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.
OK, last week’s Random Weekend gave us a weird coincidence when a song from Brad Paisley’s first album was followed by a song from his second.
A week later, we get another twofer, with yesterday’s Belle and Sebastian track followed by this one today. I won’t even bother to calculate the odds of back-to-back weekends featuring a single artist. But they gotta be high.
‘The Wrong Girl’ sits right in the middle of Belle and Sebastian’s 2000 album, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, an unassuming little pop gem surrounded by more ambitious material.
This song has everything you want from a Belle and Sebastian tune: jaunty acoustic guitar, strings, a trumpet solo, lyrics about a lovelorn loser. It also lets band member Stevie Jackson take over for Stuart Murdoch on vocals, which he does a couple of times per album with great results.
Joni Mitchell’s 15th studio album was her first to win a Grammy (though she had won twice before for performances of individual songs). 1994’s Turbulent Indigo picked up the award for Best Pop Album, besting Madonna, Mariah Carey, Annie Lennox and the Eagles.
This album feels like a throwback to Mitchell’s great 70s work, even if it never hits those highs. It sounds great and features some memorable tracks, especially in its superior first half.
In 1991, Joni Mitchell closed out a four-album run with Geffen Records that included her three somewhat cringeworthy 80s releases. The fourth record, though, was a notable improvement.
In fact, 14 albums in, I’m currently ranking Night Ride Home among Mitchell’s top five. This is a beautiful, rich album steeped in nostalgia. And it finds Mitchell back in her comfort zone of piano and acoustic guitar, as the glitzy 80s production gives way to a much more palatable 90s sheen.
Meet Me In Montauk 