"Blasphemous Bob" Muller wrote: "I agree...despite our passion for her here, she is barely a blip on the radar screen in the big scheme of things. Look at the RS survey that Sybil mentions...Joni didn't score ONE record in the top 100 of all time! "
I must demur (apparently with the notion of what constitutes the big scheme of things). I will not be around to know the answer, but it would not shock me if 30 years from now only a very few of the albums whose names appear on the top 100 list will still be on the same list when it is re-compiled. Yes, the Beatles (and a handful of the others) will endure. But not most. Here, I am substituting the enduring quality of art as a measure of the big scheme of things, but on a spiritual plane, there is more to it even than that IMO - even if it fails to endure, if it was great and is great, it remains so - even if its recognition is dormant. Comments by the artists of our time reflect that sentiment (whether it is from Jimmy Page (or Robert Plant), or Adam Duritz, or Tori Amos, or KD Lang, or David Crosby, or Dave Matthews, or Tony Bennet, or John Mellencamp, etc.). Really, we should make a list of the top 100 amazing things that have been said or written about her by people who have at least some right to claim their opinion counts. (I am not talking here about ordinary praise - but the truly extraordinary statements). I do wonder whether 50 or 100 years from now, some of her work will live on (at least among historians and cognescenti of popular music), as Crosby once suggested. Now, as for her record sales, at 300,000, that is fine with me. I like to think of myself as being in the top tenth of one percent of pop music appreciators. Any higher sales than that might threaten my percentile ranking. I count only the English speaking countries in this; still, I suppose we could go to 500,000 or so and I would still be OK. Why are the numbers so low ? My theory, still unshaken, is that the average American is a scary thing. That counts Canada - big time, in this case. Are you folks kidding ? She is your national treasure, for cryin out loud ! I absolve those Americans from non-English speaking countries from being guilty merely by virtue of JM's record sales (but my accusation stands on all other grounds, so I shall allow it to stand undelimited). As far as those of you from the UK, Australia and New Zealand go, at least she is not a resident or a citizen - so I could understand the rejection there on grounds of chauvinism, bias and/or jealousy. However, I am afraid that my instinct is that the average Brit, Aussie and New Zealander is also a scary thing ;-) The artists' and critics' polls place Joni much higher on the scales than that (see the old VH1 polls in this regard) - I weigh that more heavily in my view of whether Joni has made more than a blip on the screen of artistic merit. Should Joni care more about whether other artists admire her work, or more semi-literate, tone deaf, sugar loving record buyers ? Which is the big scheme of things for her ? Frankly, I am a bit surprised that the JMDL even became aware of the RS poll - does anyone here actually buy that rag ? ;-). Clearly, I would not choose to be associated with such a cloddish, insensitive, semi-literate, uneducated lot. Oh, this poll must be findable on the internet - thank goodness, and never mind ! Bob S. PS - If anyone accuses me of offending them via the above, my reply in advance is the classic from the world of top 100, pop music "Oops, I did it again".
