Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

my taste for stuff like this (night ride home) sometimes makes me think that i should listen more closely to ani difranco. i've heard plenty of ani's stuff -- my wife is a fan -- but i've never really sat down with it except for in college when i reviewed ani's up up up up up up for dom passantino's alma mater's student newspaper. and i have to say, at the time, i was kind of surprised at how much i was into it.

though this also reminds me, interestingly, of late bobby mcferrin.

Up × 6 isn't even a particularly good Ani album.

But you're right, there's a side of Ani that is very similar to Night Ride Home.

In particular Reckoning, the second disc of Revelling/Reckoning from 2001. This is the title track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvyHD9gJOO4

Box set---which she curated--get tired of this term nowadays, but if anybody does it, you know she does

http://wp-images.emusic.com/assets/2014/10/joni-mitchell.jpg

http://www.wonderingsound.com/news/joni-mitchell-discusses-handpicked-love-many-faces-box-set/

just a new attempt to monetize her catalogue, she puts some of her heart into it but that doesn't make it any less redundant

"What do you mean my royalty checks are getting smaller? How many records am I selling? What?! When did that happen? No one is buying my records anymore? Wait, so you're saying no one is selling any records anymore? Not even Jackson Browne? Wow. What's that? You think I should tour? Yawn, next. Is there some other way to get a paycheck that doesn't involve making new music, or playing live? A boxed set? Cool, let me spend two years on it. Hey, can we get it in that Pono that Neil keeps talking about?"

Mingus 2: Better Git It In Your Pono

wonder how much vertigo you experience in the transition between "car on a hill" and dancin' clown"

"Curated" compilations are p much always useless but I'm in favor of Joni Mitchell making money, even lots of it

i think about joni mitchell a lot. i hope she's feeling okay. i hope one day she feels okay enough to do another tour so i get a chance to see her live. but if not - she should just live + be well.

I hope she's reading this thread, smoking.

yeah I also feel a kind of sympathy/empathy for Joni Mitchell that I don't so much for most famous musicians. Maybe because she seems to give so much of herself to her audience and seems to be so pained, IDK.

Joni Mitchell has revealed some of the details surrounding her four-disc box set Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, a Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced. Originally meant as a tidy best-of compilation, the project took a couple years to complete, as the singer-songwriter tried to construct a clear narrative through handpicked selections from her 17 albums.

i know this is obvious, but it is completely absurd that it would take anyone 2 years to come up with a playlist for a four-disc box set. for her own music! jesus christ joni, just clear out a couple afternoons on your calendar and focus, it doesn't have to be so hard

how involved was she in the sequencing for hits? i've always felt like it's an exceptionally great greatest hits compilation. i'm curious to see how she sequences her career now - which of the early tracks she feels warmest about today. idk. i wouldn't buy the boxset tho esp since i already have every lp so who needs it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738088/The-secret-torment-Joni-Mitchell-Unflinching-memoir-reveals-reclusive-70s-icon-battles-disease-makes-skin-crawl-haunted-stalkers-heartache-giving-daughter-adoption.html

Morgellons!

i know this is obvious, but it is completely absurd that it would take anyone 2 years to come up with a playlist for a four-disc box set. for her own music! jesus christ joni, just clear out a couple afternoons on your calendar and focus, it doesn't have to be so hard

― Karl Malone

idk have you seen the XTC poll?

maybe joni created a poll for her own songs, submitted a new entry every day for two years, checked in recently to view the results— and blam! box set.

"What do you mean my royalty checks are getting smaller? How many records am I selling? What?! When did that happen? No one is buying my records anymore? Wait, so you're saying no one is selling any records anymore? Not even Jackson Browne? Wow. What's that? You think I should tour? Yawn, next. Is there some other way to get a paycheck that doesn't involve making new music, or playing live? A boxed set? Cool, let me spend two years on it. Hey, can we get it in that Pono that Neil keeps talking about?"

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 6:53 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do wonder about these geezers who could depend on reliable royalty checks for a few decades and then, fairly suddenly, it all dries up.

like carole king. no doubt she raked in millions every year from publishing royalties alone ("you make me feel like a natural woman" / "you've got a friend" /etc.), and i'm betting the checks have been a lot smaller lately.

on the other hand, maybe michael bay decides to include "porpoise song" in transformers 79 and it's payday again

You know Carole King just had a hit musical based on her life and songs, right?

that's true... maybe she wasn't a good example.

let's take this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Bell

i imagine his royalties from back catalog sales of philly soul have diminished in the past 15 years.

or someone like, uh, neil diamond.

you know what i mean.

never mind.

ilx: the most pedantic place on earth

Some artists do get hung up on decisions like that; several have mentioned that they can't hear their own records without getting distracted (at least) by thinking about studio and other situations, incl backstories of the songs--plus being insecure and obsessive: Mogellons/delusional parasitosis: http://www.ent.uga.edu/pubs/EkbomCurrPsychiatryRpts.pdf
Plus, lingering effects of polio, which she's cited re not touring anymore--also if her voice really is shot, though it wasn't on studio tracks from about 10 years ago, live tapes a few years older---hey, if Dylan can manage, like every night...
At one point, she said that reunion with her daughter had taken away the need to make make music.

I think it's about time that Joni Mitchell put out a boxed set. Good for her.

Might not be financial as much as the urge to do something more, whatever she can. She already did the versions w strings for inst.; mostly pretty good too.

ts: box set vs. boxed set

I live Joni

amateurist I definitely think there are a lot of artists for whom the royalties eventually "dry up." I kind of doubt that's the case for Joni since she's canonized and also gets covered all the time. She also doesn't strike me as someone who blew all her fortunes on a lavish lifestyle, but who knows.

I wonder how much coin Joni rakes in every Xmas season due to "River"?

I can't even think of what Joni would blow wads of money on -- one-of-a-kind handmade scarves? A rustic villa in the Italian countryside? Whalewatching tours?

treatments for her psychosomatic disease?

and Hurting, yeah i wouldn't think joni is one whose royalties dried up... but surely even people like her saw a pretty big dip in the last 15 years. i just feel bad for those middle-level artists whose retirement was probably bet on the continued appearance of royalty checks.

Luckily she didn't buy her housemaid a car.

Royalty payments fascinate me and I could discuss'em forever. How much would she make a year, ya think?

She probably make a mint off the Counting Crows cover, our suffering for her gain I suppose. Aside from that, I have no idea. Musician's income always break down in weird ways. But:

amateurist I definitely think there are a lot of artists for whom the royalties eventually "dry up."

I'd say "all artists with few exceptions". (Except film composers, it seems.)

Oh big $ if you can turn your catalogue into a hit musical, in case any musicians here had a catalogue that could be turned into a hit musical

She probably make a mint off the Counting Crows cover, our suffering for her gain I suppose.

Or how about the Janet Jackson sample?

Think the income for a lot of established artists comes more from investments, not that some of them (Billy Joel, L.Cohen) don't have their personal Madoffs, as it turns out, The ones who actually get enough royalties to invest, that is--for the other side, see an epic and cogent discussion in Ruth Brown's autobio, Miss Rhythm: backstory of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, set up to establish, collect and distribute what a lot of artists, famous and otherwise, should have been receiving all through their careers (Atlantic Records giving a new meaning to "loss leader").
Not so much of a problem with white classic rock royalty, it seems. Indeed, remember reading in Billboard, early in the Napster era, that big companies weren't offering good deals to new artists because had so much tied up in long term deals w Clapton, Phil Collins etc.

I think the key is when someone covers your song. Your own album, the labels fuck you over and do everything they can not to pay you what's owed. But when someone covers your song, it seems like the payout comes much faster, perhaps for legal/licensing reasons. We've talked about it before, but I've always wondered what, say, Wire makes off REM. Or, you know, Leonard Cohen from his surprise credit on "Automatic for the People."

Well if you own the publishing (i.e. the composition itself) and someone covers it, you get paid through ASCAP/BMI iirc. There's no licensing issue to deal with, it's a "compulsory license." I think this is right, anyway -- I did study this at one point but never actually worked in the field so it's rusty.

I think ASCAP/BMI basically keep track of performances/radio plays/sales of the cover version for you.

royalties checks for legacy artists are probably still pretty good. I'm still getting checks (they don't pay the rent, but they help with it) on stuff I released twenty years ago that almost nobody's ever heard of. there is, as the last number of posts illustrate, a huge system of how publishing money works, and a lot of options (sell your publishing outright / license your songs / other people cover them and you get your percentage / etc) - these options are easier to exploit if you're more famous or have written songs lots of people recognize. Hurting's right about the compulsory license.

But Joni Mitchell probably isn't issuing the boxed set because her royalties stream from 30-year-old back catalog suddenly dried up. It probably experienced a the same sharp correction everybody else experienced right around 2001, but the checks are probably still pretty good.

Wish Joni had a boat named 'James Blake'

I would think Joni's got money coming in from a bunch of different streams - let's not forget she's also a painter

Would think (unless he got ripped off on older publishing too) Cohen might do alright from covers of "Hallelujah" alone (various heard in syndicated TV eps pretty often, most often Rufus Wainwright's---Willie Nelson's is my fave, maybe cos he doesn't sound too fervent)

I guess I can see how being a legacy artist who's not constantly performing could still have some precarity -- the money can probably be unpredictable and you have to stretch it to last a long time. So Mitchell = probably not poor, but maybe needs to do a new project once in a while to ensure comfortable retirement.

remember that cohen had all his money fucked away by an unscrupulous manager some years ago

that said, i'm sure that royalties from hallelujah (not to mention his endless touring) have kept him well in the black ever since

Cohen has said that touring has largely refilled those coffers.