pre-C&S-greatest-hits live Miles of Aisles

i wish i liked anne briggs more.

just noticed gygax's post. well, a 2nd opinion then.

That should read v. famous SCOTTISH guitar player etc., hope you never meet Bert on a dark night!

Expanded 2CD remasters of "Court And Spark", "Hissing Of Summer Lawns" and "Hejira" were supposed to have been released by January this year. They are not yet in the shops half a year later.
Does anyone know what happened and when and if they are due?

she dumped them in the ocean, I heard.

listened to Dog Eat Dog the other day hoping to find a dollar bin gem amidst the 80s production. unfortunately it sucked doggie dick

hence the album title?

...lesbian dogs?!

I only know Blue but I love it. I started a little cult of Joni in secondary school when I traded my extra copy of Psychocandy with my friends extra copy of this. I think we both did well.

I still think the real gems are those mid 70s ones, when she used more instruments and adopted a more "floating" and sophisticated song style. Even if there may be a bit too much chorus guitar on "Hejira" at times.

I agree... Hissing of Summer Lawns is my favourite Joni Mitchell record.

Court and Spark is my favorite because of the incredibly strong songwriting . I prefer it over Blue for sure. I'm shocked at the animosity up-thread.

listened to Dog Eat Dog the other day hoping to find a dollar bin gem amidst the 80s production. unfortunately it sucked doggie dick

"Good Friends" is a good track and single!

"Night Ride Home" is an underpraised gem

the album or song?

"Come In From The Cold" is my favorite Joni song of the last 20 years.

i really enjoy about 1/2 of Dog Eat Dog - 'Fiction', 'Good Friends', 'Impossible Dreamer' and the title track all work for me, esp. the first two.

it's odd to think of Night Ride Home as underappreciated - i always considered it one of, if not her very best, post-'70s albums.

And nobody knows anything about the remasters?

I only have burned copies of those three, and I plan to buy them, but even though they often only a third of the price, I refuse to buy the old editions now that I know remasters are probably on their way anytime soon.

I think there's a thread somewhere on the reissues and someone in the know seemed to imply that the remasters were not gonna happen.

The current bunch of Mitchell albums in the discount bins suggest otherwirse.

The remasters have been done - there were even press releases being released just a couple of weeks before the supposed release date in January. But they were postponed obviously.

To me the HDCD versions of these albums sounded excellent, with nice warmth and dynamics. The enticement of new versions would have to be either in exras (in which case what are they?) or in surround versions or advanced resolution. (I recall that there was a quad version of Hissing....)

SpinCDs.com say August 10, but these have been delayed before — originally they were to be released in February 2006 — so I wouldn't put much store by that date.

what a treat

THIS BOX

yeah it rules

other cool things I noticed at first:

a neat instrumental ("Sunrise Raga") that I think is also prev unreleased?
her horror upon first re-hearing the piano medley, as told to the interviewer in the liners
the goofin' around medley with James Taylor is super fun
the early "Twisted" I like even more than the band version, plus lyric flubs and giggles

oh and the tunes w/Neil shredding

A couple of memos I just recently got:
Graham Nash w Joni Mitchell: "Our House" demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjRzQc_ch4

Joni w Neil & Stray Gators: "You Turn Me On (I'm a Radio)" demo:
http://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#sent/KtbxLthNPsswdGjwZhDhqMMTPvwXWqzhHL?projector=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9arLNixB4

The "Hissing..." alternates and demos are beeeeyoooooootifulll

Joni came out for the encore of the Brandi Carlile & Friends show at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, seated on her royal throne flanked by Brandi and Annie Lennox (the other friends included Wendy & Lisa, Allison Russell, and the two singers from the band Lucius). They played “Shine” (which Brandi said was her favorite JM song), “Ladies of the Canyon” and “The Circle Game” with the whole crowd singing along to the chorus, the music ringing out through the night air, just a stone’s throw from Laurel Canyon. Absolutely magical.

I was there too - it was terrific.

Happy birthday, ma'am.

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

Goodness. Some of the very early opinions on this site are unbelievable.

Happy birthday Joni

ffs, you're not kidding, Duke. I had actually forgot how bad it could be back then.

we paved livejournal and put up a fap zing lot

This message board as a whole is the best reminder I have of what the internet was like in the early 00s. Basically just a bunch of what we’d now call hot takes (mostly attention seeking it seems) and name calling and a lot of people who felt freely open to criticize each other from behind a keyboard when I know if they ever ran into each other in real life not a word would be said.

Er, not “as a whole” implying that it’s the same now, but nowhere else do I consistently come across posts from 20 years ago that serve as a reminder of the above.

“ felt freely open to criticize each other from behind a keyboard when I know if they ever ran into each other in real life not a word would be said”

this is a good thing tho!!!!!!

Why is it a good thing? If you wouldn't say something to someone's face, you shouldn't say it to them online.

insert that won't do emoticon here

xp political speech, /trenchant blah blah never mind me

I guess I just meant “saying stuff” not “saying stuff TO ppl”, please disregard I don’t mean anything

Classic

The legendary Joni Mitchell will perform her first Los Angeles headlining show in over 24 years at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, October 19 – joined by the Joni Jam. Pre-sales start tomorrow at 10 a.m. with password JJAM24. Tickets go on sale to the public Friday, February 2 at 10 a.m.

I saw her a few months back at Hollywood Bowl with Brandi Carlile (where the "Joni Jam" portion was not explicitly advertised the way this one is).

They only did, I think, three of Joni's songs. Joni herself was not in great shape. She was very much buoyed by all the women surrounding her (Brandi, Annie Lennox, Allison Russell, a few others). Annie Lennox especially. Nevertheless the pure joyousness of the atmosphere was incredible, and I'd imagine a full set would be wonderful.

Just noticed that both Joni and Neil are back on Spotify.

Yep. After Neil Young saw that Joe Rogan and his misinformation podcast was now available from multiple outlets and he didn’t want to boycott them all, he decided to go back on Spotify. Then Joni did the same.

'joni back on streaming' status update:

"sex kills" back in regular rotation, as the natural of things should be.

ps-
hi alfred. you defend "sex kills" for your reasons stated above (all of which are good) , but also because we all know it's some of her best work. ♡i heart complainy joni♡

What's bad from this era are a lot of finger-pointing songs about societal ills and the media. She'd written songs like this throughout her career, but at this point they became scolding and self-righteous.

total banger.

I don't mind scolding and self-righteousness when the groove is food.

And good food.

Is justice

Just.. ice?

Are notifications

Not if I cat ions?

I dislike "Sex Kills", me, but it does seem to me to be a rejoinder to/echo of Prince's "Sign O The Times", throwing some mutual respect back at the guy, which I like