Joni Mitchell - Shine
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Free Music Notes for Shine
Free Music Review: Well worth the wait
Hit: 5 Stars
Nothing more need be said. If you appreciate Joni Mitchell, you will be thrilled to add this to your collection. It was a long time coming, but well worth the wait.Free Music Review: Grandma Joni still rocks
Hit: 5 Stars
I am writing this as a lifelong fan who feels that Joni is her spiritual mother, and bemoans the fact that I was born to someone else far less wonderful. For years I've been unable to enjoy my treasured Joni albums because they are all associated with such specific times in my personal past. I didn't want to relieve any old relationships and Joni's music is so powerful that her voice forever is associated with every stage of my life, album by album--her music was with me. Now, finally there is a new album of power and grace that matches her great works--and they were ALL GREAT. As transporting as Hejeira as powerful as Mingus as atmospheric as The Hissing of Summer Lawns. If you love Joni Mitchell's music you will love this album. If you live for Joni's albums you will be in heaven. There is a wisdom in this album beyond all her other work--and how wonderful to see her just as alive without all that obsessing about all those undeserving MEN. No man could ever deserve you Joni! We love you!Free Music Review: She's got the sight, we gotta fight
Hit: 5 Stars
So here is the new album by Joni Mitchell in ten years.
Let your little lights shine and rejoyce, Joni Mitchell's back.
To me she never was gone though since her records rarely quit my CD player.
Releases by Mitchell are more than albums or just mere new collection of songs, each time they represent first of all major artistic events, and secondly different milestones in her life, witnesses of where she is versus where she was -sending us back our own mirrored image simplified, to paraphrase this wonderful line from the lyrics of "Refuge of the Roads"-, precious flashes of today where she stands, showing this extraordinary and unique poet, woman, musician and painter -we all know that she wishes "painter" would be mentionned first since this is what she primarily was and still is, but I'll indulge into the lady's musical side right now since "Shine" is the topic of the day and not canvases -my apologies, Mrs Mitchell!!-
For the real fan-at-heart ones who wish they'd know what "Shine" ressembles before buying it -but any fan at heart would buy it without knowing, wouldn't they?- therefore just for the ones wondering whether "Shine" bears any similarities to previous works -which would be unconceivable coming from an artist who never repeated herself twice-, or how at least it can be positionned in the galaxy of gems that Joni Mitchell released before and so far-, well, it is true that there is an undeniable flavour coming from the Roses, between other things... Let's put it that way: this time the lady from Saskatchewan sent us Roses (tinted with the blues of despair) with a mighty wink from a certain Reckless Daughter, while the latter was drawing Chalk Mark in order to Tame some wild life's Tigers dying under the assaults of modern junk killing Mother Earth. If you don't get the riddle -but I'm sure you will since it's such an easy one-, "One week last summer" has the grace, pensiveness and gentleness from "For the Roses", just as "Strong and Wrong" is close to "Roses" in some ways musically speaking, "If" has indeniably be musically written by our own Reckless Daughter -even if the lyrics are only partially hers, but it is truly amazing to see how Kipling could not have found a better spokeperson, as his words do sound like pure Mitchell's!-, "Night of the Iguana" -besides being one of the album's best track-, wears the energy of some of the "Chalk Mark" era ("Snakes & Ladders"), and "Bad Dreams" (the best track with "Shine" and "If") are a righteous and logical prolongation of some of the most introspective efforts from "Taming the Tiger" ("Stay in Touch", "Face Lift").
This being said, the whole album is like any previous Mitchell's releases: very much her although surprising, musically adventurous ("Shine" with its so particular atmosphere and slow tempo is not like anything she has recorded before, even if the writing and structure are unmistakably classic Mitchell's), growing on you just as you listen to it more and more, and aknowledging the fact and certitude that Joni Mitchell, no matter what, in her youngest age or growing older, in revolt, mischievously ironic or just broken-hearted, with something to scream ("Dog eat Dog" album) or with just a desilusionned statement to make (this "Shine" album), with her crystal mellowed voice of yesterday or her husky and half-broken voice of today, remains the greatest and most moving recording artist of our times.
Reading the bad things she got on Amazon from disappointed listeners (not mentionning the editorial review which sounded unbelievably biased and expeditious to me), I was a bit left perplexed by the attacks.
"Shine" is not only a beautiful, elegant, unusually creative album on the music side of it, but also certainly one of the most coherent, intelligent, direct, straighfoward, courageous piece for what it says and contains. I was amazed to read people complaining about Mitchell caring for whales declining and not for people dying out (which is not even what she exactly said, plus!), and I certainly will not try to convince here with my own words just how Mitchell's position is right, clairvoyant, lucid and accurate -if her own brillant words failed to do so, mine as poor as they are will have thus still lesser success obviously-, but such responses just show how right she is to be pessimistic about the survival of mankind, as some people don't seem to realize that disappearing whales -between other things- mean a disappearing earth, and that there is no point in making children who will make mankind still heavier on this planet when the very planet on which these children will stand and try to feed from, simply won't be here anymore to sustain them... it's just common sense but apparently Man's egotism and selfishness for his own specy prevent him to use his brain and open his eyes. I am glad Joni Mitchell is wise, simply wise, and has eyes and brain for those who definitely lack both (-the zombies in shopping malls with their cellular between others / if only for this line, "Shine" merits to be listened to!-)
Joni Mitchell has already opened her mouth in the past ("The Fiddle and the Drum", "Three Great Stimulants", "Ethiopia", "Tax Free", "Lakota", "Sex Kills", "No Apologies", etc), and she continues to do so. People who blame "Shine" would better listen again to her previous recordings that they claim they loved, and would then realize there is just a coherent woman continuing to inform against the disgraces of the world. Except that this time the message is just a little more desperate and harsh than before, but is not the situation alike?
I was moved, to finish, by this artistic choice that Joni Mitchell made in reproducing on the CD itself a night view of Earth, so beautiful, sparkled with the night lights of the cities -small light bulbs, small witnesses of the energy of a doomed world?-. That reminded me her lines in "Refuge of the roads " from "Hejira" (her absolute masterpiece with the rest of the quadrilogy "Hissing of Summer Lawns", "Don Juan's", Mingus" and, and, and... I'll stop here the list, most of all other efforts by Joni Mitchell would deserve to belong to that category anyway!-), when she was then considering this picture of the Earth taken by the astronauts coming back from the Moon, this marbled bowling ball where no one could see anything, not a forest, a city or a highway, and her in her car the least of all.
Thirty years later, we still can't see Joni Mitchell on this picture, but her voice, her music, her intelligence, and the enormous heart that she pretends that she doubts having -but we all know how big it is-, are shining through, reminding us the fragility of this marbled bowling bowl, and dazzling us with the force of her talent, a force so great that it does light up a little hope in all that darkness -irrationnal, but quite luminous indeed.
Let her little light continue to shine on us, lighting up our insights, so that we can keep on the fight.
Free Music Review: Sadly, Joni should have stuck to her guns
Hit: 1 Stars
and stayed away from the music business. The Joni on this CD is barely a ghost of her former brilliant self. The inept playing and production, the clumsy lyrics and re-cycled melodic ideas are truly depressing. I consider her to be one of the giants of popular music, but this album should be recalled and forgotten. Free Music Review: She did it again!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of the move beautiful CDs ever. you can see her interviews about this CD on youtube. They have her performances from the beginning of her career until the present. What a doll!
In addition to having all her albums/CDs/DVDs a lot of the other artists I listen to cover her songs when I only bought their CDs to hear them.