Joni's new LP - Review (*****)

[hound!hejira]

*****      cross-posted to net.music     *****

I picked up Joni Mitchell's "Dog Eat Dog" (Geffen) today, and am really 
hooked.  The album marks a departure from Joni's earlier style.  Rather
than being a collection of songs about unrequieted love and aging, it is 
an eloquent social commentary.  

If you like quality music and dislike superficiality and jingoism (i.e.
Rambo), this is the album for you.

Review (lifted from "Musician", November 1985, p. 105):

   "Joni Mitchell has always been an anomaly.  During the politically-
	charged 60s she made her mark as an incisive confessional poet; a 
	few years later, when confessional songwriters began breeding like 
	rabbits, Joni turned toward jazz, that most macho of musical genres.
	Now that romantic pop is in, it's only fitting that she should emerge 
	with a record that's as politically and spiritually righteous as any 
	by a major artist since the death of Bob Marley.  The sound is still
	Joni Mitchell's, but the sentiments are pure Joan of Arc.

	Framed by songs about friendship and love ("Good Friends" and "Lucky
	Girl"), "Dog Eat Dog" is really a record about social darwinism, and 
	how that philosophy poisons hearts, our nation, and planet.  The 
	hypocrisy of religious evangelists who preach militarism in God's 
	name is bluntly exposed on "Tax Free" (which features a guest sermon
	by Rod Steiger) while the more somber -- and effective -- ballad 
	"Ethiopia" draws lucid connections between a drought-stricken country
	"abandoned by the rains," the "shortsighted greed" that produces
	"the whine of chainsaws hacking rainforests down" and a media that
	turns calamity into a circus ("A TV star with a PR smile/Calls your
	baby 'it'/While strolling through your tragic trials").  At moments
	like these Mitchell's outrage is nearly palpable; so is her resignation,
	which makes her plaint that much more moving.  And it seems fitting
	that the woman who set "Woodstock" in context fifteen years ago should, 
	in the wake of Live Aid, do the same for "Ethiopia" today.

	Equally effective is the style she's chosen for theses sonic sermons.
	"Dog Eat Dog" is an LP awash in programmed synths and drum samples.
	And it works.  Like Thomas Dolby, who not so co-incidentally co-produced
	the record and plays on several tracks, Joni has learned how to make 
	electronics complement rather than replace emotional vulnerability;
	the music seems contemporary but never cold.  A metallic, chugging 
	rhythm does come in handy on "Fiction," a song about the possibilities
	of paralysis in an over-stimulated culture; more impressive, though, 
	are the swatches of synth textures on "3 Great Stimulants," which 
	convey the rich, dark brooding of orchestral brass.  Mitchell's 
	melodies remain far more complex than standard top forty (even on the 
	superficially mainstream "Good Friends," a duet with Michael McDonald,
	of all people) but seamlessly interlocking riffs and a steady percussive 
	pulse make this her most accessible music in years.  Joni's passion
	and eloquence, however, is what makes it memorable.

	Of course it's rather unfashionable these days to espouse social views
	more substantial than those beamed from beer commercials.  But one thing
	about Joni Mitchell, she's always sung from the heart, and over the years
	she's acquired a moral authority that can't be so easily dismissed as, 
	say, Steve Van Zandt's.  "Dog Eat Dog" has it's [sic] flaws; there are
	a few weak songs, and moments, like on "Tax Free" where subtlety may 
	have been more effective.  But at a time when our government practices 
	jingoism in Nicaragua, a song about the danger of "artifice, brutality
	and innocence" ("3 Great Stimulants") seems more than just a cautionary
	fable.

	"Dog Eat Dog" is thoroughly modern music, and it's also a throwback to 
	a time when pop stars sang about the world as if they--and it--mattered.
	On "Dog Eat Dog" Joni Mitchell prophesizes that all which is genuine
	"will be scorned and conned and cast away."   Here's hoping this 
	record proves her wrong.  - Mark Rowland"

Do yourself a favour -- get this album.  If you've read this far, then you
most certainly deserve it!!


	- Rob Preston