Joni Mitchell: Classic or Dud

heh, my thoughts exactly. i don't think any of them are 'perfect' albums.

The review is best on For The Roses, I think. Leaving aside the score I think the Hejira bit was too high-level (even just relative to the still-short treatment the other albums got).

Jessica otm for saying that Hejira is for old people tho

"old" meaning over-30s that is

this is true, the police confiscated my copy

i'm sure those individual album scores are hella arbitrary but a 10 for court and spark/hissing and an 8 for hejira? :\

I appreciate Hopper throwing down the gauntlet for Hissing and giving it a 10 -- that record is always, always the one I play for people who only know the earlier records, those first two tracks in a row destroy all preconceptions of what she's about. Even if Hejira goes deeper for many fans once you are a fan, the idea of using the 10s to flag the three you think fencesitters should hear first sort of works for a PF review

Reckless Daughter = my favorite

loved the review, going to go home tonight and listen to as many of them as possible

I think Jessica is probably right in general but Hejira was my favourite album in the world at 14 and Court & Spark is the golden run album it took me longest to warm to fully.

totally got lost again in Reckless Daughter last night, there's no way it isn't the high point for me. it's too bad this review steers people away from it, less by dealing with the music than by going all P.C. on the packaging. you can rail on the fact that Joni dressed herself as an Indian with a word balloon saying 'How!', but to then immediately transition into mentioning 'Paprika Plains' as the highlight of the record without mentioning... the lyrics... well, space constraints, I guess? You can, in passing, safely call out blackface as not-okay-ever, but when you've got a jazz-fusion record with the artist in blackface with a word balloon next to her face saying 'Mooslems, Mooooslems! Heh, Heh, Heh', then there is officially something more complicated going on than you are ever going to be able to deal with in under one paragraph

I mean, yes, Mingus made me nervous the first time I heard it, but one night last year I came home and put it on and it was perfect, from beginning to end

Noticed they'd released a box of all of her lps to the late 70s, it was in the local HMV this week. I couldn't see anything on it about remastering so wondered, assume a box like that does indicate that though.
Had been thinking of getting hold of a few of those lps if I could get hold of a decent remaster.

Anybody got that set?

sorry just took a quick glimpse back at previous messages, & didn't seem to be what was being talked about. But now I see that was the reason the thread was revived.
It just was something I'd meant to google when I saw it on the shelf but had slipped my mind on getting home so was interested if anybody had 1st hand familiarity with it yet.

I've bought it and played through "Court", "Hissing" and "Hejira". Don't think they've been remastered, the packaging doesn't say, but it only lists the year of release on each record, and usually the year of the remastering is added, isn't it? Plus, I added "Hejira" to my ipod and the volume level is low. But it sounds good, anyhow, so I don't complain.

Thanks to recommendations by ilx's own Mordy, I got a used copy of Clouds and Heijera today - my first two Joni albums ever (I only knew maybe one or two songs before that)

I planned to listen to both today, but Clouds appears to be stuck on repeat :)
i love it so much

(truthfully I was looking for Blue or Court + Spark but the record store had neither and I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. turns out settling for these two was a lovely decision)

Wait till you get 'Blue,' then you'll be in heaven. I love a lot of her other work, but 'Blue' really stands above on every level.

Do people love or hate Jaco's bass on Hejira? My dad is reading a Jaco bio where he claimed that Joni offered him a few hundred thousand to impregnate her (for his musical talent, I suppose). I hate to see it, but I can totally imagine her doing that!

hate to say it (and I'd hate to see it!). sorry bout that

I love Jaco's bass. Anyone who says otherwise should not be trusted on anything.

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks Hejira would be nowhere near as good without him. I don't like to think of myself as a fretless bass guy but between this and Mick Karn, I guess I am!

I'm generally not a fan of fretless electric bass guitar, but yeah, Hejira is unimaginable without it.

I came late to Clouds, thinking she would still be finding her feet. Boy, was I wrong. Might be my second fave Joni, after Blue.

i'd like a thread of indispensable bass albums, come to think of it!

Listened to some of Heijera on the drive home...fretless bass takes some getting used to, at least for me. But so far i love Amelia, and the title track.

It will grow on you, at least on this record. This record also grows on you, stealthily. But I am now so deep into Hissing of Summer Lawns I can't see out of it.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/joni_mitchell_amazing_live_bbc_in_concert_performance_from_1970

Brilliant.

Thank you.

2003 was my wake up year, crunched Summer Lawns / Hejira / Don Juan's Reckless Daughter down to one cassette and it never left the car

Oh man, Amelia is something else.

http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2013/06/05/joni-mitchell/

_2003 was my wake up year, crunched Summer Lawns / Hejira / Don Juan's Reckless Daughter down to one cassette and it never left the car_

Just created a Joni Mitchell 1975-80 playlist on Spotify -- will be interested to see if this is finally what makes me turn the corner on her.

Bought Ladies of the Canyon the other day and loved it. Shared "Big Yellow Taxi" on Facebook and promptly got told by one of my friends that Counting Crow's version was "much, much better".

wow, this has to be one of the most obnoxious '2001 ilm' openings to a thread ever

Did you see the 90 min profile done for CBC in 2003? http://vimeo.com/20279550#

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdpTGFZSgfA&feature=youtu.be

Bought Ladies of the Canyon the other day and loved it. Shared "Big Yellow Taxi" on Facebook and promptly got told by one of my friends that Counting Crow's version was "much, much better".

― arctic mindbath (President of the People's Republic of Antarctica), Friday, June 7, 2013 8:28 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always think Adam Durtz sounds happy that they paved paradise and put in a parking lot, like he had really needed the parking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtJPs8IDgU

kingfarticus 2 weeks ago
Thumbs up if you heard this at Target, Macy's, or in an elevator.
Reply · 17

Amazing how much people hated her in 2001!

her crime was that she wasn't belle & sebastien

Wasn't there a Neptunes remix of the Counting Crows version or something?

classic:

Dud, Dud and thrice Dud. Annoyingly "twee" hippy songstress with a piercing warble that could make dogs' heads explode. Ick!
― alex in nyc,

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/an_enchanting_two_hour_interview_with_joni_mitchell

I don't think this is the same thing as the CBC doc...this is a 2 hour CBC interview

Watching Joni at her 70th celebration, giving in to the muse and deciding to sing in public once again, damn, that's uplifting.

I wish she'd give up smoking.

She makes a point of smoking!

My friend went to the Massey Hall thing the other night. She also tried to get Mitchell's autograph three different times this past week, no luck.

Any idea if the entire Massey Hall show will be available, beyond the shakey cell phone shots on YouTube?

choosing cigarettes over such a unique instrument is just... ugh

I love Dog Eat Dog. Can't believe it is disparaged even now, even here.

I feel bad for someone who think Joni Mitchell is a "dud," if someone sincerely believes that. If you're not moved (musically and/or emotionally) by at least 'Blue,' it might be time to think a little less about music and hear it a little more.

xpost: I picked up Dog Eat Dog in December and was surprised by how good it was. Definitely not bad.