But it don't snow here, It stays pretty green

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

...with yet another album I've never heard.  I promise this is the last one - but that doesn't mean I've listened to the other two a LOAD of times.

#3 : Blue - Joni Mitchell (1971)

n 1971, Joni Mitchell represented the West Coast feminine ideal — celebrated by Robert Plant as “a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair” on Led Zeppelin’s “Goin’ to California.” It was a status that Mitchell hadn’t asked for and did not want: “I went, ‘Oh, my God, a lot of people are listening to me,’” she recalled in 2013. “’They better find out who they’re worshiping. Let’s see if they can take it. Let’s get real.’ So I wrote Blue.”

From its smoky, introspective cover to its wholly unguarded approach to songwriting, Blue is the first time any major rock or pop artist had opened up so fully, producing what might be the ultimate breakup album and setting a still-unmatched standard for confessional poetry in pop music. Using acoustic instruments and her octave-leaping voice, Mitchell portrayed herself as a lonely painter, aching to make sense of all her heartbreak. She reflects on past relationships and encounters, including a chef from Crete (“Carey”) and rock luminaries like Graham Nash (“My Old Man”), Leonard Cohen (“A Case of You”), and James Taylor (“This Flight Tonight”), who lent a hand on a few tracks. Along with its romantic melancholy, Blue was the sound of a woman availing herself of the romantic and sexual freedom that was, until then, an exclusively male province in rock.

Mitchell continued to release excellent records throughout the Seventies, but Blue remains her masterpiece. “The Blue album, there’s hardly a dishonest note in the vocals,” she told Rolling Stone in 1979. “At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. 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. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either.”

Our fourth and final visit with Joni and she's been an interesting one on the list - I knew and liked a few of her songs but had never heard any of the albums, so was looking forward to them but none of them have really clicked with me because I've found the songs either a bit rambling or a bit clinical.  But this is her widely accepted masterpiece, so I have hope I'm going to find the missing spark here (and it actually contains one of the songs I know and like)

1. "All I Want"
A slightly odd beginning featuring a very oddly tuned guitar.  But not bad.

2. "My Old Man"
A nice piano backing for some fine Joni warbling - and it made me chuckle with "the frying pan's too wide".

3. "Little Green"
Fine.  I've tried to think of something more to say about it, but come up blank.

4. "Carey"
A song I knew, but I'm not sure I knew it was hers - but having listened to it, who else was it going to be by?  It certainly has something to it though - I quite like it.

5. "Blue"
Back to piano-backed warbling, but slower this time.

6. "California"
Yeah, I quite liked this one
7. "This Flight Tonight"

Fine, but I'm somewhat struggling to stay engaged

8. "River"

Phew - one I know to bring me back.  I like this one.

9. "A Case Of You"
I didn't know this one, but I quite liked it.

10. "The Last Time I Saw Richard"
And we finish with some more piano-backed warbling.  It's a bit too "I'm just going to write down some stuff that happened and then sing it" for me, but it's not hateful.

So, did I find the missing spark?  Not really, if I'm being honest - which I find a bit disappointing since female singer-songwriters are generally right up my street.  I didn't hate it and there were bits I really liked but I think, for me, there is a definite similarity between Joni and Leonard Cohen in that they write good songs but they then deliver them in a way that makes them slightly less accessible than they need to be - you can make they argument that they're putting their stamp on them or you can make the argument that they're being deliberately challenging/annoying.  A good example here is Ellie Goulding's cover of "River" (a track with a very interesting story behind it making it to #1 in the UK - it was only available on Amazon but they made it the first song played when anyone said "Alexa, play Christmas songs" and that did the trick) - her voice is fine, if nowhere near as good as Joni's, but she irons out some of the trickery which makes it a better version for me.  Tracey Thorn and Sarah McClachan (who has a surprisingly under-rated voice imho) have also done good versions and Robert Downey Jr's version is surprisingly bearable - I think it's safe to say either Barry Manilow or Travis' version are not essential though.  Anyway, back to the album -  if I were to play it on repeat there's a chance I might grow to love it, but I just can't see me bothering, I'm afraid.

Wikipedia has surprisingly little to say about the album - it came about as a result of her break-up with James Taylor, which apparently devastated her and she just put it all out there.  As she put it "At that period of my life, I had no personal defences. 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".  Apart from that, all it really has to say is that the critics loved it and still love it - it sold well enough, but didn't set the world on fire.  Relatively it did well in the UK (600,000 sales compared with 1 million in the US) and got to #3, kept off the top by "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Sticky Fingers", so that was a good week for music, wasn't it?

Her Wikipedia entry is somewhat lengthier - she's been in the business for coming up to 60 years now.  Her last album was released in 2007, but she sounds like she's keeping herself busy with her archive, although there have been health issues following a brain aneurysm.  She's certainly lived a full life and it's a very detailed entry - she doesn't come across as the happiest of individuals, but you get the impression she almost enjoys suffering for her art.  Apparently, she has announced that she suffers from Morgellons Syndrome, which I'd never heard of but is apparently "the informal name of a self-diagnosed, scientifically unsubstantiated skin condition in which individuals have sores that they believe contain fibrous material. Morgellons is not well understood, but the general medical consensus is that it is a form of delusional parasitosis".  Which has all left me very confused as to whether it's a real thing or not and if you diagnose yourself with it, are you basically saying "I've got this disease which makes me make up diseases"?  Help!

"Customers also listen to" all those people from back in the day who we've seen countless times on this list - and Carly Simon, who seems to have been unlucky to not be given a spot on the list given that all her mates are here.  I was hoping to come away from this exercise with an increased knowledge and love of Joni Mitchell - I've managed the knowledge bit, but unfortunately not the love.  I admire her and her songs, but something hasn't clicked for me in the way that it obviously has for many others - I'll keep trying on an informal basis, but I can't help but feel that if I've not got it yet then it's probably not going to happen (old dog/new tricks you know).  This album was probably my favourite of hers, but I can't say I really remember any of her previous offerings, so can't be sure - I don't begrudge her her place in the top 10, but it wouldn't make my top 100, I'm afraid.

#4 - Our last visit with Stevie

#2 - Our penultimate visit