A good ol' Joni Mitchell poll

Blue, that one's perfect.

Increasingly, Hejira.

Yeah, I think I'll go with Hejira eventually.

Blue....songs are like tattoos...

Ice cream scoop out that soul!!

Has to be Court and Spark.

Hejira. She really is a giant of modern music--made a lot of really, really fine records. Whew.

In baseball there's the "five-tool" player--in music that could be writer, singer, composer, arranger/producer and, well, babe. That might be a good thread, five-tool musicians. There aren't a hell of a lot, I wouldn't think.

add painter/artist to the five-tool analogy...

does anyone own any of the eighties stuff? A friend just wrote a long essay in praise of Chalk Mark on a Rainstorm as a lost classic; I own Dog Eat Dog.

The new Herbie Hancock album of Joni covers is better than the Tribute to Joni Mitchell that came out earlier this year, but my favorite song on the latter was Brad Mehldau's "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow," anyway. Still, Tina Turner's "Edith and the Kingpin" >>> Elvis Costello's.

Agree on Tina Turner--gave that one little chance of being good but it is goood. As for the 80s records Night Ride Home is terrific, in my opinion.

Hejira - the gift that keeps on giving.
followed by Blue and Court and Spark (obviously)

I have to work on the post '77 stuff

i like The Hissing of Summer Lawns

As for the 80s records Night Ride Home is terrific, in my opinion.

-- ellaguru

1991, unfortunately but yes, one of her very best.

"Hissing Of Summer Lawns".

I feel that's where she reached the perfect combination of her different stylistic elements.

"Hejira" is almost as great, but I pick "Hissing" for its more varied arrangements and stylistic approach from song to song.

Yeah it's a tough one between those two. I think I may admire 'Hissing' a bit more but 'Hejira' is the one I pull out more.

Blue beat out Court and Spark for me, just barely.

It'd be impossible for me to overstate the impact Blue had on me when I first got it. Life-changing stuff. I love Court & Spark, and Hejira, and Night Ride Home too, but Blue walks away with this one for me.

It's weird, a couple of years ago any Joni thread would have attracted hundreds of posts. It seems the old Joni fans have left the ship.

maybe the cover of Shine scared them.

It's gotta be Blue. Even of a song like Carey which is one of the weaker songs I know the beginning and just thinking of it makes me happy:

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey
But it's really not my home
My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne

I wonder how many voters will have heard For the Roses. or Miles of Aisles.

I love For the Roses -- almost as dense lyrically and musically as Hejira.

I have. Miles of Aisles is great especially when she tunes her instrument and talks a little. The songs though I find less convincing with the LA Express as background band. They tend to sound like fusion.

only ones I haven't heard

* 1998 : Taming the Tiger
* 2000 : Both Sides Now
* 2002 : Travelogue

which I totally hadn't realised before now came out in that order....

oh, and * 1980 : Shadows and Light (live) which I'm gonna get on DVD one day and am assured is beyond amazing.

always thought Mingus was before Don Juan too for some reason which used to makes sense but obviously doesn't...

gonna go give Shine another try today I think, I know it isn't great but it deserves more of a spin than it's had so far, just because.

For the Roses would have been my second choice for sure. But as others here have already said, Blue is just undeniable.

You want deniability? Blue is boring and depressive and claustrophobic and has a terrible cover. Only half the songs are worth writing home about (#s 1, 4, 5, 9 and 10, though I like California - a rare carefree moment - myself). "River" is the most overrated piece of holiday-season claptrap ever. Stephen Stills and James Taylor are on it. Yeah yeah A Case of You is GOAT. Big deal.

OMG, you're absolutely right!! Whatever could I have been thinking!!!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

almost as dense lyrically and musically as Hejira.

No.

Lyrically maybe. I wouldn't know.

i regard hejira as the prize of those who pay no attention to the words (not that they're bad, necessarily; they're just unusually easy to ignore)

i didn't vote

No.

Lyrically maybe. I wouldn't know.

So why'd you say anything? The section of the album past "You Turn Me On" is some difficult shit; she's singing these weird melodies that the simple piano/guitar arrangements can't support, so she makes tentative gestures towards rock instrumention (like drums).

Somebody voted for 'Shine'?!

You want deniability? Blue is boring and depressive and claustrophobic and has a terrible cover. Only half the songs are worth writing home about

o_O

wait, no
t (o_O) t

i voted for Hejira myself, but it's awful that For The Roses, Turbulent Indigo, and Night Ride Home were all ignored! they're really excellent records.

and yeah, what wag voted for 'Shine'?

Never understood what is so great about "Blue". To me, it sounds like just another acoustic dominated folk album. To me, Joni Mitchell began with "Court And Spark" in 1974.

Stephen Stills and James Taylor are on it.

you take this as a bad thing I guess

So why'd you say anything? The section of the album past "You Turn Me On" is some difficult shit; she's singing these weird melodies that the simple piano/guitar arrangements can't support, so she makes tentative gestures towards rock instrumention (like drums).

I'll have to give it another go. I had this argument with Gabbneb a while back, but For the Roses just seems so dull to me: not as sing-alongable as Blue and not as beautifully orchestrated as any of the three albums that follow.

i don't care about sing-alongable (those are not campfire songs, wtf). and if i want 'beautiful orchestration' (so you like Tom Scott then?), well it's appropriate for the i-get-it-i'm-narcissistic 'down to you,' but in most cases i'd prefer you know the CSO doing Mahler or something.

The 33 1/3 book on Court and Spark has good bits about "Down to You."

I'm glad Night Ride Home has gotten some love ("Come In From The Cold" is the only one I know). This means I'll buy it soon.

(so you like Tom Scott then?)

In the sense that "Car on a Hill" outshines anything on For the Roses, yes.

Car on a Hill doesn't come close to beating Electricity muscically, and I don't think there's anything on C+S that beats Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire lyrically

it's a good song, but you should have picked have The Same Situation. (but you don't care about the words, rite?)

"Car on a Hill" only came to mind because of the horn riffs. Tom Scott = LA Express, right?

I care about the words when the music is vibrant enough to reward my doing so. I'd listen to the For the Roses songs you mentioned, but it looks like I deleted the album from my iPod.

Very surprised that Ladies of the Canyon scored so low.

I would've given my vote to Hejira, had I voted... (Gonna listen to it now instead)

Haven't heard Night Ride Home. Nor Shine. An my mem'ry of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, unpardonably, is vague at best.

Side 2, the 16+ minutes of Paprika Plains are quite gorgeous.

For The Roses is a very good album but also a very difficult one, of all her early records it's the one that most feels like she's trying to work stuff out. There's a huge jump in both lyrical and compositional complexity (almost to the point where the subsequent albums draw back a bit) but it's like she hasn't worked out precisely how to make them hang together - a song like "Barangrill" strikes me as quite awkward and maybe trying too hard. Mind you this isn't entirely a drawback: the double whammy of "Lessons In Survival" and "Let The Wind Carry Me" are excellent examples of songs that feel painfully awkward in a very deliberate sense, all the breathlessly fast lyrics and sudden melodic u-turns actually giving you a sense of Joni's contradictory emotions.

It's weird, a couple of years ago any Joni thread would have attracted hundreds of posts. It seems the old Joni fans have left the ship.

Oh god, no, I just didn't notice it what with other shenanigans going on. I would totally have voted for Blue. The other records are grebt, but Blue just hit the spot at the right time -although I wouldn't have considered it the "right" time seeing I was in a deep depression. Even now, being out of said state of mind, I still think it's a classic and it just moves me. I realize that all the reasons I would bring up are way too personal, too subjective, but that's how it goes sometimes.

The cover lets me drown.

For The Roses is a very good album but also a very difficult one, of all her early records it's the one that most feels like she's trying to work stuff out

OTM.

I would've given my vote to Hejira, had I voted

me 2

Then again, huh, after listening to both Hejira and For The Roses last night, again and again, I now kinda start to favour Roses more...

Yeh yeh -- fickle me!
Wot's more, when Blue will eventually arrive in the mail some day soon, and I can listen to it properly anew, in umpteen years or so, I'm not sure I won't change my bloody mind once more...

My excuse? Well, Joni is a many splendoured wonder, ain't't?

Sorry, I meant Big Yellow Taxi in the end, my memory is fading away.

wrong thread, crap!

really, no one has don juan as their fave? -that seems to be my enduring fave, but i find, as with bob dylan, different parts of different albums (or even entire albums)
speak to one at different stages of life, and there is not any way to do (either) justice by attempting to pin it down

Bought an exquisite vinyl copy last April, played it incessantly for a week -- nothing stuck.

Lots of great songs on DJ but yeah in my mind teh whole things feels like odds and ends of past eras and one-off experiments. 'Talk To Me' in many ways is the ultimate Joni song.