Just saw Joni's art for Travelogue. I agree that the self-portrait
within a frame is now a tired device. Framing worked brilliantly on TI,
where it brilliantly put her 'take' on Van Gogh into context. This was a
portrait of herself AS Van Gogh, part humorous, part serious. The frame
was needed to make that distinction clear. On TTT, on the other hand,
the framing of a rather mediocre painting was not appropriate. It
created an imbalance between the rectangular painting and the square CD
case. As far as I can tell, the same fault applies to Travelogue (alas,
the title does not lend itself to an acronym, so I guess we'll actually
have to spell it out in full whenever we mention it).
For the new album, judging by the title alone and by the wide range of
songs that span her whole career, I envisaged a photo montage --
snapshots from her life illustrating the different moments captured in
the songs ('picture postcard charms'). This new portrait, which is
lovely as a portrait, doesn't give any hint of such a retrospective
series of images.
I'm still trying to make out some sort of overall theme from the song
list given on the Nonesuch site. It still baffles me. Perhaps the pieces
will all fall in place when I get the album.
BTW: The new CD is listed on the Canadian version ot Amazon.com as a
'Special Import' selling for $44.95, Nov. 19 release. I guess it's not
being released here generally until a later date, like what happened for BSN.
