Shine (Joni Mitchell album)

Infobox Album
Name = Shine
Type = Album
Artist = Joni Mitchell


Background = Orange
Released = September 25 2007
Recorded = 2006-2007
Genre = Folk, Jazz, Rock
Length = 46:57
Label = Hear Music
Universal
Producer = Joni Mitchell
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://wc10.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kifpxzrhldje link]
*MusicBox Rating|4|5 [http://www.musicbox-online.com/reviews-2007/joni-mitchell-shine-10022007.html link]
*Okayplayer Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.okayplayer.com/reviews/index.php/weblog/more/shine_river_the_joni_letters/ link]
*"Rolling Stone" Rating|3|5 [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/jonimitchell/albums/album/16528253/review/16546289/shine link]
*Robert Christgau Rating-Christgau|dud [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Joni+Mitchell]
*Q Rating|3|5 (November 2007, p.140)
Last album = "Songs of a Prairie Girl"
(2005)
This album = "Shine"
(2007)
Next album =

"Shine" is the seventeenth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell and was released on September 25 2007 by Starbucks' Hear Music. [http://www.jonimitchell.com/news/ JoniMitchell.com Latest News] (update refers to March 27 BBC broadcast of new songs "six months before her first LP in ten years is released," implying a release date in September)] It was the singer-songwriter's first album of new songs in nine years, after 1998's "Taming the Tiger".

Joni Mitchell, who said she was retiring from music several years ago, signed a two-album contract with Starbucks' Hear Music that began with the release of "Shine". The 10-track CD "feels like the return of Joni the storyteller," said Ken Lombard, the president of Starbucks Entertainment who also oversees Hear Music.

In the United States, the album sold about 40,000 copies in its first week, debuting at number 14 on the Billboard 200 chart; [Katie Hasty, [http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003650421 "Rascal Flatts Races To No. 1 In Debut-Heavy Week"] , Billboard.com, October 3, 2007.] this was Mitchell's best peak position in America since 1976's "Hejira". "Shine" also peaked at #36 in the UK charts, making it Mitchell's first Top 40 album in the UK since 1991. In its first week on sale, "Shine" sold around 60,000 copies worldwide and as of December, 2007, it has sold over 170,000 copies in the U.S.A. [Keith Caulfield, [http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/search/google/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003688298 "Ask Billboard: IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHART-MAS"] , Billboard.com, December 21, 2007.]

History

In 2002, Joni Mitchell famously left the music business. The public first learned that she had returned to writing and recording in October 2006, when she spoke to "The Ottawa Citizen". In an interview with the newspaper, Mitchell "revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade" but gave few other details.cite news |last=Fischer |first=Doug |url=http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=c5551bd3-2dea-4fc5-b5b8-81115aab7836&k=4978 |title=The trouble she's seen: Doug Fischer talks to Joni Mitchell about her seminal album, Hejira |publisher=The Ottawa Citizen |date=2006-10-08 |accessdate=2007-03-09]

Four months later, in an interview with "The New York Times", Mitchell said that the album was inspired by the war in Iraq and "something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: 'Bad dreams are good--in the great plan.'"cite news |last=Yaffe |first=David |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E7D6143FF937A35751C0A9619C8B63 |title=DANCE: Working Three Shifts, And Outrage Overtime |publisher=The New York Times |date=2007-02-04 |accessdate=2008-04-08] Though in "The New York Times" Mitchell said the album's title would either be "Strange Birds of Appetite" or "If", the title "Shine" was confirmed by her official website on March 15. [http://www.jonimitchell.com/news/ JoniMitchell.com Latest News] ]

"The Sunday Times" wrote in February 2007 that the album has "a minimal feel, a sparseness that harks back to her early work," adding that "rest and some good healers" had restored much of the singer's vocal power.cite news |last=Eggar |first=Robin |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1569 |title=The Renaissance Woman |publisher=Sunday Times |date=2007-02-11 |accessdate=2007-03-09 |format = reprint] Mitchell herself described "Shine" as "as serious a work as I've ever done."cite news |last=Eggar |first=Robin |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1569 |title=The Renaissance Woman |publisher=Sunday Times |date=2007-02-11 |accessdate=2007-03-09 |format = reprint]

Performance

The album was played live with accompanying choreographed ballet dance done by the Alberta Ballet, filmed and shown before an audience on September 25th at the Sunshine Theater on Houston Street, NYC. The backdrop of the ballet featured photographs by Joni Mitchell, taken using a camera pointed at a Sony TV screen, whose image was inverted, producing a green and white image. The photographs were exhibited at the Violet Ray Gallery [http://www.violetraygallery.com/] on the same night as the showing of the film. The cover of "Shine" features a still image of the dancers in the ballet.

Track listing

# "One Week Last Summer" – 4:59
#*This song won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
# "This Place" – 3:54
#*In a recent interview, Mitchell referred to a "second guitar song [inspired when] they decided to whittle down this mountain behind my sanctuary and sell it to California as gravel for McMansions."cite news |last=Eggar |first=Robin |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1580 |title=Both Sides Now |publisher=Word |date=April 2007 |accessdate=2007-03-18 |format = reprint]
# "If I Had a Heart" – 4:04
#* "If I Had a Heart, I'd Cry" is a reaction to the state of the environment and what Mitchell called the current "holy war." In February 2007, "The New York Times" described the song as "one of the most haunting melodies she has ever written." Of the impetus that inspired her to write the song, Mitchell explained, "My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can't cry about it. In a way I'm inoculated. I've suffered this pain for so long. …The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species."
# "Hana" – 3:43
# "Bad Dreams" – 5:41
#* "Bad Dreams" was inspired by a comment Mitchell's grandson made at the age of three: "Bad dreams are good, in the great plan." In a March 2007 BBC2 radio interview with Amanda Ghost, the singer jokingly said she'd promised to "cut him in" on the song's profits. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/documentaries/#joni Come In From the Cold: The Return of Joni Mitchell] , BBC2 radio programme, 2007-03-20.]
#* "Bad Dreams Are Good" lyrics appeared as a poem in "The New Yorker", September 17, 2007. [http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/09/17/070917po_poem_mitchell] , New Yorker, 2007-09-17.]
# "Big Yellow Taxi (2007)" – 2:47
#* In March 2007, "The Guardian" reported that "Shine" will feature a "new version" of Joni's 1970 environmentally-themed hit single.cite news |last=Sexton |first=Paul |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1582 |title='I came to hate music' |publisher=The Guardian |date=2007-03-19 |accessdate=2007-03-20 |format=reprint]
# "Night of the Iguana" – 4:38
#* Based upon the play "The Night of the Iguana" by Tennessee Williams.
# "Strong and Wrong" – 4:04
# "Shine" – 7:29
#* "Toronto Globe and Mail" described this song as "a lush lullaby for the soul."cite news |last=Gill |first=Alexandra |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1575 |title=Joni Mitchell in person |publisher=Toronto Globe and Mail |date=2007-02-17 |accessdate=2007-03-11 |format = reprint]
#* Lyric makes reference to the "Reverend Pearson" (Carlton Pearson).
# "If" – 5:32
#* This song is based on the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The jazz-inflected piece features Herbie Hancock playing piano. [cite news |last=Gumbel |first=Andrew |url=http://jmdl.com/library/view.cfm?id=1558 |title=The protest goes on: They bombed paradise (and I put up a multimedia extravaganza) |publisher=London Independent |date=2007-02-09 |accessdate=2007-03-18 |format = reprint]

Personnel

*Joni Mitchell - vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards
*Larry Klein - bass
*Greg Leisz - pedal steel guitar
*Brian Blade - drums
*Bob Sheppard - saxophone
*Paulinho Da Costa - percussion on "Hana"
*James Taylor - acoustic guitar on "Shine"

Charts

References