Joni Mitchell on Madonna (and that demon, David Letterman!)

Yes.

She does seem to be taking the standard "in my day it were all fields round here and records had proper tunes" tone. And if she's so against Madonna-fication, then can she satisfactorily explain the inner sleeve of "Hissing Of Summer Lawns"?

"I swim everyday."

What aboot her bare ass in the gatefold in For the Roses?

I wonder, does she think she's saying anything new when she reminds us that THE INDUSTRY IS JADED, MAN. Really? No shit.

Hey, it's not as bad as when Letterman did Late Night and the musical guest had to perform with The World's Most Dangerous Band. Sometimes all you'd get was the singer and a guitarist, and then you had Paul Shaffer and the boys playing the rest.

MUTHAAAAAHHHH! Tellyochillinnotah ComaWAAaAYYEeee!!!!

But do you think about your crotchety aunt grabbing your...well, never mind.

Stoking the Star Maker Machinery behind the popular song indeed.

I like Letterman tho.

fuck that!

joni, if you're reading this, i hate you and you're retarded.

go back to the '30s and smoke acid and pick cotton and go to woodstock, you hippie-loving socialist. socialism was a failure. look at cuba. do you want to be cuban? is joni mitchell cuban? go listen to the buena vista social club and read slashdot.

P.S
I love you.

that would be a good quote for some intrepid tabloid hack (say, the d*l*y r*c*r*) to come across, wouldn't it? if they were looking to dish the dirt by association?

just a thought.

is it because i called dave letterman a demon, am i being cursed by the tv gods now?

Wow, you're so witty and acerbic! Like Jim Goad!

Anyway, this is by far THEE DUMBEST thing I've ever read on ILM (even if it's all "ironic" and stuff). Which is saying quite a lot.

Y'know, from what I understand, The Donnas are selling plenty of records without showing their tits. Bjork's albums are selling and I can't recall the last time I saw her grab her crotch. Ani DiFranco's albums are hellasellin', oh she's got hair extensions, that must be why...NOT! And, uh, did Joni totally miss the Norah Jones thing altogether? Or did Norah Jones show us her tits and I missed it?

The threat about "I'll never record again because I hate the industry" is one of the most childish hilarious things I've ever seen...like a little kid threatening to never eat ever again simply because he doesn't like the meatloaf his mom cooked that night. Joni, please, GROW UP!!!

Did she totally miss out on the Lilith Fair or something?

Seriously, she should talk with James Taylor.

Someone didn't see the "Pagan Poetry" video...

Ani, who is only now entering her thirties, has had a huge level of success among, specifically, women in their teenage years and early twenties - perhaps because her songs, grounded in as-it-happens lived experience, have enough empathetic hooks for this audience to latch onto. I bet though that she's going to find it harder and harder to retain this audience as she ventures further into her thirties and married life (it's tempting to consider the increasing interest in jazz on her last album as a strategic shift, an invitation to treat for the Norah Jones contingent).

Joni's songwriting - quite apart in its notable slide in quality these past two decades - has an awkward quality because she's unsure of how to write her age into the equation. From my hazy memory of Turbulent Indigo (I got rid of it after a while), the songs were nostalgia-fest throwbacks, or historical in nature, or feeble attempts to recreate a sort of naivete towards the world as a fifty+ social-observation veteran. But even if she was able capture perfectly the pleasures and pains of her age-group, is that age-group one that actively seeks out figures like Joni in order to hear their condition described back to her? At any rate, the twenty year olds are unlikely to be interested in this stuff (cf. "Blue", which I've seen in a number of young people's collections).

Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.

Bob is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-jonimitchell-20100422,0,5684541.story?page=1

we all should disregard all current music except for dudes doing joni mitchell songs in drag

lmao @ "since 1980"

she's such an old grouch <3

JM leaving the music industry (again!) to campaign for morgellons sufferers is much more o_0 than her opinion on contemporary music.

lol you summarized Tori's career in your parsing of Ani upthread, Tim, I am afraid.

I remember reading once in a bio about Joni that she hated singing at the same mic with Bob because he never brushed his teeth. Now that I can believe.

What is she saying when she says Bob's voice is "fake"? Lyrical voice? Narrative voice?

I love a lot of her music, but she's been coming off as a bitter old coot for years now. It doesn't suit her.

Bob is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.

She says it like it's a bad thing...

joni is way up there on list of artists i love and admire but would never want to have a beer with.

who did Bob palgiarize for "chimes of freedom" and "visions of johanna", again?

oh man, the mitchell/morgellons connection is bringing the lols
http://www.morgellons-disease-research.com/Morgellons-Message-Board/morgellons-syndrome/6451-joni-mitchells-song-about-morgellons.html

weird seeing my hate for mitchell now that I actually like a good bit of her music.

amateurist OTM like a mutha

i feel like she's been on this kick for like 20 years.
Also more like: Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1880. Was there some sort of glorious enlightenment in the 1970s ...?

what happened in 1880

what a dumb woman

her material is amazing, her opinions are totally stupid tho

prefer Bob for overall persona, sorry Joni

oh she's not dumb, she's just old and cranky. she should at least take a page from that plagiarist Bob Dylan and be funny, in addition to being old and cranky.

her opinions on people, culture and music are dumb. exceedingly dumb, as a matter of fact. she's really embarrassing herself.

lots of people have talked about what sourpussed jerks both bob AND joni are. its best to just listen to the tunes. come to think of it, though, they can both be pretty jerky in their music too!

she should at least take a page from that plagiarist Bob Dylan and be funny, in addition to being old and cranky.

^^^this. don't really give a shit how "real" Bob is being as long as he's entertaining (praising Schooly D for throwing horses off cliffs, for ex.)

is Bob a sourpuss? he seems pretty jovial to me.

skot otm.

yeah its not really surprising that joni is like this in her old age given how bitter and insecure she was when she was young! (based on her lyrics at least)

she should at least take a page from that plagiarist Bob Dylan and be funny, in addition to being old and cranky.

this IS pretty funny tbh

omglol she's old and whiny

joni is way up there on list of artists i love and admire but would never want to have a beer with.

― by another name (amateurist), Monday, April 26, 2010 4:06 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

I was gonna say that I might go for a drink in 1976 or sth but then I remembered "Furry sings the blues" and, erm, maybe not.

i think it's key that she stopped selling records in the late 1970s. so basically, people started getting stupid when they stopped buying joni mitchell records. or rather, not buying joni mitchell records is a symptom of creeping stupidity.

i actually think that, if you add a few mediating rationalizations, this is probably a fairly accurate description of joni mitchell's thought process.

comparing her and dylan is just feeding into her oft-repeated notion that they were the only two artists "that mattered" (or whatever phrase she chooses to use at a given moment). i love joni but, you know, bob dylan is bob dylan. let me repeat: bob dylan is BOB DYLAN.

I wonder... has Bob ever expressed an opinion on Joni? cuz I bet it was probably pretty funny

http://www.bobdylanroots.com/mitchell.html

he did a pretty funny Big Yellow Taxi in the 70s. not sure he was being very serious about it.

I said "What would you paint?". He said "I'd paint this coffee cup." Later he wrote "One More Cup of Coffee.''

Bob Dylan, point game and match

her opinions on people, culture and music are dumb. exceedingly dumb, as a matter of fact. she's really embarrassing herself.

hard for me to imagine how/why ppl give 1/2 of 1 shit about this. I wouldn't have known what she's on about if not for this thread, because who cares - unlike w/metal dudes where you can't really avoid running across their lame opinions, with somebody like joni (or madonna) one need never bother with how the artist in question feels abt whatever impertinent q

I don't like thinking about my nutty aunt grabbing her crotch.

But do you think about your crotchety aunt grabbing your...well, never mind.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, November 26, 2002 12:41 AM (7 years ago)

^^extra classic

Extra crunchy aunt with nutty core.

unlike w/metal dudes where you can't really avoid running across their lame opinions, with somebody like joni (or madonna) one need never bother with how the artist in question feels abt whatever impertinent q

this is hilaire, in the assumption that everyone in the world is reading Terrorizer and Kerrang and Metal Sludge on the daily, so have NO OPTION but to be bombarded with John Beardo from Mastodon's thoughts on microchipping your cats, but the LA Times is a fringe publication for cultists who specifically go seeking out "what's Joni Mitchell cranky about today?"

I wonder... has Bob ever expressed an opinion on Joni? cuz I bet it was probably pretty funny

Joni Mitchell::San Francisco - Bob Dylan::Los Angeles

Dylan's most notorious point-scoring came when he pretended to fall asleep as she played him an acetate of one of her finest albums. Joni has neither forgotten nor forgiven. It was late at night, with Louis Kemp, Asylum boss David Geffen, and Dylan.

"There was all this fussing over Bobby's project ["PLANET WAVES," 1973], 'cause he was new to the label, and Court and Spark, which was a big breakthrough for me. was being entirely and almost rudely dismissed. Geffen's excuse was, since I was living in a room in his house at the time, that he had heard it through all of its stages, and it was no longer any surprise to him."

What happened in 1980? well she probably started writing Wild Things Run Fast, for a start. YOUR FAULT JONI.

What happened in 1980?

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/la/LACOVreagan_miller2.jpg

http://politics247.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/presidentronaldreagan.jpg

Madonna bullshit aside, Joni really has gone off the deep end, hasn't she? :(

She has always been weird but that disease she's talking about basically tells me just how out of touch with reality she actually is.

Joni Mitchell is gone off the recording industry because of you

OH OK

Most of the critiques she says in the original article at the start of this post aren't really all that crazy. The record industry is corrupt and "try not to pay (artists) whenever possible." As for the rest of her points I agree with

how come on this thread and the joan jett thread people keep saying "oh BITTER". its not about being bitter. the music industry is a bunch of sexist hogwash, its as simple as that.
....
― di smith (lucylurex), Monday, November 25, 2002 8:05 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

The Bob Dylan thing is funny tho. That sounds bitter. I mean if you're a performing musician you are pretty much by definition putting on an act.

"There was all this fussing over Bobby's project ["PLANET WAVES," 1973], 'cause he was new to the label, and Court and Spark, which was a big breakthrough for me. was being entirely and almost rudely dismissed. Geffen's excuse was, since I was living in a room in his house at the time, that he had heard it through all of its stages, and it was no longer any surprise to him."

tbf I'd be a little pissed too about anyone giving Planet Waves more attention than Court and Spark.

hard for me to imagine how/why ppl give 1/2 of 1 shit about this. I wouldn't have known what she's on about if not for this thread, because who cares - unlike w/metal dudes where you can't really avoid running across their lame opinions, with somebody like joni (or madonna) one need never bother with how the artist in question feels abt whatever impertinent q

― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 12:10 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you're right but... there's a thread about it so... i posted my opinions.

yeah its not really surprising that joni is like this in her old age given how bitter and insecure she was when she was young! (based on her lyrics at least)

I dunno, I don't think of her lyrics as being particularly "bitter". She expresses some hard-won cynicism in regards to relationships, and comes off about as insecure as your typical early twenty-something. But bitter? Nah, I don't get that from her lyrics at the time.

guys, seriously. The objectively crazy part of that interview is the morgellon's thing.