You know, I agree that the album is incredibly powerful, insightful, beautiful. I just can't figure out why it has been so easily dismissed by much of the music press. I wonder if it's because there's too much genius concentrated in one album. So much that many people just turn the whole thing off. Or maybe the emotional landscape is so upsetting that many people react with a protective rejection. Also I sometimes wonder if the combination of Joni's poetry, her unusual melodic gift and the soundscapes of the arrangements have formed a synthesis that doesn't fit easily into any musical genre or pigeonhole so people simply cannot relate to it at first. I do believe that the album will stand the test of time and will one day be seen as a kind of summing up, much like Stauss's Four Last Songs.
