Kate wrote:
> randy >>I think Vince's sweeping, dramatic arrangements remind her of > the Hollywood movies she saw when she was a kid.<< > > i think that is true, i think that is why i like t'log so much! That is part of the catch/hook for me, too. I hear bits in T'log that remind me stylistically of the music in my favorite movie Fantasia - there is something that takes me back to first childhood (1950s) memories of Disney and the sounds of big, lush dramatic orchestras in movie scores and music of that time. And I suppose to some of a certain, ahem, generation, that does feel comforting. May be hard to believe coming from me (who mostly approves of all Joni's work in the here and now) but I also had many years of being abjectly disappointed in a number of her albums when they first came out. Hissing, Mingus, DJRD, Wild Things Run Fast, all just made my stomach drop out in disappointment on first and 50th listens. At this point, I have finally grown into to all of those albums and now, with the exception of WTRF, consider them masterpieces. But it took years to get there. I still even have problems with Hejira. I know intellectually that it is brilliant on every level, but it is still hard for me to listen to much. Nothing to do with Joni's artistry - rather, there is some kind of sadness in that album for me that I find hard to bear listening to very frequently. It's just a peculiar way it hits me personally. I feel pretty unequivocally good on first listens of T-log - but who knows how I may have felt about it at 20, 30, 40, 45? I may have run screaming from the room. I hear some imperfection but it doesn't bother me. Maybe I relate and embrace imperfection more now! ;-) The negative reviews of it are helpful because they get one to think through their own appraisals of it. I like it too much to think that it is a case of "the Emperor (Empress) has no clothes." The only analogy I could come up with is like those stories you hear of people who were in love at 18 but who lost track of each other, and then somehow they find each other again when they are 80 or 90 years old and all say that the other *looks* to them exactly like they did when they last saw each other. I don't know if this is a good analogy - but in T-log, I truly hear Joni's essence and the absolute beauty of the music through any cloud of vocal changes, orchestras, Wayne Shorter, whatever. Not only that but it is enhanced for me. It is like my internal perception has truly trumped or transcended the external perception. Then I thought about seeing Dylan's fans at concerts and how they still go wild about him even though his voice (to my ears) has long been off-key and atrocious. But they are really not hearing that (and they are not just being blind sychophants) - they may really be experiencing it on another perceptual level. Kakki
