In a message dated 16/12/2002 19:23:38 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< T is made for those who never heard Joni. Great, this way we'll come across as more "mainstream" and less "weird" when playing T as background music to non-admirers of the QUOMB. >> Ah, there's the rub! I'm sure you're right Laurent, but I have a real fear that, should anyone buy this album as a Joni primer, they'll listen to it and think "Crikey, who's this croaky woman who can't sing," and not be encouraged to investigate further. Despite my own negative response about Travelogue, I can understand why some (or indeed many) of my fellow Joni-admirers would like it: they have lived with the songs, they have grown up and older listening to Joni, they have heard her voice deepen and change (and can live with where it's now arrived at), and this new collection will reflect a weight of experience, and itself be carried by the experience the listener brings to it. However, none of this will apply to a new arrival at the Joni Mitchell shrine! My misgiving is that this would be a very hard album for a "newbie" to get into. It's preaching to the converted, and while some of the faithful will desert, I honestly find it hard to believe that there will be a compensatory attracting of new fans to the fold. To use a sporting analogy, if you've been playing football all afternoon and it's been getting slowly darker, your eyes adjust, and you can carry on playing. Someone who turns up in the gloaming will say "For God's sake, I can't see a bloody thing here!" I don't know what the sales figures are like, so I don't know whether they will tend to support or refute this view - leaving aside the important factor of how much PR muscle has been expended on promoting it. Bob S added, on this subject: << To dismiss after (or during) a first listen sounds to my ear to be disrespectful (even if one is correct) at best, and could be viewed as foolishly arrogant (if one turns out to be wrong) at worst. For this reason, there is - IMO - a difference between offering a negative first impression and a positive first impression. (If it turns out that the positive first impression was premature, well....sort of 'no harm, no foul'...but on the other side..) >> I disagree, Bob. First up, there is no "right" and "wrong" - stating the obvious, I guess, but maybe it needs repeating here. Why is it "disrespectful" to say I have listened to this record and really don't like it, for the following reasons? It implies that Joni is some deity who cannot be criticised. I was not flinging random insults around, I was giving an honest response, and clearly stating that it was based on first impressions. Plenty of people disagreed with me, and put opposing views, nearly all of them very forthright and wholly respectful - THAT is at the heart of what this list is supposed to be about, isn't it? Some people agreed, which reassured me that I wasn't going completely off my trolley. Secondly, I'm pretty sure that no harm of any kind whatsoever can be done by someone posting a negative response to a new record. If I had been reviewing it for any kind of publication, of course I would have listened to the whole thing, more than once, before submitting my copy. There's a big difference here. I don't believe for a second that anyone would have decided not to buy the album on the basis of my comments. So where's the harm? Azeem in London
