Hi Bob,
I've admitted many times here that when DJRD first came out I thought it was
some of the weirdest sh*t I'd ever heard! But I could not dismiss it and
was compelled to play it over and over to try to "get" it. I also didn't
feel like "why isn't she writing stuff like Blue and FTR anymore?" It was
very apparent that the former Joni "era" was long packed away at that point
and one either needed to move along with her (as bumbling as that felt at
the time) or to just stop at that point and never move past Court and Spark.
When Maslin writes as her very first line of the review:
> In retrospect, Blue turns out to been the album that displayed Joni
Mitchell
> at her most buoyant and comfortable - with herself, with the nature of
her
> talents, and with the conventions of pop songwriting.
it feels to me like she has flicked off most of what followed after Blue.
She poses her conclusion in the very first line.
This also sounds very patronizing and dismissive to my ears:
> She has dabbled with jazz and African tribal music, ventured deep inside
> herself and fled far away. But, always, the unpredictable caliber of her
work
> has been as exciting as it is frustrating. Now for once, she has gambled
and
> lost. The best that can be said for Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is that
it
> is an instructive failure.
> As Kakki said, she pans it (tho that is not quite same as flicking it off,
at
> least to my east coast ears ;-) Note also the phrase "for once".
I have experienced a difference in left and east coast ears when it comes to
perception of certain criticisms but that's a long other subject ;-)
This one cracked me up - talk about the pot calling the kettle.......:
> But increasingly, Mitchell's pretensions have shaped her appraisal of her
own
> gifts.......These days, Mitchell appears bent on repudiating her own flair
> for popular songwriting, and on staking her claim to the kind of artistry
> that, when it's real, doesn't need to announce itself so stridently.
> There is a lot of pressure on a reviewer when, under time constraints, she
has to produce a review of a work
> by a person of far greater talent, based on insufficient time to absorb,
feel
> and analyze.
Agreed. Guess I would have respected Maslin's opinion more if she had just
admitted that it was odd and baffling and tried to muddle it out from there.
But I thought that you left out some of the more withering comments like:
>The painful banality of Mitchell's lyrics - there is nothing said here that
she hasn't said better before, except those things she >should have kept to
herself - is almost the least of her problems. Behind a treacly tide like
"The Silky Veils of Ardor" lurks an >even treaclier notion: that the
romantic visions of love put forth by certain folk songs are one thing, that
reality is another, and >that the singer apparently yearns for both. "It's
just in my dreams we fly," the song concludes, with a reference to "The
Water >Is Wide." Or, as a dialogue balloon on one of the inner sleeves puts
it, "In my dweems we fwy." The album offers what is, >one can only hope, the
ultimate in cute cover art.
>It also offers the ultimate in potshots: "Otis and Marlena," a facile,
snidely sung song about tourists who come to Miami "for >fun and sun/While
Muslims stick up Washington." This leads into "The Tenth World," a mostly
instrumental percussion track >featuring Jaco Pastorius (who plays on a
majority of the record with distinction, but without much helpful
influence), Airto >and Chaka Khan (who hums).
She even flicks off Jaco, Airto and Chaka, lol!
> Really, the reaction in this review is probably typical of many -
including
> fans - who listened to DJRD. It was wrong, but for many of us it took some
> time to figure that out.
I totally agree. And for those who are about to lecture me how critics are
entitled to their opinion, etc., etc., yes I also agree. I just find it
funny to go back and read this stuff and then think of how some things are
sometimes reappraised dramatically with the passage of time.
Kakki
Kakki
