Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

Yeah, how did she do that for one line?

Reminds me of the Jimmy Page old man transformation scene in the Song Remains the Same movie

it's so crazy I've seen that album cover so many times and never realized it was her

I tried with but I can't do Joni after Hejira, something got lost

the whole episode is so fucked

I don't have any defense here, but it sure seems like a coked-up bad take on Joan Baez doing the Dylan-in-whiteface thing on that same coke-soaked tour

try Night Ride Home.

Is this from the Showtime clip?

https://i.imgur.com/aGQRIgT.gif

Night Ride Home and Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm too

euuugghhhh @ this other crap obv

xp jfc

Canadians 🤣🤣🤣

discogs has the inner sleeve art for Reckless Daughter, which I always thought made it a little more clear exactly who she was trying to piss off, and more importantly who she was inviting in. which of her fans call this her greatest record? pick one, the respect of janet maslin or working with charles mingus?

it was a batshit insane provocation, and absolutely fair enough if forty years on you are all out of time for games like this. but you'll also have to account for why signifying this way in 1978 gained her respect from the quarters that it did. and thank you thread for getting me to the Mingus wiki and discovering that someone posted the Mingus Experimental Sessions to youtube last year

However there's one lone guest loitering in the background, whom no-one seems to know, everyone thinking he's someone else's friend - a svelte black man in a zoot suit with matching chapeau, meticulous afro, wide moustache and big, dark shades.

God knows how fucked up people at this party had to be to think Joni Mitchell passed for a black guy - white folks don't come much whiter looking than Joni Mitchell!

I viscerally hate her singing on Blue so much that I never bothered to check out her other stuff. Am I missing out?

uh

Sacrilege, I know.

No, I meant the thread is full of suggestions. Blue's my least favorite and played of her major albums.

Ah, I see. Time to backtrack then.

Court and Spark boasts more judicious use of her lower register and employs full band arrangements.

Sounds more palatable indeed. Thanks!

have you heard her biggest hit "Help Me"?

people seem to be taking a lot about Don Juan's Reckless Daughter for some reason, must be the music. maybe peep that one

Stop it, Alfred!

I hadn't, no, but it sounds nice so far. I can see myself enjoying the rest of the album.

2xp

pom u gotta hear hissing, but also u gotta get yourself right with blue

I hear you, pom: I have a similar 'Joni tolerance' and I find Blue hard to cope with in places. I absolutely love Hissing of Summer Lawns though, then Court and Spark and Ladies of the Canyon in that order.

I want to say it's an issue with melisma in general but I need to think that through.

I've tried repeatedly so at this point I doubt I ever will, but I'm up for giving The Hissing of Summer Lawns a chance.

xp glad I'm not the only one. I quite like melismatic melodic lines in other contexts, I just don't think Mitchell is a capable or polished enough singer to thoroughly pull it off (on Blue, at least). I also like my would-be confessional solo records starker and less audibly self-satisfied fwiw.

I p much never revisit Blue -- partly because it's tender to the point of discomfort and partly because it was ridiculously overplayed in my college student center coffeeshop, like every damn day for years.

Starbucks sure killed "River" and "Carey" dead.

I quite like melismatic melodic lines in other contexts, I just don't think Mitchell is a capable or polished enough singer to thoroughly pull it off (on Blue, at least).

I love the early folk/singer-songwriter stuff now but I originally avoided her until I heard some of the later jazz fusion-tinged art-pop material. C&S is sort of the transition, imo. I like Hejira so much I once started a thread listing things I like about it. It's a bit more stripped down (xps and maybe starker) but like a washed-out travelogue with Jaco Pastorius on bass, Larry Carlton on electrkc guitar, and her acoustic guitar run through phaser. Shadows and Light is a great overview of that whole period, a live album where she is accompanied by Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker, and Don Alias. I never had a problem with her voice, though.

*electric

Not much in the way of melismatic acrobatics on Hejira.

Not at all, I love how coolly hypnotic the vocal melodies are.

holy shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxMwGTQ1bzU

I've never seen a mediocre performance of "Amelia."

btw it is impossible to kill "carey"

ditto ‘california’

I'm late to the Joni party only having come to appreciate her in the last 10 years, but I can't see ever getting tired of Carey.

all Joni is peerless ffs

Wild Things Run Fast has ugly moments.

I have respect for Pomentiful for listing 新しい日の誕生 in the ambient poll a couple months ago...but just baffled by his suggestion that Joni's voice is not 'capable.'

Her singing on For the Roses is incredible imo

This thread makes a good case for avoiding coffee.

Yeah, don't let Starbucks ruin good music for you.

I Love (a Lot of) Music (But Not All)

You shouldn't even let Starbucks ruin coffee for you.

This thread makes a good case for avoiding coffee.

discogs has the inner sleeve art for Reckless Daughter, which I always thought made it a little more clear exactly who she was trying to piss off, and more importantly who she was inviting in.

― Milton Parker, Monday, June 15, 2020 2:04 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I looked at it but didn't know what to make of it, could you explain?

Same

I guess I can understand where people are coming from re: Blue but as for me I credit an real percentage of...like, my better qualities, I think i found "blue" at a time in my life when I might have become several different people, might have followed several different paths. "blue" connected me to the one who was desperately in need of permission to make himself known, to tamp down the less-caring, less-open, less giving ones. I did a lot of other work to bring forward the me I wanted to become, and of course I'm not all the way there yet, but "blue" was a door-opener for me in that sense, and that's before I reckon the music & the poetry & the groove.

I relate to almost everything you wrote, except in my case not connecting with Blue is what made me a better – i.e. less self-centred and histrionic and absolutist – person. (I am trolling a bit here tbh.)