Court And Spark

What a beautiful album. Again, this is another album I haven't heard before, but I am so glad that I've been able to experience it now. Joni Mitchell's voice is superb, right off the bat I was blown away by her performance and lyricism. The soft piano ballads and jazzy pop tunes are perfectly crafted and emotionally moving. I listened to this album twice, which is something I hadn't done with the previous albums. The song structures remind me of Joanna Newsome, but I think Mitchell does it much better. I felt connected to each story told in the songs, and the way they flowed together made the whole experience engrossing. Favorite track: all of them Least favorite track: none

Well, it's better than her later albums, I guess. But she's a much better poet than she is a singer. And a better singer than she is a melody-writer. I don't know why she seems to hate writing choruses so much. Most of the songs are just unstructured messes that never go anywhere. There's a story that Mitchell herself tells about Bob Dylan falling asleep when she played the album for him. It's funny but it's also understandable. It's a boring slog of an album. I would much rather have read these songs as poems than be forced to listen to Mitchell's wandering warble for an hour.

I do not understand the praise Joni Mitchell gets.

Interesting grunge dive. Can’t help but feel they aped nirvana a bit.

Before listening: I always imagined Joni Mitchell's audience as the Emma Thompson's character from Love Actually. Tragic, hopeless, alone.../ I started it for the second time and starting to like it at "Help me"/ The more folkish a song is the less I like it./ "Help me" and "Raised on Robbery" keeps pulling me back (even tough the second one is pretty folkish, but has good vibes, so I don't care)/ This is definitely not the Joni Mitchel I was expecting, and when reading a bit about her it seems that I could like her later stuff, when she ventured to jazzier stuff, seems like this was kind of a starting point.

My mom's favorite Joni album. Mine as well. Straight down the middle folk rock Joni. The trademark floating and swirling Joni melodies but this time with more energy Joni. More direct, incisive lyrics from Joni. More compelling jazz Joni. Incredible Joni production in surprising places (end of People's Parties, middle of Car on a Hill). I'd give it an easy 5 but the cringey final scat scat, so instead it's a labored 5. A+

Sorry lady, not interested in the slides from your trip to Paris.

Finally! A female artist, and it's the legend herself. I really love Joni Mitchell, I find myself torn between thinking she or Bob Dylan is the better songwriter. Hard to argue it's Bob in the face of "Both Sides Now." I haven't listened to this album before, but it's great. It only has one song that I already knew ("Help Me"), but there's plenty of heat here. I really like the exploration of different genres--Joni dips into jazz on some tracks, then more rock/pop on others. It doesn't always suit her, but her voice cuts through anything. It's a great experience overall and held my attention throughout. I'm looking forward to getting more Joni Mitchell albums, especially Blue. Also, if this list listened to my plea for female artists, maybe it will hear me ask to honor Black History Month...maybe some Jimi Hendrix? Aretha Franklin? We'll see what's in store. Favorite tracks: Help Me, People's Parties, Down to You, Twisted. Album art: Simple and sweet. I like the textured look. Nothing too special, but it looks like Joni herself may have painted that picture. That's extremely cool. 4.5/5

This album was so BORING. It wasn't actively *bad*, but I just didn't care about it.

Such overrated artist... maybe she should have been just a poet?

Rating: 10/10 A classic album. Joni Mitchell sounds fantastic, beautiful vocals and great lyrics. This album is absolutely gorgeous. Lush, detailed instrumentation and pristine production. Loved everything about this album, honestly wish some of the songs were longer but that speaks to how amazing this album is. Favorite tracks: Pretty much the whole album but highlights were Court and Speak, Help Me, Car on a Hill, Raised on Robbery, Troubled Child. Least Favorite song: Down to You, a bit too long but still great though.

I love Joni’s voice in the same vein of Chris’s love for Adele. She has such total command over her voice as an instrument, not just in maintaining pitch, but in volume, delivery, especially cadence. I could listen to her sing the verses of Help Me a million times and never get tired of it. On top of her second-to-none vocal talent, the music is interesting enough. This album, IIRC, is about when she begins a pretty full dive into more jazz. Extra star for real guitar, drums, and tasteful horns, but it won’t let me add a 6th star.

Joni Mitchell's voice is such an elixir for the ears. Very expressive and dynamic, with the perfect mix of vulnerability and cool aloofness. I could listen to her sing a shopping list. But the songs here are mostly elaborate monologues of experience and emotion. It's pretty hard to make those kinds of song work, but her voice brings them alive. The music is good, with interesting jazzy additions to the folk palette - but really it's all a backdrop for the voice. The final track is impeccable vocal jazz performance, and I would love to hear a whole album of that. Overall, this album doesn't quite reach the soaring heights of Blue, and I don't really like how it takes a sharp turn in sound for the last three tracks (though they are still good tracks!) so I have to give it a 4*.

Easily the most accessible Joni album I've heard. I prefer her jazzier albums with Jaco but that takes nothing away from this one. Really enjoyable listening.

Legendary singer/songwriter, beautiful music, absolute masterpiece.

How can you not love Joni

I was gonna give this only 4 stars but I don't think my mom would ever forgive me if she found out, so I'm rounding up.

I could listen to this every day.

Incredible melodies and lyrics. Not typical pop music at all. Interesting jazz influences and flourishes. Joni Mitchell is a genius. Every song is an interesting adventure.

It’s a testament to how great Joni Mitchell that this can be a perfect album and still not my favorite by her

Folk, guitar moving into some jazzy flourishes. She knocks it out the park again. Best Tracks: Court and Spark, Raised on Robbery, Twisted

Another high note in a very specific genre (that basically has a one woman sub genre in this particular performer). About perfect, if you like this kind of thing (which I do)

Like a lot of Joni Mitchell's music, I choose to like this album. She doesn't always make it easy for me to like it and in other hands a lot of these sounds and pretensions would seriously irritate me. A lot of these songs have parts I really like and parts I really don't like, often right after one another. I share a home with one or more people who seriously hate her music. So I have to be strategic about when and where I listen to it. In fairness to my housemates, Joni Mitchell's a bit of a musician's musician, I think, and that you'll hear a lot of people like Jimmy Page waxing poetic about her amazing guitar playing, but not a lot of non-musicians waxing about her. I think that's part of why she largely been forgotten over the last 20 or so years. Free Man In Paris is supposedly about David Geffen, who was her manager at the time and during a trip to France together was bitching to her about having put up with random calls from temperamental artists at all hours but in Paris where no one could reach him he was finally free and could relax a little. That's one tune I like all the way through without any major irritations. But my favorite story about Joni Mitchell and David Geffen was the time when he drove her to Woodstock and they got stuck in traffic and ended up just camping out in a motel room and watching the festival on TV where she wrote her song Woodstock that her boyfriend Graham Nash made famous with CSN a year or two later.

It's like a well-executed, yet unflavored custard. Pleasant enough but there's no point in eating it.

This is the second Joni Mitchell album in about a week. They're also not on Spotify cause she "stuck it to the man". So I'm honouring her wishes and not listening - the only time I'll do so in this project (because fuck mean spirited "hippie" boomer cunts like her and Neil Young). Thankfully I know how much her music sucks anyway. So here's a 1/5 and I hope this sets a lovely precedent where I never have to hear her awful wailing again.

at its best its female madman-era elton john written by a 14 yo girl who just went through her first breakup standing in for taupin. at its worst it sounds like joni mitchell. boring, repetitive instrumentation. trite, on-the-nose lyrics. i actively hate it. closing track was particularly insulting

Joni Mitchell? More like moany shitshow.

I’m sorry…why haven’t I been listening to Joni Mitchell? Her albums on this list, so far, have been *excellent*. On Court and Spark, her voice, as always, is beautiful and unique, the instrumentation is varied, lively and engaging. Her blend of folk and jazz manages to be both soothing and invigorating, with flourishes of ambitious sonic textures and experimentation. What an excellent album.

Easy 5 even with the awful last track (that I since discovered is not by Joni at all!). Her voice sounds "softest" here compared to the other '70s classics although the songs are far from "pop". Great album

Another neglected purchase on my hard drive, I may have skimmed off the opening, Broadway-esque piano chords, not in the mood. Silly me, this is very good, and I'm finding it hard to sum up why. Am tired and a blizzard arrives tomorrow, and I imagine this record would be good, conversational company for it. The instrumentation is superficially super normal and actually deeply weird. Free Man in Paris's Paris is a little Emily in Paris; it is still a good song.

I’d say it’s up there with her best pieces of work (I prefer The Hissing of Summer Lawns more though)

I sense the talent but it's just on the verge of tipping me over into really liking it

Joni Mitchell is overrated. She is a good poet, but not really a musical artist. I don't know why she seems to hate writing choruses so much. Most of the songs are just unstructured messes that never go anywhere. 2⭐️

not available on Spotify?

I didn't realize I hated Joni Mitchell so much. It's one of those names I've heard a bunch but never listened to.

It is staggering the level of musicality that is held within the 3m2s of Car on a Hill. I have generally favored Hejira but relistening to this after many years away - it's tough to beat. Choruses are on short supply. Melodies extend beyond simple pop convention. She feels fully liberated here. An artist. Like a relationship - if you open yourself up it hits the head and the heart.

Wow. Simply beautiful. "Help Me" will always be a favourite of mine, but the whole album is a work of art. Joni seems to have a knack for writing the most beautiful and poignant lyrics that I so often don't understand a lick of, while dancing them around clothed in meandering melodies that just make you want to get lost in them. A stunning album.

Court and Spark Although I know some of the songs in here, I've not listened to this album before. The opening bars of the title track, although I don’t think I’ve heard it before, are immediately warm and enveloping and comforting, she really does have the knack of making songs feel immediately familiar, as you’ve always known them. I do already know Help Me, but it also has that same feeling of always having existed, and being immediately comforting, like a kind of nostalgic warmth for something I’ve never experienced, even if the lyrics are more emotionally ambivalent by the end of the song. The brilliance of those two songs continues on the rest of side 1, with the excellent Free Man in Paris, the pen portrait People’s Parties and brilliant piano-led The Same Situation with some lovely steel guitar sounds. The 2nd side very slightly doesn’t quite match the quality of side 1, purely because the cover of Twisted doesn’t really do it for me, it has just a little too much forced jazz hands showtune energy for my taste. Outside that though the rest of the songs are again excellent. The soft rock adjacent Car on a Hill, with its spacey middle section, is great and Down To You is a fantastic song, the meandering piano line evoking the weariness in the words. Just Like This Train is another lovely track and although I wasn’t initially as keen on Raised on Robbery I came to very much like its shot of bluesy pop-rock. And Trouble Child is great, it has a nice Steely Dan-ness to it, and I presume the title and opening riff is an evocation of Trouble Man by Marvin Gaye? Even with Twisted, it’s hard not to give this a 5. It's a brilliant album, combining her characteristic shuffling jazzy folkiness, with her idiosyncratic rhyme schemes and uniquely brilliant voice. 🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨 Playlist submission: Down to You

Gorgeous, Side B is a bit weak though.

Her voice and phrasing is just mesmerizing. She moves effortless from her chest voice to her head voice. The harmonizing on several tracks is angelic. Her expressiveness and vulnerability draws you in. Must listen to tracks are Help Me, Free Man in Paris, and Raised on Robbery is just fun.

L’ho ascoltato in macchina ieri, mi ha trasmesso un senso di pace e calma. Bella scoperta, mi è piaciuto

My favorite of her albums and that's saying something. Brilliant songwriter and wonderful singer.

Longtemps restée dans l'ombre de son petit-fils Eddy, Joni Mitchell n'en a pour autant pas moins de talent. C'était d'ailleurs prévisible. Je m'explique. Une fois que l'on a compris que Joni était une femme et non un énième gonze, on se doute que l'album sera bon puisque à l'exception de Patti Smith et sa crête iroquoise, aucune représentante de la gente féminine n'a obtenu moins de quatre étoiles de ma part. Et cet album les vaut bien.

great full band and piano, riffs can be pretty fun to listen to

It's a good full-listen, but my aversion to singing that speeds up and slows down makes it hard to fall in love with most tracks.

3.5 - decent album. Compared to the first Joni Mitchell album I heard, this one actually makes me understand why people hold her in such high regard

Sorry Shane :-( good songs and great instrumentation but it’s a voice thing

a very intresting mix, nice deep lyrics, love the mesh of the different elements... i expect this to age well, specially the uniqueness of the jazz pop sound which im excited to try in diff contexts. a very strong 3.

I enjoyed it, she has a really nice voice, and very poetic lyrics. To me, the lyrics actually gave off strong Taylor Swift vibes, it’s the stories she tells and vulnerability in the way in which she talks about her emotions. Her and Swift may be decades apart in their age and musical careers, but they have the same inner emotional landscape driving their song-writing. Well that’s my take anyway.

This was better Joni Mitchell than The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Still not my style, but much better.

Folk Music. :/

This wasn’t terrible but it’s not for me. Something about her style or voice just makes every song sound the same. Needs to throw a chorus in every once in a while. 2.5

Can be tough-going Joni. When she's great she's super-brilliant, eg River, Both Sides Now, but the jazz-folk fusion can be a bit grating. This album, for me, was more of the latter.

Joni Mitchell is a polarizing figure for me. I enjoy her folky stuff more than her easy listening jazzy style stuff.

Couldn’t find it on Spotify and in the end not overly mad about it. Deedle deedle deedle

I really liked her voice, but the songs are a bit too generic and flat. I'm sure the lyrics are meaningful but I couldn't be bothered to pay them any mind because of this.

meh, just not really my style

A bit meandering and winding in places; middle of the road. Good album for dinner parties.

2 Joni Mitchell albums in 3 days, am I in purgatory?

Hated this. Unfathomably dull.

Realised after one hour that the album was over and that I wasn't listening to anything. Completely forgettable (for me) and even more astonishing if you see the (good) ratings it got on release.

Girls just wanna have fun but this album does not let that. It's so boring except the Twisted song.

I feel like this is what divorced cigarette moms listen to.

One of the great voices of music.

What a treat. So accessible and even catchy without sacrificing complexity and polyphony.

This album was part of the soundtrack of my life at one point. Each and every song is a jewel. Deciding on just one for the playlist was impossible. I settled on “A Free Man in Paris”.

Loved it!

One of the greatest albums of all time. First heard most of it at concert in Wembley, London in 1974

There really is something special about this album. Joni Mitchell feels like a “one-in-a-million” type artist between her vocals and songwriting. The infusion of jazz throughout is done subtly but quite well. “Help Me” is one of the catchiest tunes she’s ever written and almost feels like the perfect song.

ksigz - thanks for all the great factoids, I didn't about the polio source of her tunings, and especially your mom's shared name! I'm glad that instead of going straight to the review I listened to this one again, reminding me how much I love this album. For me the first 3 songs here are the warmups, the album starts at Other People's Parties as she starts stretching out into the introspection mode that really plays deeper into the jazz on the next two albums, my favorites. Here and everywhere she writes the best lyrics I know of. And I doubt there isn't an album that isn't the favorite a big chunk of Joni fans.

Nothing like Joni to make you argue with your spouse about whether “paved paradise to put up a parking lot” is by Joni Mitchell (it is but I was thinking of the counting crows cover)

I've been waiting for this album to pop up! I'm a Joni Mitchell fan and this is probably my favourite album of hers (though Blue is also excellent). I just finished reading a book about her life and music, so this is good timing. Nice to see another Canadian artist on this list too! I think the only other Canadians we've had so far are Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright. This is one of the earliest of her albums where she shifts from a folk sound towards more of a jazz influence. I really enjoy the meeting of those two genres. The most iconic aspect of her music is her amazing voice that spans several octaves with ease and her creative and poetic lyrics. Both of those are on full display on this album. I think it's cool that she created her own alternate tunings on the guitar because she had polio as child so she had trouble playing traditional chords with her left hand. Her tunings make for very interesting chords and harmonies! I think all of the tracks on Court and Spark are fantastic. I've listened to the first three tracks a lot more than the rest of the album and still think they're great, but I particularly enjoyed listening from People's Parties onward for the first time in several years. I heard a lot of the songs with new ears and was particularly taken with The Same Situation, Car on a Hill and Down to You. I love the inclusion of woodwinds and horn on Down to You. Fun fact: Joni was born Roberta Joan Anderson, which is also my mom's name.

Joni forever

HOLY SHIT I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT

AL FIN UNO DE JONI QUE BANGERS Favs: Help Me, People's Parties, Car on a Hill

Strangely, I had actually listened to this album more than Blue before I fell in love with that album, through this list, earlier this year. Court and Spark finds Joni Mitchell moving towards the jazz sound she developed later in the decade, and the albums with which I was (slightly) more familiar with. Joni really is an amazing songwriter; there are no verse, chorus, verse, chorus songs here, everything feeling like she is telling a story. The melodies are wonderful and the production is clear and spacious, allowing the instruments and, especially her voice, to breathe. The supporting musicians are as great as you would expect - Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder, Joe Sample, Robbie Robertson, David Crosby and Graham Nash among them. The woodwind arrangements by Tom Scott on “Down to You” are incredible. There isn’t a weak song here. I think I am a Joni Mitchell fan…

This woman! Her blissfully beautiful voice, songs and stories are a gift. Help Me on almost everyone's 'favorite tracks of all time' list, Just like this Train is just gorgeous. Not a note out of place, tracks 1-8 is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. I LOVE this album and her 4E : )

Cool

Other than Fleetwood Mac, Joni made the best mom music there is.

Like the artist voice and his music gave me Peace and joy

Beautiful. Beautiful songs, voice, production.

Tb

Well, now I have to eat my hat about Joni Mitchell. This album defied my prejudices of her as a saccharine, trilling soft folk singer. This is hardly that. Excellent songwriting, sharp humor, jazz, electric guitar, and generally pushing musical boundaries. Every song is strong. Fuck me, it’s a 5.

Not being familiar with Blue yet, I suppose this is the moment where she shifts into more improvisational jazz territory. The blend of folk, pop, and fusion is handled well, and each song has something unique for the listener.

I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to Joni’s masterpiece, and it doesn’t matter. I can play it wherever, whenever and I’m transported to the summer of 1974. Her voice now has that smoky, sexy edge to it, and I feel I’m literally living in the LA sun, in the hills, feeling the mood and breathing the air. It doesn’t make sense because I was six years old then. But I mean that she captures in words and music a time and place and feeling in such precise emotional detail that Court and Spark becomes a time machine. I step in and I’m there. I don’t mean just nostalgia. I mean an artistic vision that transcends the present. That is timeless, as in it stops time. The only other album that manages this feat is Rumours. That was a group effort. This is one woman’s singular story, and it’s perfect.

Love this album. Joni at her best? It is top 3 in my book. Have this on vinyl and gifted this on vinyl. Just great songs by a superb artist in her prime.

Tuff

Perfect. Just perfect.

Rounding this one up to a 5. Not JM’s best album but beautifully sung.

It is littered with so many gems, and unfortunately the couple of lazy outliers; but it really is too good not too award a charismatic five.

Really rate 'Court and Spark' as one of Joni Mitchell's best albums, 4.5 so gets a bump to 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Joni’s seamless transition from folk to folk-rock to jazz-rock. Also interestingly, the Joni album that features music that sounds the most like the Law & Order theme (“Just Like a Train”, “Down to You”) and the Frasier theme (“Twisted”).

My intro to Joni Mitchell was via the clip of her playing Coyote in Gordon Lightfoot's apartment during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review (apparently that was the debut of the song, which she had written during the Rolling Thunder Review). I was immediately taken by Coyote and ended up listening to, and loving, Hejira shortly after watching the movie. However, my budding Bob Dylan obsession quickly took over and I never really got a chance to do a deeper dive into Joni Mitchell's work beyond Hejira. Court and Spark feels much more accessible and pop oriented compared to Hejira's jazz-y experimentation, but Joni Mitchell's poetic inclinations still shine through on this album and some of that jazz-y experimentation starts to come out in the last few tracks. The way she crafts a song and a melody is totally unique; it stands out to me compared to all of the other folk acts of the time.

Blue lived on the radio so this could live in the Smokey club. Beautiful melodies, flowing piano and jazzy pop tunes to stand with the best of them. A way to sing poetry that reminds you of Patti Smith without the spit.

really chill and amazing vocals. the melody follows the vocals and not the vocals follow the melody. really good album, in my opinion it's 4.7.

Really soft and nice Love joni mitchell Soft rock/jazz vibes

Joni Mitchell is underrated in just about every aspect--as a songwriter, as a singer, as a piano player. I think she's probably at a Dylan level of genius in her best moments--maybe that's too easy, maybe that's not fair to her. She is her own universe, and we're lucky to be able to enter it.

5 stores is not enough

Jazzy. Poetic. Accessible yet complex. Vulnerable. Witty. A glorious voice. The production is so clean and polished. Love the swing track 'Twisted' with the walking bass and the almost walking vocals, so impressive. Surprise Cheech & Chong cameo too! Help Me was fantastic, Trouble Child and Car on a Hill brilliant, but musically Down to You is hard to top, what an incredible tune. Such beautiful progressions. 8.5/10

It's a perfect album. I actually like it better than Blue (might be a hot take). It's a 5/5. She's a poet, has a distinct singing style and it's all backed up bu great instrumentation.