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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Joni Mitchell would go on from this 1971 recording to make more popular, more ambitious and more challenging albums, but she's never made a better one. Working with minimal accompaniment (Stephen Stills and James Taylor are two of the four sidemen), the Canadian songbird summoned an involving song cycle of romance found and lost. Though Blue is an uncommonly intimate representation, it's also astonishingly open and gracious. Songs such as "All I Want", "Carey", "California" and "A Case of You" work equally well as poetry and pop music. --Steve Stolder
Review
Joni Mitchell may have been Canadian but, like fellow Canuck Neil Young, she was also the archetypal Laurel Canyon troubadour, at least at this point in her career. But there was always a sense that she was apart from any putative scene, reflecting on rather than immersed in it – even her famous, eponymous song about Woodstock, penned just after the legendary rock festival, had a ruminative, even sorrowful quality about it, as though she was contemplating a moment that had passed, gone forever.
And so it is with Blue, Mitchell’s fourth album. It has, as the title suggests, a melancholy atmosphere, one that functions on two levels: one personal, the other universal. It feels as much like the diary entries of a woman written in the wake of a breakup as it does a more general statement about a generation reeling after a series of shocks (Altamont, Manson, RIP the Fabs). Blue evokes the mourning after the nights of free-love before. If The Beatles’ split was symptomatic of the failure of the youth to come together, Blue felt like the net result. Orphaned by the death of the hippie nation, Mitchell was left to ponder a future alone, minus the comfort of community. Blue introduced a new paradigm for rock: the solo singer-songwriter confessing her woes, making her way in the world alone, without the solace of a band.
Blue invites such fanciful commentary. It feels like poetry set to music, and even though many of the lyrics are simple (“All I really, really want our love to do is to bring out the best in me and you,” from the opening track All I Want), often the music seems to be accommodating the words. As a consequence, the melodies, tracked by Mitchell’s swooping, soaring vocals, can be so hard to follow that it’s almost a miracle anyone can remember them, let alone the artist.
And yet that’s exactly what did happen: these songs became indelibly stamped on the minds of Americans and young people everywhere, isolated and bewildered at the start of a new decade. Carey (which was, tune-wise, Big Yellow Taxi’s slight return), the title-track and The Last Time I Saw Richard may have been highly personal, with speculation that they were about, respectively, former beaus James Taylor, David Blue and her ex-husband; A Case Of You may have been as private as a love letter; and Little Green, about giving up a child for adoption, may have been excoriating autobiography. Nevertheless, these songs, sparsely arranged on piano, acoustic guitar and Appalachian dulcimer, delivered with a jazzy looseness and enhanced by the sustained mood of quiet despair, soon became the property of everyone. --Paul Lester
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
something to enrich your life,
By roseskelton19@hotmail.com (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)
This album sends shivers through my body and reminds me of the wonder that is the world just at the very thought of it. Classics, such as 'Blue' and up-beat, spirit-lifting tunes like 'California' have travelled around the world with me, picked me up when things aren't quite going right and reminded me that everything is good, despite what it seems like at that moment. Joni herself sings 'I am on a lonely road and I am travelling, looking for something, what can it be?' and if this isn't enough to remind you that even when you are alone there are other people, beautiful people, feeling the same way, then what is? I would say, buy it, fill yourself with it and let it enrich your life.
38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best album you could ever buy,
By A Customer
This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)
Blue by Joni Mitchell is one of those rare albums that is loved by a huge variety of music lovers. Whatever you're into, you will love this album after a few listens. Give it a chance and it pierces your soul. The songs embed themselves in you're phyche and you're hooked. The whole album is powerful, beautiful and inspiring and whether you are feeling happy, sad or lonely, it's one you want to listen to. An album that matches every mood - the most special music that i have ever heard.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alone in the Paint Box,
By
This review is from: Blue (Audio CD)
The literary classics endure the test of time because of the universal nature of the human condition; the great works address these tender truths in a timeless way. Pop culture rarely has a claim to this type of insight, but " Blue" raised the stakes for what a singer/songwriter could accomplish.
To begin, the record is obviously a 180 degree look at a life that has had its share of joy and pain, producing an effort that allows the listener to see the artist, but also see him/herself. The journey begins with the giddy optimism of " All I Want"; the middle eloquently details "Blue", the state of being and the torment of distructive love, a condition most have suffered. The end brings a sense of renewal, imploring "Richard" to see a dark time as a phase as opposed to a fate. In the interim we get to travel to far flung places ( " Carey"), wistfully long for home ( " California") and reflect on treasures lost and found ( " River"). One has to be moved by "Blue", even with the hipster inspired vernacular found in some of the lyrics. Mitchell's three octave range is best used in this release as well, a feature seemingly elusive in later work. It is understandable why Ms. Mitchell would be disappointed when people fail to respond to her more profound observations; however, "Blue" draws because of the confession that any of us could make, although in a less poetic manner. " Blue" stands the test of time because it seeps from the human heart, straight into one's speakers.
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