Artist – Album: Joni Mitchell - Blue
Released: 22nd
June 1971
Sounds Like: she’s kind of blue
Didn’t get your fill of depressed Canadians with Neil Young’s
Tonight’s the Night? Why not try Joni Mitchell’s Blue – now even more sad!
Before Blue, Joni Mitchell had
experienced some success, first writing songs for others and then as a solo
artists in her own right. But the emotion shown on those biggest songs – the philosophical
‘Both Sides Now’, the disappointment
on ‘Woodstock’ and the environmentally
angry ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ – gave no
indication of the raw wounds exposed on this, her fourth album.
Detailed here is the heartbreak of
broken relationships (she had recently split up with her longtime boyfriend
Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash fame), failed marriages (‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’) and, most
tragically of all, giving up the baby she couldn’t afford to keep (‘Little Green’).
Mitchell herself has said of it “I
felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had
absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be
strong. Or to be happy”. Like cellophane though, she does come across as
delicate and eye-catching. The sparse arrangements centre mostly on lightly
picked acoustic guitars and her wonderful, distinctive voice. And as weak or crushed
as she may have felt, she did possess incredible courage to be able to detail
all of these issues with unparalleled power and perception.
Albumaday... rating:
9/10
1. All
I Want – 3:32
2. My
Old Man – 3:33
3. Little
Green – 3:25
4. Carey
– 3:00
5. Blue
– 3:00
6. California
– 3:48
7. This
Flight Tonight – 2:50
8. River
– 4:00
9. A
Case of You – 4:20
10. The
Last Time I Saw Richard – 4:13
Listen to ‘Carey’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO4WXTIZ7Uw
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Also released on the 22nd May:
2003: Beyoncé – Dangerously in Love
|
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Also released on the 22nd May:
2004: Wilco – A Ghost is Born
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