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| Shine | 
 enlarge | Artist: Joni Mitchell
Label: HEAR MUSIC
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy Used: $3.03
You Save: $15.95 (84%)
New (70) Used (48) from $3.03
Avg. Customer Rating:  128 reviews
Sales Rank: 2289
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 30457
UPC: 888072304574
EAN: 0888072304574
ASIN: B000UR366S
Release Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Complete with original case, disc(s), and artwork. In stock and ships right now. 10% chance the case has small spider cracks in it.
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| Tracks:
| • | One Week Last Summer | | • | This Place | | • | If I Had a Heart | | • | Hana | | • | Bad Dreams | | • | Big Yellow Taxi (2007) | | • | Night of the Iguana | | • | Strong and Wrong | | • | Shine | | • | If |
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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
Amazon.com
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. Joni Mitchell Photos (by James O'Mara) More from Joni Mitchell 
Blue | 
Court and Spark | 
Hits |
Ladies of the Canyon | 
Hejira | 
Clouds |
Album 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 123 more reviews...
 Joni's autumnal masterpiece, and another musical step ahead September 25, 2007
140 out of 156 found this review helpful
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.
My initial thoughts on the new Joni Mitchell album September 25, 2007
102 out of 147 found this review helpful
Initially I said I wasn't going to review this album right away. I said that Joni's albums have to live with you for awhile before you really get them. I will stand by that statement. However, on the other hand it's not every day you can write a piece about your initial reactions to a Joni Mitchell album. Since I'm given this rare opportunity, I'm going to steal the moment.
Usually when new albums come out I go to my 24 hour WalMart late late Monday night and get it off of the truck right out of the box. For the new Joni album, I wanted to wake up on a sunny morning, go out to lunch with my friend, and buy the album in the daylight. Since Starbucks was the catalyst for the new album, I wanted to buy the album right from the source. There is a 24 hour Starbucks in Tampa that may have sold me the album last night. From what I've read about SHINE before listening to it, this is an album about awakenings and a search for brightness in a dim time. So I stood by my choice to have the first time I heard these songs be with the sun shining on me.
My second initial plan was to keep the album wrapped and bring it home with me. Open it up in my fabulous bedroom and lay on my bed, read along with the lyrics, and listen. Upon awakening, I realized that I wanted to experience this album out in the world. Moving. In motion. In my car. So I ate lunch with my friend, the first Starbucks had no copies of the album (maybe the sold out!) but on the second try, I walked in and saw a bin full of...the new Joni Mitchell album!
I got to my car and went to a deserted parking lot. I love tearing the cellophane off of a CD and seeing what's inside. Initially, I love the cover for this album. Although I do enjoy thematic cohesiveness within a discography, at times a repetitive pattern can get stale. I am glad Joni choose to try something different than the "picture in a frame" presentation she's used quite often for the last 13 years for her cover art.
My first impression of the album was that there was no photo of Joni to be found. I found this to be telling and symbolic without even hearing the music. At times I've found Joni to be (albeit very lovingly!!!!) egotistical, and it says something about her evolution as a writer and artist that she's chosen to represent these songs visually with some haunting pictures drawn from the ballet inspired by her music.
I put the CD in my car stereo and let her rip. When I really thought about it...I realized how neat it was Joni opened this album with an instrumental. This is a first in the Joni discography, and the piece is gorgeous. This song was reportedly the song that reignited Joni's musical muse. You can hear the magic in the piano playing. Sometimes throughout the more recent years I've found Joni's piano playing to be a bit stale...she often employed the same similar rolling pattern with her left hand...(for musical geeks the 1st, 6th, 1st). What a pleasure to hear in this first instrumental, her most inventive and varied piano playing since at least Don Juan's Reckless Daughter.
When Joni's voice came in on the second cut I was moved to tears. It was good to hear the voice again. Singing her own words. I wonder what that voice had to teach me this time. I wonder what thoughts this album would leave me with?
And song after song unfolded. By the fourth cut, the inventive "Hana" Joni was entering new territory and pushing her sound like she hadn't in years. It bought a big smile to my face. In fact, throughout this album you will hear Joni playing her guitar and piano in ways we have no heard her play it on any previous release. Isn't that wonderful, considering this is her 16th album of original songwriting? Many times on this album I was reminded of "Paprika Plains" from DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER. I do wonder if Joni drew inspiration from that track when it was revisited and remixed for a compilation last year. Many of Joni's piano pieces on this album have a similar classical feel.
The new version of "Big Yellow Taxi" was an immediate winner in my book. The acoustic guitar shuffle was unlike anything we've heard from Joni, and it's not often a singer can reinvent one of their own songs this successfully. Cyndi Lauper failed with her acoustic re-castings of her old catalog. Mitchell herself tried to reinvent her back catalog with orchestral versions. That project was hit and miss at best. This time around, "Big Yellow Taxi 2007" has the eagerness and freshness of a brand new cut. And the accordion stabs were intentionally funny and refreshing on a such a ponderous album.
When initially reading this album I worried that it would be preachy. But listening to it, it is not. This album only stands as authentication that when Joni wrote her environmentally conscious music in the early 1970s, she really believed in what she was writing. Her love for mother earth is unfailing and constant. Through the years many of us (including myself) have fallen victim to the numbing society...the allure of living in the moment...the endless search for instant pleasures. This album is a dark blue wake up call to start thinking, challenging, and moving mentally forward.
Upon the second listening of the album, the messages were even stronger. This is perhaps the most intelligent album to be released in a long time. Quite often, it seems today's music is written and produced by and for people early in their journey of intellectual evolution. As I have grown up, and continued to try to challenge myself and think outside of the box...finding music that is still lyrically challenging and eye opening is a struggle. But I am thankful Joni is writing from her older-wiser-and unfaltering perspective. I relish her explorations of the human psyche on this album. I relish her acknowledgement that people searching for true mental health and simplicity in this crazy world are pioneers.
Listening to this album twice made me consider moderation. In these days I feel our culture desperately needs to acknowledge the need for moderation. For a few years I got so angry how people just wanted to have fun fun fun all the time mindlessly without consideration of consequence. And in those years I was a grouch and a loner. I do think there's a middle line. People should have fun, people should dance. But SHINE is a reminder how important it is to think, share, talk, and most importantly to just CARE.
"If", the closing track on the album, is deeply profound and excitingly stimulating. After years and years of feeling lost as a person without guidance...I am a person who isn't sold on organized religion...a person who tried but couldn't buy into the mantras and catch-phrases of the 12-step-program world...but still I try to be well in this world. This song is a nice guideline to live by and it gives me a state of existence to strive for.
Now, that I've written my initial thoughts...I am going to live with this album for awhile. Hope everyone is well...may all your little lights shine...
 sorry joni.......its weak, there is not much shine here. September 25, 2007
35 out of 91 found this review helpful
sorry fans,its just not that good. bad art work, the why bother big yellow taxi 2007.....it is sad when a great artist like joni has lost her spark for great music. there are a few ok songs, but nothing to write home about. maybe next time joni, just you , a piano and guitar. also, try a new producer and do a jonny cash thing. sorry, i love you. but i miss your great writing.
Elegant and insightful September 25, 2007
33 out of 39 found this review helpful
(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.
Kill the little kids - save the condors... September 27, 2007
30 out of 68 found this review helpful
Too many people in the world but not enough whales...OK...Does no one notice the single-celled, narrow-minded tomfoolery, the borderline ridiculous nefariousness in half of the record's lyrics? Not to mention that one would expect much more in the way of harmonic development from an artist of this magnitude. It's propaganda of a very primal sort - one would hope that as an artist matures, they would create gradually ascending levels of aesthetic. You find the opposite here...And also a viscious attempt at undermining certain enigmas without the necessary understanding. I don't know, having had much respect for Mitchell in the past, maybe I just wanted it to be good! You will not find any one tune even remotely touching and heartbreaking as was "A Case of You" or "Both Sides Now."
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