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Reply #30 posted 04/27/06 5:45pm

Ace

Anx said:

..."Clouds" is one of the most sublime albums I've ever had the fortune to have stumbled across.

All I've really known about her is that "Blue" is supposed to be her big artistic breakthrough, and I once checked out a copy of "Hissing of Summer Lawns" from the library and liked it enough to buy it on CD.

But this week I watched one of the "Dick Cavett: Rock Icons" DVDs, and one of the episodes had Joni singing two songs from the "Clouds" album...she was just amazing. She had such control over her voice and her instruments (she played guitar on one song and piano on another), and she was so graceful. Wow. Goosebumps.

So I checked out the album, and it's what I've always wanted to hear in a Joni album..."Blue" is a little too melancholy for me, and as much as I like "Hissing", I've gotta be in a '70s L.A. kinda mood to really get into it. "Clouds" is just very simple and well-performed music. I especially love "Chelsea Morning" - nobody could explain better how nice a good morning feels. Yummy.

Anyone else a fan of this album? And if I like this one, what else should I check out?


Of course Joni's great; she's Canadian. razz

I'm partial to "Sex Kills", amongst others.
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Reply #31 posted 04/27/06 6:29pm

superspaceboy

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CinisterCee said:

"Oh, my favorite song," she said
And it was Joni singing, "Help me, I think I'm falling..."


biggrin


You were just a prisoner of the white lines on the freeway...

Christian Zombie Vampires

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Reply #32 posted 04/27/06 11:03pm

GangstaFam

I really want to get some of her recent themed comps. Does anyone have these?
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Reply #33 posted 04/28/06 4:55am

theplejades

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GangstaFam said:

I really want to get some of her recent themed comps. Does anyone have these?


No. I didn´t buy any of them because they don´t contain anything new. As much as I love Joni I think these releases are just a tiresome attempt to make money.
I know that she has "retired" but there have to be some songs left in the vaults that she could have included on these compilations.
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Reply #34 posted 04/28/06 5:59am

jillybean

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I think anyone who is a Tori Amos fan is, whether they know it or not, esentially a Joni Mitchell fan.

I knew "Little Earthquakes" way before I knew "A Case Of U" - but the similarities are many.
"She made me glad to be a man"
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Reply #35 posted 04/28/06 8:19am

CinisterCee

I'm finna git all Joni's ablums
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Reply #36 posted 04/28/06 9:01am

GangstaFam

jillybean said:

I think anyone who is a Tori Amos fan is, whether they know it or not, esentially a Joni Mitchell fan.

I knew "Little Earthquakes" way before I knew "A Case Of U" - but the similarities are many.

I can accept that. nod
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Reply #37 posted 04/28/06 9:39am

OdysseyMiles

I need to get hip to some Joni. I've got no clue where to start.
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Reply #38 posted 04/28/06 9:41am

Anx

OdysseyMiles said:

I need to get hip to some Joni. I've got no clue where to start.


if you have netflix, check out disc one of the dick cavett "rock icons" DVD set...aside from the other treats on it, there are some absolutely amazing joni performances recorded the day after woodstock. that's what got me thinking i needed to hear more of her stuff...and the songs she does on the cavett show are from her "clouds" album.
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Reply #39 posted 04/28/06 9:48am

OdysseyMiles

Anx said:

OdysseyMiles said:

I need to get hip to some Joni. I've got no clue where to start.


if you have netflix, check out disc one of the dick cavett "rock icons" DVD set...aside from the other treats on it, there are some absolutely amazing joni performances recorded the day after woodstock. that's what got me thinking i needed to hear more of her stuff...and the songs she does on the cavett show are from her "clouds" album.


cool
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Reply #40 posted 04/28/06 10:48am

jtfolden

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Lammastide said:

OK, OK, I have to admit Hejira is a bit melancholy, not unlike Blue. But at least she's yearning, pensive, searching for somethin, and still hopeful. In Blue, as much as I love that album, she sounds devoid of all hope -- two steps away from opening up a wrist! lol



LOL In a way that's true. I guess the thing that makes Blue a more 'enjoyable' experience for me is that even when she's sounding semi-suicidal it's all covered in some sort of romanticism and flowery word usage. So, for casual listening it's easy to forget about how truly depressed Joni was at this point.

Overall, I prefer Hejira (and the albums directly before and after) but I'm not sure about there being much hope in it, either, though. The album takes her (and the listener) on an adventure, to be sure, but she doesn't seem to be finding real satisfaction in it - only now just more aware of the why's and how's.

"I'm porous with travel fever
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones
I know no one's going to show me everything
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone"

In fact, I think the hope on the album is almost all confined to one verse:

"I pulled off into a forest
Crickets clicking in the ferns
Like a wheel of fortune
I heard my fate turn turn turn
And I went running down a white sand road
I was running like a white-assed deer
Running to lose the blues
To the innocence in here
These are the clouds of Michelangelo
Muscular with gods and sungold
Shine on your witness in the refuge of the roads"
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Reply #41 posted 04/28/06 10:52am

jtfolden

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GangstaFam said:

I really want to get some of her recent themed comps. Does anyone have these?



The only one truly worth having, imo, is "Songs Of A Prairie Girl" to hear the remix version of Paprika Plains (which ends up being inferior to the original, imo).
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Reply #42 posted 05/01/06 10:38am

Tom

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I picked up an LP copy of Blue at a Goodwill store a few years ago, and when I opened it up the cover, a roach fell out of the seam, not the insect kind, the half-smoked joint kind smile that thing had probabbly been like 30 years old smile
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