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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Shine may ultimately register as a "fans only" milestone, but it proves that Joni Mitchell retains many of the storied calling cards of her best albums. The searing lyricism of 1971's Blue and the penchant for self-redefinition hailed by 1974's Court and Spark make cameos here, but sadly, lesser efforts' drawbacks abound. True, "Big Yellow Taxi" reprises the environmental dystopia Mitchell first poeticized on 1970's Ladies of the Canyon, but the occasion only prompts new pedantic effrontery ("This Place," "If I Had a Heart"). In this regard, Shine's especially cloying title track marks the worst offender. Blissfully, though, "Hana" boasts a driving rhythm section and blurting squirts of electric guitar and saxophone in support of a compelling character sketch, and "If"--based on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name--paints a lyrical message of affirmation in bold strokes. Mitchell's songwriting shines brightest at such singularly poignant moments where specificity of images meets the vagaries of the instrumental arrangements, and, in the end, these and other highlights ("Bad Dreams," "Night of the Iguana") definitively carry the torch. --Jason Kirk
Product Description
Joni Mitchell is generally considered to be the single most important female singer-songwriter of the 20th Century. Her new CD features 10 great new songs that resonate on the level of some of her all-time classic work, with much of the material inspired by Joni's passion to save the environment. Her lyrics on the subject are truly inspiring.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
167 of 183 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Joni Mitchell's first album of new songs in nine years finds her mourning the sad state of the planet, but with a newfound acceptance that all things have their place in the universe ("bad dreams are good in the great plan," as she puts it here, quoting her young grandson) -- including her own anger and disappointment. Despite the numerous Robinson Jeffers-like call-outs of money/corruption/greed/rage/war and the incivility of humankind, the album does not end up being disheartening, but the opposite. Her voice -- husky with age and chain-smoked American Spirits -- shines with a warrior's strength and defiance even in ragged armor, like Billie Holiday's late recordings. And most wonderfully, Joni is still pushing her music into vital new territory, foregoing the synthesizer-guitar textures of "Taming the Tiger" for piano, horns, percussion, and other warmly organic voices.
She boldly opens the album with an instrumental, which struck me as an ungenerous move on first hearing, but in the context of the rest of the album makes perfect sense on Joni's terms, which are the only terms on which she makes records, bless her. (Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young -- her true peers -- also specialized in weirding out listeners who expected more-of-the-same with each new record.) Every song gets a distinctive orchestration of its own, from the percolating "Hana" -- a portrait of an old movie heroine, an Irish bodhisattva disguised as a traveling maid, who had "a special knack for getting people back on the right track" -- to a playful reprise of "Big Yellow Taxi" rescored like French circus music. "This Place" has particularly sleek and engaging sound, blending lap steel, warm horns, and bright keyboards, with its reference to a neighbor in rural British Columbia who says, "When I get to heaven, if it is not like this, I'll just hop a cloud and I'm coming back down here..."
My favorite track on the album is the final one, "If," which advances the sinuous groove of "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" and "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" and other milestones into new realms. The lyric is paraphrased from a Rudyard Kipling poem, but Joni wrote the most stunning verse:
If you can fill the journey
of a minute
with sixty seconds worth of wonder and delight
then the Earth is yours
and Everything that's in it
but more than that
I know
You'll be alright
You'll be alright.
Fittingly, the title track "Shine" is the purest expression of the essence of this album. After reciting a litany of offenses against the spirit, she insists that the proper response is to "shine your little light" into every corner of your life. It's not polyannic New Agey jive, but more like the alchemy of heavy global lead into spiritual gold: with this song, Joni even transcends her own identity as an angry Cassandra issuing dire warnings to a culture that doesn't want to listen. She's no stranger to Buddhist subtexts in her work -- "Refuge of the Roads" on Hejira was, among other things, a tribute to the vajrayana master Chogyam Trungpa, and "Taming the Tiger" was an allusion to Tibetan meditation practices for quelling the ego's rages. In "Shine," the Buddhist analogue would be Dzogchen, the Great Perfection -- the recognition that everything is just right as it is, even the things that insult the ego and bruise the heart.
We're lucky to be alive on the same dying planet that she is.
She boldly opens the album with an instrumental, which struck me as an ungenerous move on first hearing, but in the context of the rest of the album makes perfect sense on Joni's terms, which are the only terms on which she makes records, bless her. (Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young -- her true peers -- also specialized in weirding out listeners who expected more-of-the-same with each new record.) Every song gets a distinctive orchestration of its own, from the percolating "Hana" -- a portrait of an old movie heroine, an Irish bodhisattva disguised as a traveling maid, who had "a special knack for getting people back on the right track" -- to a playful reprise of "Big Yellow Taxi" rescored like French circus music. "This Place" has particularly sleek and engaging sound, blending lap steel, warm horns, and bright keyboards, with its reference to a neighbor in rural British Columbia who says, "When I get to heaven, if it is not like this, I'll just hop a cloud and I'm coming back down here..."
My favorite track on the album is the final one, "If," which advances the sinuous groove of "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" and "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" and other milestones into new realms. The lyric is paraphrased from a Rudyard Kipling poem, but Joni wrote the most stunning verse:
If you can fill the journey
of a minute
with sixty seconds worth of wonder and delight
then the Earth is yours
and Everything that's in it
but more than that
I know
You'll be alright
You'll be alright.
Fittingly, the title track "Shine" is the purest expression of the essence of this album. After reciting a litany of offenses against the spirit, she insists that the proper response is to "shine your little light" into every corner of your life. It's not polyannic New Agey jive, but more like the alchemy of heavy global lead into spiritual gold: with this song, Joni even transcends her own identity as an angry Cassandra issuing dire warnings to a culture that doesn't want to listen. She's no stranger to Buddhist subtexts in her work -- "Refuge of the Roads" on Hejira was, among other things, a tribute to the vajrayana master Chogyam Trungpa, and "Taming the Tiger" was an allusion to Tibetan meditation practices for quelling the ego's rages. In "Shine," the Buddhist analogue would be Dzogchen, the Great Perfection -- the recognition that everything is just right as it is, even the things that insult the ego and bruise the heart.
We're lucky to be alive on the same dying planet that she is.
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
(4 & 1/2 stars) Joni Mitchell's latest CD is a most welcome return, and worth the wait. This was obviously a very personal work, as she not only wrote and sang the tunes, she also played the majority of the instruments and co-produced! (Two notable exceptions to the one-woman show are Bob Sheppard's adept sax lines and some sweet pedal steel by Greg Leisz.) The songs are classic Joni, sometimes swinging, other times brilliantly introspective, always thought-provoking. Some will almost certainly be added to my list of Joni Mitchell favorites, particularly the marvelous "Bad Dreams." Lyrically, her poetic insights are most timely, with comments on our destruction of the planet, the blindness of elected officials, the climate of hatred and tension which pervades, but also some much more intimate observations. To echo what others have said, as striking as this album has been the first couple of times through, I think it's something I will grow to appreciate even more in the coming years.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By C. Brown
Format:Audio CD
What a great tribute to the ideals we all held so fast to during the 60's! Joni is alive and well...rasphy and sultry she still gets her message across. I enjoyed her new CD "Shine" so much I gave it to all my friends whom I love for Christmas! Pour a glass of wine, push "play" and sit back and enjoy every single delightful poem on this venture. The old girl still has a lot to say!To say it is easy listening would be rude, but easy it is ! Jazzy and earthy, the message of conservation and solutions comes thru loud and clear. And I loved it! So will you !
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revisited
When this cd came out I bought it and listened and that was it. I felt it was too downbeat. Recently I listened again, and, maybe it's the times, maybe it's just me, but this is a... Read more
Published 1 month ago by TDH
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shine Joni, shine!
I was surprised with this CD, which I liked since my first listening. It is good to know that after almost six years from her last work 'Travelogue', she is still in tune and... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ricardo Segawa
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic
This is a great CD. It's like the old days when every single song is good.
If you love Joni, you'll love this CD.
If you love Joni, you'll love this CD.
Published 20 months ago by IK
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Masterpiece
Absolutely brilliant instropective work. Very intellectual, rhythmically mature. Remake of Yellow Taxi brilliant with staccato beats. Read more
Published on July 18, 2010 by RichLucky
1.0 out of 5 stars
Creatively Bankrupt
With each new release Joni's stature in the music arts has been diminished to where
she has become irrelevant. Read more
she has become irrelevant. Read more
Published on March 24, 2010 by atanac
1.0 out of 5 stars
Time to retire
I had heard that this album was Joni Mitchell playing all the instruments and singing... which I figured would be at least interesting--- after all, she used to be good. Read more
Published on February 21, 2009 by J. Klausmeyer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex and rich
Joni Mitchell has made me fall in love with her again. Like all work of genius, this deepens and shines with each listening. Read more
Published on December 9, 2008 by Janet Lorraine
2.0 out of 5 stars
A sad disappointment
As an avid Joni Mitchell fan, I had been waiting with baited breath for this album to come out. In fact, the day before its release, I was up until midnight so I could buy this cd... Read more
Published on November 16, 2008 by D. Schumacher
1.0 out of 5 stars
Enough, Already
The one star rating was involuntary on my part; no stars is, unfortunately in this case, not an option. Read more
Published on November 4, 2008 by Mr. Know-It-All
5.0 out of 5 stars
CONTEMPORARY DHARMA
Joni didn't disappoint with her new cd. The second I heard "Shine" on CBC Radio, I knew wanted to hear more of her newest, long-time awaited, release. Read more
Published on October 22, 2008 by Mohamjip
