Friday, December 28, 2012

#677 Joni Mitchell - Blue

Female singers mewling out inflected confessionals is one of my least-favorite trends in modern music, and this is the earliest example of that basic style I've found. Everyone from Joanna to Adele to that mealy-mouthed warbler from the Heineken commercials* owes something to Mitchell. Heck, its not even just the girls; the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore certainly owes something to this album's bogdeep moonlit soul.

Mitchell herself, though, mostly pulls it off, riding a certain earnestness and some funky chords and tones to victory. It's not my scene, and her high notes grate on my brain, but I respect the bare sentiment and the Nick Drake nightworn wonderment and fear 3.5/5

* Clairy Browne, sez Google. Is that not the perfectly over-inflected name for an over-inflected mewler?

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