There has been a lot of debate about the "Best" Joni albums latley.
I can not speak any great truth about who is "right" because there are different
aspects of Joni's career which we ae drawn to as individuals. That being said,here are
some of my opinions on the subject.
Something that I find hard to comprehend is why it seems that I am "supposed to"
find Blue her most brilliant album. Lyrically it is brilliant. Music wise, I find it
to be one of her weaker albums. (keep in mind that these opinions are compared to
JONI's other work, Blue is still miles ahead of anyone else's work). I just find it
hard to understand why, particularly among casual fans and the media, Blue is put on a
pedestal and worshiped, while (in my opinion) her masterpeice triad of C&S, HOSL and
Hejira is virtually ignored by comparison. I like the older stuff lyrically, but to me
she got much more musically interesting starting with C&S.
DJRD and Mingus are both albums which I think have moments of genius, particularly
the title track of DJRD, but both have songs I tend to want to skip over (Otis &
Marlena).
I am very sorry if this offends, but what the hell happened to Joni in the 80's?
WTRF, DED and CMIARS are all 85% awful.
The 3 90's albums were great. I consider TTT one of her best albums. I really like
the sound of it, especially the experimentation with the VG8 guitar orchestra. I would
like to hear more of that on future projects. So theres my $1 and 50 cents. My vote is
for the mid-late 70's and 90's periods.
Frederick
