Joni Mitchell released three albums in the 90s, matching her 80s output. The two decades’ worth of material combined falls short of the number of releases she managed in the 70s.

Whether it was her marriage, her increasing disillusionment with the recording industry, or just the creative slowdown that many artists experience as they get older, the quantity and quality of Mitchell’s work was just never the same after the 70s.

1998’s Taming the Tiger is the first Mitchell album of the 16 I’ve heard so far that bores me. It is similar in tone to its two worthy predecessors, but the songs aren’t as good, the performances aren’t as memorable.

An artist who broke ground from the minute she first strapped on a guitar here sounds like she’s in a rut.

As on many of Mitchell’s post-70s albums, the best songs here come at the beginning. Opener ‘Harlem in Havana’ is a playful jazz number about underage girls who sneak into a racy circus sideshow. And ‘Man From Mars’ is a lost-love lament that gets better when you learn it’s about her cat (who is also pictured on the album’s cover).

This song was written for the 1996 Allison Anders’ film Grace of My Heart, a movie that also featured soundtrack contribution from Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.