JT and JB interviews were played on WFUV last night and tonight. I caught only the tail end of JT's last night, and did not hear JB's at all (but I heard a snippet of him discussing his disillusionment with the industry, and his reluctance to continue recording on a major label). Wonder if anyone did hear them, and could report further on them to us ?
One comment of interest from JT was to the effect of "I guess there may be some truth to the idea that I have written the same 12 songs 150 times - but, that's pretty much true of all of us". Oh really ? Perhaps it would be better for JT to have said ''that's true of pretty much all of us". (Maybe he did :~), but that's not what I thought I heard - gimme an instant replay, please !) Of her 200 or so songs, I would venture to say that there are well over 100 complete originals that have no redundancies or parallels in JM's work. Certainly, in some cases the musical structure is similar - especially in her earlier work. And in a lyrical context, there is a revisiting of themes (although usually with a fresh take). And on nearly all of her post-70's CD's there is a consistent texture to her music within a given CD - (this was less true of her earlier works) - though the texture changed significantly from CD to CD - think WTRF, then DED, then CMIAR, then NRH, then TI, then TTT. And, sure, Circle Game and Little Green are almost the same song, musically. But really, how many songs were re-hashings of earlier work? Not many. She was as fresh as the Beatles (I was a huge Beatles fan before Joni garnered my obsession) - for that, I admire them both. On the strength of the originality of the cuts alone, I feel that CMIAR deserves more respect than it receives here. I would be interested in hearing others' views of which songs from that album could be viewed as re-hashes of earlier work. I can understand them not being one's cup of tea - some prefer the romance and general brightness of WTRF (not Love, or Chinese Cafe - which I think are great) to the less personal, 'heavier' art of CMIAR. But I would caution against dismissing CMIAR as inferior art. Especially if Joni thinks otherwise (I bet she does). Yes, we all have our opinions and are entitled to them. They just don't count for much, compared to Joni's. I am a 6 handicapper at golf, and dabble at the guitar at about the same level - maybe a bit worse. In short, I pretty much s**k at both, and I mean it. For example, if I had been allowed to play in this year's US Open, I would have lost to Tiger by 80-90 strokes (if I played well). Anyone interested in my opinion of Tiger's performance in this year's majors ? Or Phil's performance in finishing second at the US Open? I'm not :-) I've learned my lesson. Joni's the real deal. If she thinks it's good art, and I don't, it's time for me to listen harder. Every time. I suspect the same should hold true for most music critics. Bob S NP - BSN - a fine recording (Waiting for T and my other birthday CD's to arrive from Amazon.com, compliments of my children, who won't listen to me or Joni ;-)
