Joni Mitchell’s Blue has been called the greatest album of all time, including by quite a few famous musicians. Her 70s output is undisputed, whereas her 80s and early 90s period is somewhat maligned. I for one took to those 80s records and I’d love you to re-listen and re-evaluate. Her genius stayed intact.
Words & curation by Keith, Joni portrait artwork by Lina
I spent a good deal of time last year reading about the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell’s masterwork Blue (the greatest album of all time according to many, including quite a few famous musicians). Indeed, I’ve spent more time reading about Blue than I have spent listening to it. I hope to fix this at some stage but for now, the resurgence of interest in Joni’s work has led me back to the period I personally am most familiar with from her catalogue - including those much maligned 80s albums. Coming of age in the second half of the 80s, one of my close friends was a Joni obsessive and in particular, we took to those 80s records in a way only a few people did, relatively speaking. And as you know, music you listen to in your formative years sticks to you for life.
Joni embraced all the 80s tools of the trade: fretless bass, chorus-effect guitar, saxophone (Wayne Shorter came free with the price on Joni’s albums), 80s ‘big drums’ and of course, synthesizers (including the Fairlight sampler). By the time she made her first album of that decade, 1982’s Wild Things Run Fast, her voice was gravelled with a smoking-induced husky quality and her songwriting was both more experimental and political. It’s those aspects that make the records strangely relevant to now despite their sometimes dated sonic elements. If Joni was trying to figure out truth from fiction back in the 80s then one can only assume she is still at it as 2022 rolls around.
‘Wild Things’ was her 11th studio album, the first of four releases for Geffen Records. It was also the first (of five) albums collaborating with bassist Larry Klein, whom she married that same year. Joni stated that her influences for the album included Steely Dan, Talking Heads and in particular The Police. She said of the latter, "the sound of the drums was one of the main calls out to me to make a more rhythmic album". That must have been nice for Sting to hear (haha!).
Those influences continued through to Dog Eat Dog, on which the 80s sonic palette went even wider and deeper, thanks to the involvement of Thomas Dolby, who played a prominent, if somewhat debated role on production. Dolby was considered a magic touch during the decade - quite rightly - and he was hired-in by label execs on occasion to sprinkle fairy dust, though his legacy is quite contained. Indeed, Dog Eat Dog is one of just three albums Dolby ‘produced’ (the others both being for Prefab Sprout). That alone makes the album worthwhile to revisit, since when Dolby worked on records he tended to add a unique, signature sound you won’t hear the likes of except on his own material. It’s only a handful of producers whose records sound more like them than the artist they are in the service of, and Dolby is one of those.
Another key feature of Joni’s 80s work is the number of tracks on which she duets with well-known male singers. I’ve started this playlist with some choice cuts from those collabs - ‘Good Friends’, a duet with Michael McDonald, ‘My Secret Place’ with Peter Gabriel and ‘Flat Tires’ with Lionel Ritchie. Later in the selection comes ‘Cool Water’ with Willie Nelson, and ‘Dancin' Clown’, featuring none other than Billy Idol and Tom Petty. Interesting to consider how discerning Joni was with those choices, with McDonald, Ritchie and Idol all enjoying something of a cultural resurgence at the moment. She was not tempted to duet with anyone for reasons simply of popularity or with any desperate attempt to stay relevant (otherwise she might have chosen an 80s flash in the pan). That said, although none of the Geffen albums were hits, Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm achieved almost respectable album chart positions in the US and UK, boosted by quite a few of the duets).
Throughout the 80s and early 90s, although her work received some pretty good reviews, Mitchell was somewhat out in the cold, commercially. She was not a staple on MTV, nor did she have a big breakthrough record in the way Peter Gabriel or David Bowie managed to, which saw them able to straddle two decades as a major commercial force. As the 90s came around, she would return to a more organic approach similar to her mid-'70s sound. By the time of the last Geffen release, Night Ride Home, Joni was hitting her stride once more (though in fact, that record did not sell as well as ‘Chalk Mark’ and hence the end of the Geffen period I guess).
The new ‘old’ sound was more successfully rendered on 1992’s Turbulent Indigo - a critical and commercial success which even featured a rare ‘hit single’ in her cover of the James Brown song ‘How Do You Stop’. She rounded off the 90s with what was at the time was thought to be her last original studio recorded album (it wasn’t) Taming The Tiger, which is almost a chamber pop set, awash with chorus-pedal guitar. It certainly sounds like a sign-off moment, yet within two years Joni entered the new century with a different approach: two strong albums of covers - the first of standards (Both Sides Now) and then a second of reworkings from her own catalogue in an orchestral style (Travelogue). Both of those are worth the time of any music fan.
This ‘82 - ‘98 period remains something of an odd period for Joni. There were plenty of missteps and some howlers (‘Ethiopia’ on Dog Eat Dog is a rather painful listen, all told) but the library of curiosities, experimental songs and genuine touches of genius (‘Chinese Cafe’, ‘Night Ride Home’, ‘Man From Mars’) make the era a worthwhile one to revisit for both Joni die-hards, casual fans and the musically curious. What a phenomenon and an enigma she was and remains.