I don't get it...Exile on main Street-Blue

krelldog OP

306 posts

04-03-2024 at 07:23pm 

TylerMunns- Go read your DEI manual and crawl back into your miserable life.

he/him
 

thanks @krelldog this cracked me up 😂

Anyone who’s having trouble "getting" Joni Mitchell ought to pick up Lloyd Whitesell’s book "The Music of Joni Mitchell." He analyzes every track in her catalog in terms of specific parameters: melody, lyrics/poetry, harmonic structure, personae, arrangement, album concept, etc. There are three appendices that each consider one of her releases in its entirety as a concept album.

There are other books that analyze Joni’s music, but none I’ve found that are as readable, insightful, engaging (not just a dry, academic musicological analysis), and as much fun to read while listening the recordings themselves.

Highly recommended to anyone with a layperson’s background in music theory, poetry, or pop music in general.

From the Amazon page for the book: "The Music of Joni Mitchell offers a comprehensive survey of her output, with many discussions of individual songs, organized by topic rather than chronology. Individual chapters each explore a different aspect of her craft, such as poetic voice, harmony, melody, and large-scale form. A separate chapter is devoted to the central theme of personal freedom, as expressed through diverse symbolic registers of the journey quest, bohemianism, creative license, and spiritual liberation."

I found that, after reading the book, some of my least-favorite Joni albums, like "Seagull" and "Don Juan", became my favorites. I was amazed by how much depth and sophistication was packed into even her earliest songs, such as "Dawntreader" from the first album.

Exile is awesome in the car !!!   really almost all of my listening to 60's - early 70's is in the car...

On the subject of sexism, it’s no secret that the music industry has been objectifying women since day one. They know their target audience and were brilliant marketeers. As the main character in the movie Rustler’s Rhapsody pointed out "To be the good guy and wear a white hat, you have to be a competent heterosexual." The record companies knew this and produced album covers that were only a couple of dbs down from "whacking material." A mental sidetrack to the album Sticky Fingers come to mind here. I just can’t tell you why.

As we "matured" some of got in serious relationships (or, worse) and had to toss aside our old passions and develop new ones -- out in the open. So, we got to covertly cheat on our wives/partners and have a "date night" with Diana Krall, Allison Kraus, etc. and get up and personal with a beautiful creature while giving the one we’re with just enough ample attention as to not get caught in the act.

But seriously, we conduct performance "mods" on equipment and developed a "reference" playlist for before/after listening sessions. Yes, we have guys "singing along" with masterful guitar work. Then there’s those female voices belting out the blues and others adding a level of sophistication and delicacy to the space.

Many of the threads here have been well-worded responses by the grown ups in the room. I apologize ahead of time for my inner adolescent coming out to play.

@thecarpathian 

Thanks. I have better things to do than to read 70+ posts.

@yyman23 ,

You need to catch up, cousin. Already resolved. Reading more posts may help.

@tylermunn 

Are you serious with the sexism comment? So, I have to like all "basketball" but not just the NBA? I personally like male vocals better than female vocals, it's just what I prefer to listen to. I also like dating women and not dating men. I don't just like "dating." 

@thecarpathian  ...*sigh*

 "You know, as much as they can for being women..."  

Wow....a new spin on 'social suicide' 😏 and just when I thought '..here's a stable one....'  

( ...let's see....*body armor*E*.......*blit* "Jezuz!"...

,,,like modern Samurai...if that's your budget...;)   )

Survivor errr....*L*

I remember first hearing Blue at when it was originally released and being stunned. I'm a cynical professional musician (was then also) and was surprised...the dulcimer...too cool. I still listen to that album. Who cares if somebody doesn't get it? My fave Stones album is Beggar's Banquet, and one of my best friends who has pretty similar tastes doesn't get that album at all...ya never know...

+1 tablejockey Mick Taylor 

Rolling Stone initially sorta panned exile….3 and a half stars maybe.

Then….they saw it for its shredded brilliance and rated it the best of the best at least a few times.

To really appreciate exile please put your pencil down, don’t be a thin man, and just feel it.

After the studio thrills of Sticky Fingers I wanted a follow up in the same vein (whew!), but for the Stones that was yesterday’s news.

i know I’m not alone when I say Soul Survivor may be the Stones’ ultimate song.

Joni & Blue: don’t think, feel it.

Tell you one that rarely gets mentioned and that’s ’A Hard Day’s Night.’

Half ( exaggeration) of their ’Love Songs’ compilation album comes from that with other terrific songs. Always been a mystery to me why 'Things We Said Today' isn't on 'Love Songs'.

Agreed. In a similar vein, I can never understand why revolver is so fawned over when it seems to be a disconnected series of individual Tunes with no cohesion.

Indeed. Something about those two albums resonates more with you than the others. I think the only way I could truly pick a favorite is to cherry pick off of several albums to make my ultimate Beatles album. But of course that's cheating and not the point. If I had to choose (gun to the head and all that), I believe it would be Abbey Road also. Simply wonderful from beginning to end!

@thecarpathian I never had a doubt that for me Let It Be and Abbey Road were out there, ahead of of the rest. And as soon as I got on the George train, Abbey Road had to win all my awards. I think it had to do with the fact that all the other albums were enjoyable, but not more than the sum of its part, whereas... but I am just repeating myself.

"I think critiques don’t want to be mainstream. Why is Sgt. Pepper rated ahead of Abbey Road? I never understood it."

Nary impossible to come up with the definitively best, or who’s ahead of who Beatles album. When your choices are for example, between Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road, both brilliant but not parallel in their style executions, so subjectivity plays a big role in that whole mugwumpery.

Now, throw Revolver, Rubber Soul, The Beatles (White Album) in the mix and you’ll never get a definitive answer. All brilliant in their own right with differing styles, musicianship, song writing maturity, etc...

Personally I don’t think I could pick a favorite.

Why is Sgt. Pepper rated ahead of Abbey Road? I never understood it.

Check with Maxwell Edison on that.

I think critiques don't want to be mainstream. Why is Sgt. Pepper rated ahead of Abbey Road? I never understood it.

Well, as a huge fan of the run spanning Beggar's Banquet through Sticky Fingers, my reaction to Exiles was the same as yours.  I WANTED to like it, I believed it when people so much smarter  than me told me I was SUPPOSED to like it, but I just couldn't break into it.  Over the years, I've owned 3 or 4 copies, all of which I played in depth, and then finally gave up and sold.  There's obviously something there, but other than maybe 2 or 3 tracks, nothing to compare with the accomplishments of the preceding albums.

As Kavi says, to each his own.

I think when seemingly every media outlet lavishes something with effusive praise, I go into it with a certain expectation that causes me to be disappointed sometimes.
In that situation, I feel like my ability to take the thing on it’s own terms is compromised.
I also think time/place and how I’m exposed to something effects how I feel about it. If something is associated with a very negative experience, it’s hard for me to appreciate it.
With these particular LPs, they were released a decade before I was born, so it wasn’t like, “oh, Joni Mitchell and the Rolling Stones have new LPs out.” I just sought them out from the perspective of “these LPs came out 30 years ago,” or whatever. They were obviously not contemporary releases.
In that scenario, I just thought they were both absolutely brilliant.
With Exile on Main Street, not only do the songs seem to attain a unique, hard-to-define kind of soulful, scuzzy majesty (‘Tumbling Dice,’ ‘Torn and Frayed,’ ‘Let it Loose,’ ‘Soul Survivor,’) but there’s real diversity between something like “Rip This Joint” and “Torn and Frayed,” between “I Just Want to See His Face” and “Sweet Virginia,” between “Ventilator Blues” and “Let it Loose,” etc. etc.

Blue is just genius to me.
The combination of highly sophisticated harmonic composition with such intense emotion and poetry is just masterful to me.

I’d love to hear a Taylor Swift covering Joni Mitchell album!

Those two bimbos rock! You know, as much as they can for being women...

I’m not a troll and I don’t like conflict. Opinionated and intense, yes, but not a troll and I don’t like conflict. As such I’ve been thinking about my contributions to this thread quite a bit.
I think I was still “on one” from the previous Taylor Swift thread and would have been well-advised to not drag that energy into this thread, and foist such negativity with the hectoring tone of the first half of my first post on this thread.
For this, I apologize.

I love both LPs in question, and there are plenty of widely-praised things that I either “didn’t get” until relatively late in life (jazz music being a big one - it was mid-30s for me with that) or still “don’t get.” If something doesn’t move you, it doesn’t move you. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s entirely possible that at some point in life, it will.
Side note: the YT vid of Joni on the BBC, a 1970 performance that includes many “new” songs soon to be released on Blue, left me amazed and deeply moved.
One of the great artists in pop history in her prime, captured beautifully by the BBC technical staff.

Wow.. thread gained traction quick!

Exile- best of the Mick Taylor years.

indifferent on Joni's catalogue.

@tylermunns I am sorry I don’t get it. There is nothing to parse here, we might as well talk about race, nationality, age with a praise (e.g. one likes black Spanish female singers in their 50s) there would be nothing sexist, racist, etc. about it - although I understand how it could be twisted. It’s music - we listen to what we like, identifying and labeling what we like is harmless and inevitable. I am all for not hurting anyone’s feelings but when nobody's feeling are hurt/no intention can be found, let’s not read anything into it

I haven't read every post here, but as a 1969 HS graduate, Dylan was the giant of songwriting when Joni came on the scene. Her early, more universal songs (like on Ladies and Clouds) made her a songwriting star.  Then she turned to more confessional songs (like on Blue, For The Roses), which brought in an even wider audience.  The audio quality was excellent on all of these Reprise releases, but the instrumentation on Blue was more varied, the vocals more energetic, and the production had more density, but was never overcrowded.  I rate it and Hejira her best.

Exile never struck me as a top tier Stones album, especially after the desert island trifecta of Beggars, Bleed, and Sticky.  But I've known some big Stones fans who put it in that group.  I jumped on the Stones' train as soon as it left the station, so I also adore ENH (US release of 1st album), Now! and OOOH.

@simao + 1

+1 @simao, ​​​​​@tylermunns brought up female artists, the OP mentioned vocalists.

Tylermunns kept referring to "female artist" when the OP actually said "female vocalist".  There's a huge difference. The latter is an accepted musical category among listeners, and you'll find it on just about all the music Distributors and storefronts. The former is simply a label.

I once took a female singer home to dinner! Wow dei in this discussion is absurd. Do I have to count how many female singers I have in my library or excuse me singers with a high pitched voice . I liked Joni because her personal introspective songs were special not because I identified with them but because I could feel her pain. By the way my favorite album of hers was her live double album specifically the acoustic side.  The lastime I saw richard is special.  As to the stones I liked them but ultimately never bought their albums not sure why. Maybe because all their songs got so much airplay. 

i've always admired blue (as well as joni) from a distance--it's very well done, but except for the ethereal "river" always sounded a bit precious for my philistine tastes. otoh "exile" is fantastic--one of the few classic albums i've never gotten tired of hearing for the 1000th time. i can understand why some would prefer "sticky fingers" or "beggars banquet" (i rate "let it bleed" less highly)--they're less murky and more immediately grabby, but "exile" has real soul

seAsonist, who cannot spell.

@immatthewj you are my hero! 

I love fall, spring makes me sneeze, oh no yep, I'm an admitted sesonist.

"I'm turning 70 this year but can still rock with the best."

Not only that, but you bear an uncanny resemblance to a young David Bowie.

Musicians rating LPs is very much like film critics rating movies?  They often relate to things on a different level than the general public.  Just go to Rotten Tomatoes and see how often the "Critics" will rate a film 90 - 100 and the general public gives the same film a score of 50 or below.  Not being a musician, JM's Blue didn't influence me whereas Musicians......  Just a thought. 

Talking about Tool's Maynard, next Saturday I'm going to see him in Houston for the Sessenta concert. It celebrates his 60th birthday and he will sing with 3 bands, Primus, A Perdect Circle and Puscifer. How great is that! I'm turning 70 this year but can still rock with the best.

Music is an art form. We all like different things which can change over time as well.. As most understand here as well, this also can apply to the sound systems that reproduce the music. 

"Doo you take everything literally?"

@llg98ljk ,

Yes, yes I do.

sparksgja

Excellent points on Blue and Exile.   Happy Listening!

Jeff Tate from queensryche has a great voice. 

The reasons why so many musicians mention these albums? Firstly, that Joni Mitchell’s Blue used many unique guitar tunings and sounds while also being such a highly emotional and autobiographical album. It communicated in a highly sophisticated, musical and lyrical way her breakup from Graham Nash (Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash) with both the music and lyrics working as one to create a very personal yet relatable album that is a complete musical work of art.

With The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street is seen by musicians as covering so many genres of music and incorporating their free spirit approach to making music while acting as the pinnacle of all their earlier albums. Basically it’s now regarded by many musicians as their most musically important hard rock album.

Does this mean that Blue and Exile on Main Street are their best albums? From some aspects yes, but from the general public’s perspective not necessarily so.

I had bought The Exile on Main Street twice, trying to "get it" and failed, except for Shine a Light. To each his/her own. I think the life would be boring if everybody liked exactly the same things. I could be wrong, I have been wrong before.

Agree on both counts. Very few 'seminal' recordings have impressed me on their own. I generally believe it is because of my age (50). Many of these records were out and established by the time I ran into them. The techniques and aesthetics had already been adopted into the language of music, so much so that the initial 'groundbreaking' aspects of the record comes off as trite. At least that's what I tell myself. My wife is more blunt - she just says people just have bad taste.

There are still some that make it: Black Sabbath, Violent Femmes, Radiohead Kid A, Nina Simone's Little Girl Blue, Gang of Four. But most seminal records on my list would be considered unknown - Freeborne's Peak Impressions, Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted, Amon Duul 2 Dance of the Lemmings, Mezz Mezzrow & His Band's Blue Note 10", UT's In Gut's House, Neutral Milk Hotel, Rob Jo Starr Band anybody?

I recently picked up a copy of Television's Marquee Moon. Really trying to appreciate it, but still undecided. My first listen at age 13 - I remember thinking - what a boring record. I guess there are worse problems to have. 

Exile has some great songs on it but it also has a lot of mediocre songs too.  I've always felt it was over rate.  It has twice the number of songs as Sticky Fingers but only an equal number of great songs.

I agree with OP. Especially his Stones albums. I would add For the Roses to JM’s best other than Blue. @jmalen123 ​​​​​ makes sense to me. I know many professional musicians. Some have just a boom box for CDs. A few have good systems. But most, like book writers, take away from a work what they feel they can be inspired by or use. It’s not about production to them, or the tunes, or the execution, when it comes to recorded music. It’s about risk sometimes and pulling it off. I think a lot of this acclaim for those 2 records goes back to the initial deep think pieces when they came out. They were risky. Blue to many reviewers touched on a more mature, relationship based theme, with other musicians no less, as opposed to toe-tapping, something the press loved. Exile was followed in the press as it was being made and there was a lot of talk about emulating American roots sounds and so on. Something the Dead and Burritos and others were trying to do but this was The Stones. Both records take risks in not being immediately accessible. They have moods instead.

I will attempt to answer the initial question. Artists, especially extremely talented writers like Maynard are listening from an advantage most of us can only dream of. He is hearing structure, timing, syncopation and other musical traits most of us just hear as harmony or beat. I grew up in a family of talented musicians and know firsthand what odd musical tastes some have. Sometimes I think they don't hear what I hear, but I can appreciate it anyways.

Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Eva Cassidy or Jennifer Warnes have the ability to tug at my soul far more than any male vocalists.

@llg98ljk , those are some of my favorites. I just recently got an old copy of Emmylou Live At The Ryman for her cover of Steve Earle’s Guitar Town, and I love the entire CD.

IMO,music/musicians considered "excellent"by so called experts is often ear grating horror to my ears.Case in point,all the critical acclaim for Patricia Barber or Diana Krall,BOTH who I consider tone deaf & flat compared to a vocalist like Melody Gardot or Madeleine Peyroux.

No accounting for taste, @freediver . Actually, however, I used to like Some Girls myself. I’ve never been a real big fan of The Rolling Stones, but I did like Tatoo You an awful lot when it came out. I still like "Waiting For a Friend" but I no longer own a TT and LPs, and the CD I have just doesn’t make it sound as good as I remember it sounding.

And in terms of the stupid back and forth happening on this thread, how about ignoring a comment made that’s not directly answering the OPs post? You’re no bigger responding to an unrelated comment with an unrelated answer, you’re contributing to the devolvement of this forum. a football coach I had once told me, “if its stupid enough to make you angry it’s smartest to ignore.”

@sammyshaps  , so you felt the need to comment and not ignore?

IMO,music/musicians considered "excellent"by so called experts is often ear grating horror to my ears.Case in point,all the critical acclaim for Patricia Barber or Diana Krall,BOTH who I consider tone deaf & flat compared to a vocalist like Melody Gardot or Madeleine Peyroux.
By the by,my absolute fav.Stones is Some Girls so go figure.