Joni Mitchell

[Gwen Taylor on ITV]

Shit, wasn't she?

[SpiderChrist]

God, yes. Especially Hejira, which is one of my favourites.

[wosl]

Albertan, isn't she? Just like Fay Wray.  I wonder if that lot are sniffy about poutine.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Blue is one of the very few albums that I genuinely properly love that my mum does as well. Hissing of summer lawns is my personal fave though

[Shit Good Nose]

I don't know if the OP is sarcastic, but she bores me to tears.  Don't like anything she's ever done.  Plays a mean guitar, but that's about it for me.

[pigamus]

Blue is one of the very few albums that I genuinely properly love that my mum does as well. Hissing of summer lawns is my personal fave though

It's funny, I love Blue, Court and Spark, For the Roses and Hejira, but I've never got on with Hissing of Summer Lawns.

[SpiderChrist]

This just does things to my brain and body that I struggle to adequately express:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MbmXklj3Q

[poodlefaker]

Hissing... & Don Juan's Reckless Daughter are my faves. I'd take just these two over the complete works of contemporaries such as James Taylor, Neil Young, CSN...

[Gwen Taylor on ITV]

I don't know if the OP is sarcastic, but she bores me to tears.  Don't like anything she's ever done.  Plays a mean guitar, but that's about it for me.

Nah it was glib but I agree she's very dull.  I was listening to one of her songs on 6music at the time and between that and her appearance at The Band's Last Waltz concert, I struggle to see the appeal.

[Funcrusher]

I can't believe you loons are calling Joni Mitchell dull. Haven't listened to her in ages but I can't imagine 'In France They Kiss on Main Street' is any less awesome then when I last heard it.

[daf]

Just bought a lovely CD box of her first 10 albums - nice mini LP gate-fold reproductions. All for under 25 quid - an absolute steal!

 

Impulse buy after hearing Edith and the Kingpin on 6music (Radcliffe & Maconie) a week or two ago - I'm currently going through it in order & I just hit that song as I type ~ Spooky!

Seven albums in & they all sound like classics so far!

[the science eel]

Nah it was glib but I agree she's very dull.  I was listening to one of her songs on 6music at the time and between that and her appearance at The Band's Last Waltz concert, I struggle to see the appeal.

I couldn't work out why I couldn't get into her music at all for a long time. I think it's mostly (for me) because her melodies tend to skip about all over the shop, like she's making it up as she goes along. I mean, clearly that's not the case - but the lack of linearity (or something) makes it difficult to get into, to groove along to. Especially if you've been reared on more straight-ahead rock and roll.

I don't know of any other artist whose music has that quality. I was thinking...Laura Nyro? but then I love her stuff. Maybe someone from a much earlier era.

[daf]

I don't know of any other artist whose music has that quality. I was thinking...Laura Nyro? but then I love her stuff. Maybe someone from a much earlier era.

Judee Sill maybe? Sadly, only a tiny output of 2 albums (plus an unfinished third one).

Hardly any footage of her performing either - The Kiss  & The Pearl on Whistle Test, and this fuzzy video clip of her performing The Lamb Ran Away With The Crown - and that's yer lot!

[the science eel]

'The Pearl' especially, yeah. But it strikes me as a bit more flattened, somehow. Joni's music seemed to have a bit more spark.

I tend to like her music when it's covered by other artists. Same thing with Dylan, Prince.

[alan nagsworth]

I was always under the impression she was one of those dull cunts like Bob Dylan, where's there's obviously some appeal in there somewhere but it's buried under a load of dated hippie rubbish and slack musicianship. For years this presumption was buoyed by that stupid fucking laugh she does at the end of "Big Yellow Taxi" - fuck off with that, everything you've ever done must be shit because my god that's too annoying for anyone who isn't a simpering daffodil wanker to remotely enjoy.

One morning I decided to stick "Blue" on the headphones on the way to work to see if I could finally be proven wrong and did a complete emotional U-turn. Shit's amazing.

[daf]

On to album 10 : Mingus, and it's all gone a bit 'Dream of the Blue Turtles', still, one stinker out of 10 ain't bad!

[Bently Sheds]

I love Hejira, but it's as much for Jaco Pastorious and Larry Carlton as it is for her songs.

[Head Gardener]

Don Juans Reckless Daughter is one of my fave albums like ever, man (or woman)

[Pink Gregory]

The lyrics for all of Hejira are incredible.  Doesn't get the credit she deserves.

[mrpupkin]

Blue is one of the best albums ever made, you mangy cunts.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I like Court and Spark.

[Pauline Walnuts]

[grassbath]

I fucking love her so much, but Court and Spark, which could have been a 10/10 masterpiece - it has 'Free Man in Paris' and 'Down to You' on it so that's 8/10 from the off - has always been a bit let down for me by the mix and/or master. Anyone else have this issue? Just sounds a bit distant/crushed/trebly at times, which is a shame as the arrangements are absurdly gorgeous and make me swoon. Listen to it next to anything off Blue or Hejira, comparably there's a huge lack of depth and clarity.

[Deyv]

Joni Mitchell is perfect, you arse.

[Ferris]

Blue is amazing, you heathen.

[sardines]

I've been listening a lot recently to a 1972 Carnegie Hall bootleg. I think it falls around the release of Blue.

There is a fey tweeness in the bants and crowd interaction but fuck me musically she is so ahead of the game that you want to slap the hippy twats for their collective wankfest when she finally plays Woodstock.

[grassbath]

To anyone and everyone who ever has dismissed her pre-Blue stuff as naive flowery hippy woo - listen to this, be transported, repent and ultimately SWIVEL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjQCvfcXn0

[famethrowa]

I find her classic "jazz" albums impressive but hard to get into.

It might be the influence of Love Actually, but her version of her own Both Sides Now shits me up the wall. It's such a lovely simple melody and sentiment but Joni slurs and slopes and rubatos all over it. Much prefer a straight reading like Judy Collins, Len Nimoy did it best.

[Johnboy]

and it's all gone a bit 'Dream of the Blue Turtles',

Guffaw!

[Twonty Gostelow]

It might be the influence of Love Actually, but her version of her own Both Sides Now shits me up the wall. It's such a lovely simple melody and sentiment but Joni slurs and slopes and rubatos all over it. Much prefer a straight reading like Judy Collins, Len Nimoy did it best.

There's an unofficial live album from 1967 where she performs Both Sides Now before Judy Collins did it and (obvs) before she recorded it for Clouds, and it was a fuck-my-hat moment when I realised the gig was a pub in Leicester town centre.