Q has a featurette called "Beware of the Dog - Bad albums by great artists"
This month the award goes to... Don Juan's Reckless Daughter! Quoth Ian Cranna: "After her quantum jump from singer-songwriter to the complex artist of Hissing... and Hejira, Mitchell's increasing infatuation with jazz textures and rhythms led to a fusion bridge too far. With bonkers lyrics, shapeless melodies and Jaco Pastorius on bass, she attempted a kind of Impressionism in sound, while such songs as did exist were nothing she hadn't already done better. Her next effort - a widely ignored Charlie Mingus collaboration - cured her of jazz fever." Hmm. Aside from the "IMHO" factor, this does beg a few serious questions, chiefly: 1. Is being a singer-songwriter therefore by definition not a good thing? 2. Is having Jaco Pastorius on bass intrinsically a bad move? 3. Had she already written a song just like as The Silky Veils of Ardor, only better? 4. Is it fair to describe an album that made the top 20 (possibly top ten, I can't check right now) in the UK, as many of its not-exactly-going-platinum predecessors had, as "widely ignored"? Answers on a postcard... Steady now, I'm only the messenger, put the guns away... Azeem in London
