Music Listening Session #5 – Joni Mitchell’s Blue (1971)

Blue is the fourth studio album by the Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released in 1971. Written and produced by Mitchell, Blue explores various facets of relationships such as love, heartbreak, and self-discovery with extraordinary emotional candor and features spare accompaniments on piano, guitar and dulcimer. Retrospectively, Blue has been widely regarded by music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time; Mitchell's compositions, poetic lyrics, and vocals are frequent areas of praise. In 2020, Blue was rated the 3rd greatest album of all time in Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", the highest entry by a female artist. In 2017, Blue was chosen by NPR as the greatest album of all time made by a woman. In 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented "turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music". (Wikipedia)

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New-ish series! Join the Toronto Philosophy Meetup to listen to and discuss some of the greatest and most important albums of all time across different genres and eras. After each track we'll pause for a short discussion where we can share our thoughts and reflections or what the music has meant to us personally. We've had a great time discussing 4 albums so far.

I'll have lyrics up on Zoom's screen share.

For our 5th session let's listen to Joni Mitchell's masterpiece Blue, the ideal December album. I'm still blown away by this record every time I listen to it.

Albums we've previously discussed:

1. Nirvana's Nevermind (1991)
2. Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (1982)
3. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush (1970)
4. Radiohead’s OK Computer (1997)

We'll be joined by many other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/312261362/

Check out other music, film, and poetry discussions in the group every Sunday and occasionally other days.

Potential future listening sessions:

• The Beach Boys
• Massive Attack
• Bob Dylan
• Pavement
• Wilco
• The Beatles
• David Bowie
• Sonic Youth
• Kraftwerk
• The Velvet Underground
• Patti Smith
• Prince
• Marvin Gaye
• Lauryn Hill
• Aphex Twin
• The Pixies
• Sex Pistols
• The Clash
• The Smiths
• Joy Division
• Primal Scream
• DJ Shadow
• Public Enemy
• Aretha Franklin
• Talking Heads
• Fleetwood Mac
• Arcade Fire
• Kendrick Lamar
• The Streets
• The Strokes
• Built To Spill
• Bjork
• Nine Inch Nails
• Sufjan Stevens
• ETC...