While it's unusual to highlight sleevenotes, Joni's own to this four-disc box are remarkable: she slams the record company for burying this uncommercial work, and disses individual tracks.
She confesses to recording with Don Henley, then replacing him with Lionel Richie, who happened to be across the hall. As sleevenotes go, they're more dramatic than most novels.
Pity we can't say the same about the music:not her most productive era. Wild Things Run Fast (1982) is pretty, and the "Chinese Café/Unchained Melody" segue is lovely, but '85's Dog Eat Dog is drowned in booming Duran-ish drums. Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm (1989) has moments, especially "My Secret Place" with Peter Gabriel, while '91's Night Ride Home is musically drab if (of course) lyrically superb. There are three unreleased demos (including one of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"). She couldn't find a vital voice in a decade she admits she loathed.
Still, if the whole hesitates, multiple lines glow with poetic precision. A collection worth reading.
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She confesses to recording with Don Henley, then replacing him with Lionel Richie, who happened to be across the hall. As sleevenotes go, they're more dramatic than most novels.
Pity we can't say the same about the music:not her most productive era. Wild Things Run Fast (1982) is pretty, and the "Chinese Café/Unchained Melody" segue is lovely, but '85's Dog Eat Dog is drowned in booming Duran-ish drums. Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm (1989) has moments, especially "My Secret Place" with Peter Gabriel, while '91's Night Ride Home is musically drab if (of course) lyrically superb. There are three unreleased demos (including one of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"). She couldn't find a vital voice in a decade she admits she loathed.
Still, if the whole hesitates, multiple lines glow with poetic precision. A collection worth reading.
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