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| Track list: 1. All I Want 2. My Old Man 3. Little Green 4. Carey 5. Blue 6. California 7. This Flight Tonight 8. River 9. A Case of You 10. The Last Time I Saw Richard Running time: 36 minutes Released: 1971 |
So I move from one classic to another; different genre, but same level of distance between me and the disc. However Windows Media Player must be the only entity in the world that would think that "Blue" should be listed after "Blue [X]" when sorting alphabetically. At least, I hope so because man, that makes no sense to me.
This album is a classic example of something I own because I thought I should own it, though that said it is not the only Mitchell album I have so I guess I thought something of it... time to find out whether I still do or not.
The jangling nature of the tightly stretched guitar on All I Want is a bit too bright for my morning mood, and Mitchell's wandering voice has a bit of a sharp edge to it when it goes into the higher registers, but despite these little grievances there is something essential about the way they combine. The minimalist approach can fall down pretty easily but here it seems to add gravity and weight to what is a somewhat flighty tune. I don't know whether this is confirmation bias or something else, but it seems to share that virtue of accessibility with Blue Train. Folk - especially 70s folk - had a bit of a retrospective reputation for disappearing from relevance, though I guess being '71 this probably predates that slide from the public consciousness.
I doubt that we will see much like this again somehow - the high floaty voice and a simple piano melody on My Old Man sounds like the sort of thing that would be rejected out of hand by modern music for being uncomplicated. Perhaps the stripped down sound will come back round - people do still try it and largely fail, after all - but here it seems to be nailed on. This doesn't disappear or shrink in the way I often find such noodly little numbers doing. The strong timbre to the guitar helps - it's not soft and receding and sucking the vocal down the black hole of anti-sound. The edge to her voice, similarly, guards against the shrinking violet syndrome. The sense is of a woman standing proudly in the spotlight, rather than a performer lurking in the half-light on the edge of the beam, which is how I see a lot of similar attempts. There is a natural confidence that comes through.
Switching tack a second, I am surprised given the title and indeed the rather morose-looking Joni in the cover image, that the first four tracks here are all relatively bright and joyful. I came into this expecting a sombre affair and I don't find myself mired in despair at all. The title track has a mournful air to it, but even then the piano melody and the style of the vocal delivery work to ameliorate the sadness some. There is real warmth in those keys even as the melody they create is tinged with regret, and with the exception of the highest, most warbly notes, the same could be said for Mitchell's voice. I find her singing hard to love. Those strayings into the upper limits of her range have the effect of nails down a chalk board in the middle of a fascinating lesson - little moments of excruciating discomfort peppered through songs and tunes that otherwise I really enjoy and engage with. I can completely see why this is a classic, even as I cringe from the slide effects on California - too many bad associations with 80s movies.
The higher pace and lower rumble of This Flight Tonight is a welcome change-up. I am reminded of some John Darnielle-penned numbers. I really didn't expect to connect Mitchell to The Mountain Goats here, but the aesthetic, including the tinny edge to some of the recorded elements is really a very good fit, even if the vocal approaches are chalk and cheese. Huh, two mentions of chalk in the same post. It being December, the similarities between River and Jingle Bells in the opening bars of piano are obvious for the first time, and with the month referenced in the lyric it is clearly a deliberate choice that somehow works. As an aside I bloody hate Christmas music - anything I can do to avoid it, I will. Beyond that I find this to be the least interesting of the songs I have heard this morning. Whilst the piano melody is nice, the song itself is dull and does not seem to come with the same sense of self-assurance that I would use to characterise the prior performances. In other words it trips around the edge of the pit of disappearance.
That makes no sense outside the context of this post, and even within it's a stretch. Ah well. Case of You is a very recognisable chorus, but the verses always seem to fade from my memory. The song is slower than I would have thought just from the recalled chorus, and a little plodding if I am honest. The same tune, the same words, with a little more pace. I suspect that might break it, actually, but it feels like something is missing and my first instinct is that it is an urgency that a higher tempo might address. What do I Snow.
As the last tune picks up, I find myself having reconnected with this. Whilst I may have bought it because I felt I should have (or at least hear) it, it now stays because it is every bit the masterful work that it was talked up as. I can certainly see why I went on to buy more Joni Mitchell records, despite her work all predating my life. I would never put this up as a favourite, or something that I am likely to listen to often. Alas, the modern mode of musical consumption probably renders most of these tunes pretty inaccessible. Something like Blue works far better in its original form - appreciated in flow and as a whole. That alone means it will probably quickly return to "forgotten" status, but does not provide a driver to exclude it from my collection. If anything, this instead suggests to me that the way we (or at least I) tend to consume music today is detrimental to our appreciation of some forms. I suspect I am far from alone in having most things be a shuffle of some kind now, and albums like this make me wonder what I may be missing as a result.
This album is a classic example of something I own because I thought I should own it, though that said it is not the only Mitchell album I have so I guess I thought something of it... time to find out whether I still do or not.
The jangling nature of the tightly stretched guitar on All I Want is a bit too bright for my morning mood, and Mitchell's wandering voice has a bit of a sharp edge to it when it goes into the higher registers, but despite these little grievances there is something essential about the way they combine. The minimalist approach can fall down pretty easily but here it seems to add gravity and weight to what is a somewhat flighty tune. I don't know whether this is confirmation bias or something else, but it seems to share that virtue of accessibility with Blue Train. Folk - especially 70s folk - had a bit of a retrospective reputation for disappearing from relevance, though I guess being '71 this probably predates that slide from the public consciousness.
I doubt that we will see much like this again somehow - the high floaty voice and a simple piano melody on My Old Man sounds like the sort of thing that would be rejected out of hand by modern music for being uncomplicated. Perhaps the stripped down sound will come back round - people do still try it and largely fail, after all - but here it seems to be nailed on. This doesn't disappear or shrink in the way I often find such noodly little numbers doing. The strong timbre to the guitar helps - it's not soft and receding and sucking the vocal down the black hole of anti-sound. The edge to her voice, similarly, guards against the shrinking violet syndrome. The sense is of a woman standing proudly in the spotlight, rather than a performer lurking in the half-light on the edge of the beam, which is how I see a lot of similar attempts. There is a natural confidence that comes through.
Switching tack a second, I am surprised given the title and indeed the rather morose-looking Joni in the cover image, that the first four tracks here are all relatively bright and joyful. I came into this expecting a sombre affair and I don't find myself mired in despair at all. The title track has a mournful air to it, but even then the piano melody and the style of the vocal delivery work to ameliorate the sadness some. There is real warmth in those keys even as the melody they create is tinged with regret, and with the exception of the highest, most warbly notes, the same could be said for Mitchell's voice. I find her singing hard to love. Those strayings into the upper limits of her range have the effect of nails down a chalk board in the middle of a fascinating lesson - little moments of excruciating discomfort peppered through songs and tunes that otherwise I really enjoy and engage with. I can completely see why this is a classic, even as I cringe from the slide effects on California - too many bad associations with 80s movies.
The higher pace and lower rumble of This Flight Tonight is a welcome change-up. I am reminded of some John Darnielle-penned numbers. I really didn't expect to connect Mitchell to The Mountain Goats here, but the aesthetic, including the tinny edge to some of the recorded elements is really a very good fit, even if the vocal approaches are chalk and cheese. Huh, two mentions of chalk in the same post. It being December, the similarities between River and Jingle Bells in the opening bars of piano are obvious for the first time, and with the month referenced in the lyric it is clearly a deliberate choice that somehow works. As an aside I bloody hate Christmas music - anything I can do to avoid it, I will. Beyond that I find this to be the least interesting of the songs I have heard this morning. Whilst the piano melody is nice, the song itself is dull and does not seem to come with the same sense of self-assurance that I would use to characterise the prior performances. In other words it trips around the edge of the pit of disappearance.
That makes no sense outside the context of this post, and even within it's a stretch. Ah well. Case of You is a very recognisable chorus, but the verses always seem to fade from my memory. The song is slower than I would have thought just from the recalled chorus, and a little plodding if I am honest. The same tune, the same words, with a little more pace. I suspect that might break it, actually, but it feels like something is missing and my first instinct is that it is an urgency that a higher tempo might address. What do I Snow.
As the last tune picks up, I find myself having reconnected with this. Whilst I may have bought it because I felt I should have (or at least hear) it, it now stays because it is every bit the masterful work that it was talked up as. I can certainly see why I went on to buy more Joni Mitchell records, despite her work all predating my life. I would never put this up as a favourite, or something that I am likely to listen to often. Alas, the modern mode of musical consumption probably renders most of these tunes pretty inaccessible. Something like Blue works far better in its original form - appreciated in flow and as a whole. That alone means it will probably quickly return to "forgotten" status, but does not provide a driver to exclude it from my collection. If anything, this instead suggests to me that the way we (or at least I) tend to consume music today is detrimental to our appreciation of some forms. I suspect I am far from alone in having most things be a shuffle of some kind now, and albums like this make me wonder what I may be missing as a result.
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