A Tribute To Joni Mitchell
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Free Music Notes for A Tribute To Joni Mitchell
Free Music Review: Lush, low-key tribute to Ms. Mitchell
Hit: 5 Stars
[...]Putting all that aside, it's important to recall that (as many of my friends told me at the time) many of Mitchell's songs are "downers." Moreover, her output made a remarkable transition from early folky crooners to the jazz-inspired work of her middle albums, and the more straight-forward pop of later discs. She was also one of the first pop stars to make a free-verse lyric actually work in a song. Nowadays, when we take unrhymed, self-referential lyrics for granted, it's easy to forget how genuinely different these songs seemed 30 years ago. The artists included here are apt by virtue of being quirks (and sometimes downers) in their own rights. Sufan Stevens, who owes Mitchell a huge debt, daringly turns one of her most popular songs into his own. Bjork's adorably twisted take on "Bojo Dance" finally made that song tolerable for me (I never liked Mitchell's version). Brad Mehldau often includes Mitchell songs in his sets, and Casandra Wilson's understated cover of "For the Roses" is haunting. Prince turns a folk song into electric gospel, and Annie Lennox finds the psychedelia lurking in "Ladies of the Canyon." Emmylou Harris could have written "The Magdelene Laundries," and Elvis Costello's take on "Edith and the Kingpin" makes it seem like it was written for him. k.d. lang's note-perfect cover of "Help Me" must ride home on some deep, Canadian connection. And somehow Sarah McLachlan and James Taylor almost don't need comment, do they? Taylor sang backups on the original "Blue" album, and McLachlan seems to have absorbed it into her DNA. And who else but Caetano Veloso could pull off the bizarre "Dreamland," from what is arguably Mitchell's most weird-ass album. This is a CD that I am finding it easy to live with, reminding me of how rich and varied Ms. Mitchell's "downers" really are (and always have been).Free Music Review: ...a case of pooh
Hit: 2 Stars
The first half of this cd is particularly bad.
Suffering Stevens is horrible.
Bjork (rhymes with dork) is hopelessly out of sorts,
And the 3rd artist should head line the Baghdad Hilton.
Brad M. is usually a tasty instrumentalist - I've heard his take on Beatles songs and enjoyed. This was just OK. Slow and sleepy.
Cass Wilson can do nice covers (New Moon Daughter album, for example is tasty). I enjoy her take on Neil Young, U2, Hank Williams, Monkees and so on, This song is nothing to write home about.
GOOD NEWS!
Things begin to heat up some with Prince. While he blows past the Canadian sentimentality of the first verse, he brings it home in a falsetto voice and piano backing. I'll use that one. Prince is king.
I blew by fellow Canuck Sarah M, this song has been around for a while, I have it from a "Spirit of the 70's" tribute album and it is good. Not great.
Annie Lennox was alright, not great.
Emmylou Harris is my favorite artist in the world. Her song was good, not great.
Elvis was ok.
I really enjoyed k.d. Lang's latest album (49th Parallel) and she covers "CASE" brilliantly, among other maple soft rock ditties in a 5-star manor. k.d. lang can do no wrong in my books. She has covered this song many times in concert and included it on a live CBC-TV special to Mitchell several years ago, so it is nice to have in a studio take, but no surprise.
As mentioned by others, the oft-covered ode to the Ottawa Canal "River", a river that runs thru the nations capital city, is not the only place to find Mitchell contemporary J.T. but closes the CD nicely.
The only real surprise here are how bad most of the early performances are and how average most of the rest of the CD is.
I admire anyone that can call this the best tribute album of all time. They are either hopelessly short on awesome music to sample (check out Abbey Road, or Layla, or Pet Sounds for an awesome CD) or gluttons for punishmenst. Try either Richard Thompson tribute CD for best tributes.
This was not very good.
HELP ME!
Free Music Review: a missed opportunity
Hit: 1 Stars
i regret having spent money on this. at least half the tracks are unworthy of inclusion. joni mitchell's work over the years offers such rich potential for a tribute album and this disappointing collection has clearly been assembled by folks unfamiliar with the artist.
annie lennox's and prince's contributions are standouts. sarah mclaughlin's and k.d. lang's efforts are enjoyable if unimaginative. given all of mitchells work, were there really no other choices but to cover River again?
someday, someone will come along and offer a collection that does mitchell justice. til then, skip this one.
Free Music Review: to me, incredible
Hit: 5 Stars
I am surprised by the number of people who seem not to like
this album very much at all.
I am knocked over by it. Except for the James Taylor cover (I admit,
but don't tell my sister, that I really can't stand James Taylor, for
whatever reason), I think all the tracks are very good.
The dark-sweet version of "Ladies of the Canyon" especially captures me.
I find myself singing that in the back of my mind.
"Free Man in Paris" is also personal to the artist - in this case,
Surfjan Stevens. I sing along to it as much as I do to the
original. In case you're the sing along type.
Perhaps one could object that the covers are all "biggest hits".
But I'm glad Prince decided to cover a "big hit" like "A Case of
You" - it works wonderfully as a duet. In fact, it seems almost
obvious, it is a duet from the start.
Maybe it's just that I like the artists who do the covers. So check out the list of artists; you might like their interpretations, which are
really homages. If you don't like homage or feel it's silly to do
a tribute album, then obviously skip this. But if you like me are
permanently touched by Joni Mitchell and are interested in hearing how
other people are touched by her, you will like this album.
I play it at dinner parties and other parties.
Marianne
Free Music Review: Why?
Hit: 2 Stars
A tribute to Joni had all the possibilites to be a favorite in any Mitchell fans' CD collection. After all, the 2000 Tv special that featured Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Diana Krall and others was probably the most entertaining special I've seen in this decade. So having that for a seed how could this not be awesome? Well the simple answer is that it was designed to be too complicated, on the edge or whatever. Some of the performances are awesome! (Prince, E. Harris, KD Lang and JT) but some are almost unbareable and prevent any listener who is not familiar with the particular song to even understand what the heck its about. Music fans purchase at your own risk, but understand that few true Joni fans will think its a tribute or a treasure.