Comeback Player of the Year
Screw Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin. The greatest showing by a veteran performer in 2007 belonged to Joni Mitchell.
The Canadian singer-songwriter, you may recall, disavowed the entire music industry five years ago, pronouncing it a no-class “cesspool” in Rolling Stone and declaring that she would release any future music (and she wasn’t so sure there would be any) through the Internet if that’s what it took to control her own artistic product.
Somehow, Mitchell found less corporate whoredom in the Starbucks boardroom, signing to their Hear Music record label this past summer. In September she released Shine–her first collection of new music in nine years, and, wonder of wonders, her first Top 20 recording since 1979’s Mingus. It’s also the most acclaimed work she’s done in quite a while, figuring prominently in a number of critics’ best-of-2007 lists.
But Joni alone is not responsible for Joni’s resurrection. On the very same day that she released Shine, jazz legend Herbie Hancock and his all-star band put out Shine: The Joni Letters. It’s a record of some of Mitchell’s best and most adventurous songs (“Both Sides Now,” “Amelia”), some of which feature vocals by Mitchell herself. Again, it spawned rave reviews and superlatives from the critics.
How many others this year not only had critical and commercial rebirth with their new material, but had their old material restored to glory at the same time? Now that’s a comeback.
3 Responses to “Comeback Player of the Year”
Leave a Reply
Recent Posts
- Out Now: Rhythm Based Lovers Single (0
)
Rhythm Based Lovers, an alias of former Takoma Park resident and ex-Manhunter member Jason Letkiewic… - Interview: Vampire Weekend (1)
Finding words to describe Vampire Weekend seems futile, since they've become the A-list blog stars … - Sonic Circuits: Ongoing Events @ Pyramid Atlantic (3)
The Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music may have officially closed the curtain in October,… - You Think You’re John Fucking Lennon… (0)
...is the name of the new Glassjaw song (first one in six years). Stream it from the homepage, but b… - Crunk Didn’t Know What Hit It (0)
Brokencyde's new music video, "Freaxxx," has been making the critical rounds, taking its first bashi…
- Out Now: Rhythm Based Lovers Single (0
December 14th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I must be reading different things than you are. I ignored Joni’s album and Herbie’s tribute because of the negative reviews I read. Plus, the Grammy folks and lots of boomer critics always praise baby boomer artists long after their prime. This is nothing new. I also did not feel that Joni came across well at all in any of the recent interviews that she did.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Really? Wow. I’ve not read a single negative review of either album yet. And, while I think I’ve demonstrated my cynicism towards the Boomers, Joni hasn’t exactly set the critics on fire in the last decade or so…
February 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] about Herbie Hancock winning the Album of the Year Grammy for River: The Joni Letters (see my note about the album in BPB’s “Best of 2007″ coverage). A chunk of that buzz, however, is responding [...]