Blue

Yes I definately agree; you have to expect it really. I really wish it wasn't that way though.

I'd actually never seen her to any jazz material before, so this was really great. I should pick up that album for sure.

James

This thread needs more love. Joni is one of the best songwriters of all time and Blue is a perfect album. Some people think that Blue is all she made that's worth anything, but I disagree For The Roses, Court And Spark, Miles Of Aisles, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and Hejira are all outstanding albums. What I love about her is how personal she was in her songwriting. She wasn't afraid to tall the truth, she sung what was on her mind and didn't hold anything back.
She's a real legend.

BottleUpAndEssplode

I love Joni Mitchell. I need to get more stuff by her actually. So far I have blue, court and spark and clouds. Both sides now is an absolutely wonderful song and in fact it seems that album is criminally underated. Oh I have ladies of the canyon as well but I haven't got around to listening to it yet but I've heard its one of her best.

bob_32_116

Like "Blue" (the MB member) I was surprised to find so little discussion of Joni on this board. Of all the artists whose recordings grace my collection, she is probably the most consistently good over a very long and varied career.

Broadly speaking, one can divide her output into several periods:

- Folkish
- Jazzy
- poppy
- later period, which moved away from the rock/pop sound and back more towards the sound of her earlier albums.

I have all but a handful of her studio albums, and would heartily recommend nearly all of them. My personal favourite is the Hissing of Summer Lawns. Blue is nice, but I prefer Ladies of the Canyon, which is from the same period; the debut, Song For a Seagull, is also excellent. Of her later stuff, I think the best are Turbulent Indigo and Shine.

If there is enough interest here, it would be good to have a discussion of individual albums.

It's my continuing regret that I have never had the chance to see and hear her perform live, and considering her current health issues I doubt very much whether the opportunity will ever come.

sweetSmoke

I love Blue. Joni is the real deal, she is a first class performer, songwriter and musician. I am a big fan of Mingus, the album that she made in collaboration with Charles Mingus - it shows how incredibly versitile she could be in her lyrics and singing stlye.

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Lisnaholic

Welcome to MB, sweetSmoke !

Yes, I also think Blue is a wonderful album, with hardly a low-point or weak track on it. I'm not so familiar with her other albums, though, so I don't have much to contribute, unless it's this old thread, one of the first I ever opened on MB:-

http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...ld-folk-2.html

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sweetSmoke

hey, tnx . Cheers.

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"He who makes a beast of himself
gets rid of the pain of being a man."

adidasss

So I gave this lady a try, listened to the first few albums and then jumped to Blue. Gorgeous singing but after a while it all starts to sound the same, meandering melodies that sort of blend into each other and then evaporate. I suppose it's more in the lyrics?

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Last.fm

bob_32_116

If you have only heard the albums up to Blue, then I can understand why you might think it all sounds fairly similar. See my earlier post where I break her career down into several periods. By the time you get to Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira, she is sounding very different, less folkish and with much more of a jazz leaning. Her poppish period, from Wild Things Run Fast through to Chalk Mark In a Rainstorm, is different again, though I personally don't like it as much.

Marie Monday

Dude no, I mean the lyrics are wonderful, but the music is even better. What does it for me is that the melodies, the chord changes, the chords themselves, are all so intricate and incredibly beautiful and moving. Her music is simultaneously enormously sophisticated, and simple in its emotions

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