3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"
Do you want the good news or the meh news first? The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen, or at least better for me. I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be. The meh news? I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album.
Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently. Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey. (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory).
One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of grating and unpleasant. The lyrics she's singing don't really help; they're very macrame-Earth-mother-batik-skirt. From "Little Green":
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer
Later, we would find out this song is about her daughter whom she gave up for adoption, which is very sad and now I feel bad about busting on the lyrics but I can't help it. There are some other howlers, too, like in "All I Want" ("I wanna talk to you, I wanna shampoo you," what). BUT there are also some genuinely great lyrics, such is the duality of Joni Mitchell. Like these, the opening lyrics of "A Case of You":
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar"
On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh, Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
That's pretty great. It definitely paints a picture and sets a mood at the same time. I don't actually love the song, for the reason I don't like most Joni Mitchell songs; the vocals are kind of all over the place and I don't love her voice and whatever it's just not my thing. Sometimes her voice suddenly goes flying up into the upper register for no apparent reason and I find that affectation extremely annoying.
Luckily, I can say there are two songs on the record that I can actually say I like, for some reason. One of them is "California," about how much she misses California and wants to come back after being in Europe. Vocally, this song has all the stuff I just said bothered me with the swooping trills and whatnot but I think I'm just used to it now because this song used to be on a Spotify mix called "Calm Down" which is a mix I OFTEN need, anyway until Joni yanked her music off Spotify when Neil Young did because, I think, Spotify gave Joe Rogan a huge contract or something? Anyway, I heard it a lot on that mix and finally stopped skipping it and got used to it. Joni Mitchell: best with exposure therapy!
The other one is "This Flight Tonight," with the only chorus on the album I can actually say I like. It's a regret song where she's flying away from one of the many, many breakups in this album and kind of regrets it. It also has this wild break in the fifth verse:
Can't numb you out, can't drum you out of my mind
They're playing "Goodbye, baby, baby, goodbye
Ooh ooh, love is blind"
And when the "They're playing" part starts it sounds like an actual band through headphones, just completely unlike anything else on the album. Cool effect, I like it.
Believe it or not, Nazareth covered this song, and they fucking ROCKED THE FUCK OUT OF IT:
Sorry I have to interrupt your Joni Mitchell number 3 post with Nazareth, but you are missing out if you don't watch this.
So I'm gonna have to go with Pitchfork on this one. I'm sure it's number 1 in a lot of old hippies' hearts, but it's the 86th best album of the 70s to me.
Is this album in my personal Top 100? Uh, No.
I think that once we get into top 10 territory, it's impossible to create a "definitive" list, unless you're going by something concrete like sales numbers. There are many more than 10 "best ever" albums, and there's no way to stop personal taste from influencing how you arrange them. I personally love this record, especially "A Case of You," and I think it's the best Joni Mitchell album, but #3? Probably not. How much of that is influenced by the fact that by the time I heard it, Joni Mitchell was already old-fashioned, and my BFF and I pulled this out from her mom's record collection? How much of Rolling Stone's ranking is influenced by its preponderance of old hippies? I guess this is just a long comment about how I think lists like these are ultimately bullshit unless they're a personal ranking (which is why I like how you evaluate that at the end of each posts).
ReplyDeleteYeah, of course you're right; there is no objective best album, and all of our best albums are colored by our own experiences and tastes. This list, of course, is determined by some number of voters who could be casting votes for any number of reasons. I know this is a meaningful and important record, even if I don't like it personally, so I might vote it high if my criteria is "meaningful and important" rather than "my personal favorites." I think "Case of You" is one of the better songs on the album, fwiw.
DeleteI'm dropping the first batch of my personal rankings tomorrow maybe; we'll see if anyone cares.