Post a controversial opinion

if you feel this way every single day... you may be the one from neptune

Then unperson and I are neighbours.

you really are very well-travelled

Then there were some growing pains before she started the next phase with For the Roses. I prefer the distanced, observational perspective to the heart-on-sleeve stuff.

No such thing as the latter. That line is bulllshit sold by 1970s-era critics who thought artists didn't this sort of thing.

*did

I can understand seeing the progression "Space Oddity" to "Life On Mars" to "Starman" as Bowie gradually stirring more sugar into the mix until it becomes inedible (sentimental chord changes, strings, backing vox). That's why it's so nice that Aladdin Sane cuts back on the slickness.

But yeah I prefer her after 1973.

Alfred, you don't see a change in perspective from Blue to For the Roses?

Anyway let this be said: I think any artist would be pleased and proud to have something as fine as "Raspberry Beret" in their discography.

If it is his worst big single (from a decade of continuously stellar chart performance), that's still pretty good.

I can understand seeing the progression "Space Oddity" to "Life On Mars" to "Starman" as Bowie gradually stirring more sugar into the mix until it becomes inedible (sentimental chord changes, strings, backing vox). That's why it's so nice that Aladdin Sane cuts back on the slickness.

full agreement

Halfway, I do, but I don't see it as a shift from autobiographical narratives, no matter what she says. I don't think art works in those binaries.

controp: Toad the Wet Sprocket's "All I Want" is better than any song by Bob Dylan

"Fall Down" is.

I don't get the "Raspberry Beret is his worst big single of the 80s" bit. the instrumentation on that song is iconic, instantly recognizable, it's a Prince tune that just about anybody can hum/sing, the bridge is delightfully bonkers.

it's fuckin' better than Batdance, which I like, but is really just a pastiche of nonsense. or "Pop Life", whichc is good but is no RB. or "Alphabet Street" (good, not great). or "Delirious", which is fun synthabilly (it got to #8? damn!)

I guess I would still see Blue as personal if I never read a word of her biography or interviews.

Brimstead otm

hejira is observational but i wouldn't call it distant and it's obviously personal, it just has the scaling ability of a camera attached to a helicopter xp

But while we're here, the screech in raspberry beret alone knocks alphabet street out of any park u choose

yea
yea
yeaaaaaaaa

hejira is observational but i wouldn't call it distant and it's obviously personal, it just has the scaling ability of a camera attached to a helicopter xp

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, June 4, 2021 10:08 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i would incidentally also say this is true about "the last time i saw richard," so yeah, it's not a binary, nor a linear shift from one thing to the other

I much prefer the Tin Pan Alley "well" that Bowie was drawing from on "Changes", "Life On Mars", "Starman" and "Drive-In Saturday" to the not-great covers ("Sorrow", "Let's Spend The Night Together", "Knock On Wood").

Of Bowie's 70s hit singles I'm much more inclined to dismiss the repetitious Stones aping ("The Jean Genie", "Rebel Rebel") and anything else off Diamond Dogs.

My favourite 70s single of his though is prob a tie between "Golden Years" and "Drive-In Saturday" so ymmv

"The Last Time I Saw Richard" is Joni's greatest song and there's no contest, hooks or no

Generally I can't rank "Blue" next to any of Joni's other albums just because it's such an outlier. It's like trying to rank "Nebraska", you kinda can't do it. I definitely have listened to "Blue" the most of all her albums though (same with "Nebraska")

I can't really argue with "Raspberry Beret" being Prince's "worst big 80s single"? Even if I feel differently? I care less for "Take Me With U" or "Alphabet St.", but wouldn't start using words like "hate" or "worst" until "Gett Off" and "Cream"

My controversial Prince opinion I guess is that "7" in my top 10 Prince tracks, idk why I love that song so much

i keep forgetting this is the ile controversial opinion thread, deems must be furious

Is the "Controversy" single considered big, in artistic terms if not commercial? That might be my other favourite.

blue is awesome but I didn’t get into it until this year. used to be strictly jazzy joni

I don’t like the first track on ziggy that much but the rest of the album fucking owns

the Travis cover of “River” is beautiful, cmon somebody has to have my back on this one

I like all of Hunky, all of Ziggy, all of Aladdin except for their respective cover songs

Actually, this is true of Station To Station, too, never cared for his version of "Wild Is The Wind"

best part of starman is the riff after the chorus, just pure glam perfection, it evokes images of glammy ppl in big boots and big hair and fur kicking out lightning

Generally I can't rank "Blue" next to any of Joni's other albums just because it's such an outlier. It's like trying to rank "Nebraska", you kinda can't do it. I definitely have listened to "Blue" the most of all her albums though (same with "Nebraska")

― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, June 4, 2021 12:20 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a good way of thinking about it

Man I LOVE that wild is the wind cover deeply.

the Travis cover of “River” is beautiful, cmon somebody has to have my back on this one

I doubt anybody could sing "I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish and I'm sad / now I've gone and lost the best baby I ever had" and make it unbeautiful

I'm picturing Henry Kissinger singing "He tried hard to help me, you know, he put me at ease / and he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees" and it still sounds beautiful, sorry

fgti can you say more about what makes Blue an outlier? I think I agree but I can't articulate why. It is sonically much more of a piece with the albums before and after it, compared with something like Nebraska

well with For the Roses anyway. Ladies of the Canyon has Blue-like moments but leaves you with a much sunnier and different vibe

Blue is two things, to my ears. It is, first, an enclosed artistic statement, like Nebraska, like Pink Moon, it sounds like a single-origin product, stripped away of collaborators.

Second, Blue showed a lyrical bent of Joni's developed fully. I internally classify it as "tumbling". She never did it before, except on "Woodstock". Half the songs on Blue have this tumbling quality-- especially "All I Want", "Carey", "California", "Richard". Not "My Old Man" or "Little Green", which would happily sit next to previous songs like "Conversation" or "The Circle Game". These other songs where the lyrics come tumbling out like a more elegant Dylan.

That's really it, I guess? The next few albums still had that tumbling quality but never again married with the unique intimacy of Blue's production

What other songwriter just kinda lets loose a "Richard got married to a figure skater and bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator" with all that gracefulness and seething bitterness, idk

The idea that this album might be "worse" than anything is kinda mind-blowing to me.

Horses by Patti Smith is in the same category for me

The violin bit in "Raspberry Beret" is all-time. ALL-TIME.

And I like fgti's characterization of the lyricism of Blue as "tumbling." It's like choogling. Hard to define but you know it when you hear it.

"A more elegant Dylan" is quite right. The "met a redneck on a Grecian isle" verse is easily as good as anything in "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." And significantly better than any part of Subterranean Homesick whatever

I didn't know I liked Prince until my friend gave me the tape of "around the world in a day," and I immediately played it a million times and know all the lyrics to all of its songs. None of Prince's 80's singles are bad.

significantly better than any part of Subterranean Homesick whatever

― portmanteaujam (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, June 4, 2021 2:11 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

damn early onset memory loss strikes 2/3rds of the way through the title

Hey fgti, sorry to ask a question and then stop following the thread. But wow, I love your answer and description. Joni is a master (the master?) of that tumbling quality - in fact I'd say, in agreement with you, looks like, that it's a defining feature of most of the classic albums that follow Blue. It's like the lyrics and the way that she sings them are so compelling that the song structure follows them, rather than vice versa. I feel it most explicitly on her piano songs, but I like that you highlighted some of the guitar/dulcimer ones; it's nice to listen to them through that lens as well.

It's funny that you say the only previous example is Woodstock. Because I knew the CSNY version for many years before I heard Joni's, the more conventional and tighter aspects of the song were so much more of a prominent part of its DNA to me that when I first heard Joni's, they were already overlaid on top of her performance and arrangement. I wonder how I would have heard it differently if I'd heard it first.

In any case, it's the other quality you highlighted, that intimacy, that separates Blue from For the Roses (though obviously there are some great personal songs on there as well). As you said, it's the combination of the tumbling and the intimacy that make Blue stand out. It's a great formula. The albums you cite as comparisons are some of my favorites, too, so I am clearly a sucker for that self-contained confessional artistic statement. I also include Astral Weeks in that internal mental category, though the collaboration of the band plays a much bigger role sonically.

Should probably just post this in a Joni Mitchell thread at this point, but in writing this post I went to her website to check some lyrics, and holy shit that is great website. Directories of cover versions for each songs, scans of original lyric sheets and other primary sources, little essays and comments on many songs. Highly recommend.

joni's website is very good. feels like an artifact of an older better internet (that may not have ever existed)

joni's website also has a pretty awesome archive of guitar and piano transcriptions, for those who are into that kind of thing

My controversial Prince opinion I guess is that "7" in my top 10 Prince tracks, idk why I love that song so much

― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, June 4, 2021 12:25 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

me too fgti, me too

some of the songs even have dulcimer tabs!

xp to me

For a second I thought... dulcimer tabs for Prince? That would slap.

BRB, I will be spending my summer creating dulcimer tabs for the entire Prince catalog.