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Joni Mitchell has long been a monument to her own ego--a great
talent grown so overimpressed with herself that she couldn't tell
the difference between her golden history and her leaden present.
So maybe the idea of her album of standards makes you cringe--especially
since she named it Both Sides Now (Reprise), after a
great song she wrote herself. But for once her infatuation with her
own voice serves her well. Backed by a full orchestra with cameos
by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Mark Isham, her deep,
nicotine-cured contralto sounds positively lustrous on pop classics
sequenced to delineate (ta-da) "the arc of a modern romantic
relationship." She swings, she phrases, she bends, she ornaments,
beating the pants off similar efforts by Linda Ronstadt and Sinead
O'Connor, if not Willie Nelson. And if she believes Both Sides Now
and A Case of You hold up next to You've Changed and Stormy
Weather, well, she's right.
With all the action it had to happen--adolescents who not just
write songs (like Grammy-winning Christina Aguilera, or 'N Sync's
JC Chasez), but have the knack. The winners are Norwegian lasses
Marion Raven and Marit Larsen of M2M. It's not clear whether
they'll storm the U.S. marketplace. But if you want a view of not
quite sexualized females that doesn't pander to sexualized males,
try the impossibly vulnerable Don't Say You Love Me and Girl of
Your Dreams on Shades of Purple (Atlantic).
With The Rockafeller Skank and then Praise You everywhere
including Kodak and Nike ads, English DJ Fatboy Slim is getting his props.
But his most irresistible album isn't "his own" music--it's the mix
tape On the Floor at the Boutique (Astralwerks), which climaxes
with Rockafeller Skank from a start provided by the Incredible
Bongo Band and Fred Wesley's Horny Horns.
Playboy, Apr. 2000
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