The Joni Mitchell - Best Album POLL

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.