Word: joni
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Lynne B. Layton, assistant clinical professor of psychology, remembers writing a paper on folk singer Joni Mitchell for a graduate class on Marxist aesthetics...
...three years between their debut album Reading, Writing & Arithmetic (1989) and their sophomore release Blind (1992), the Sundays must have been compared with every rock and roll act from Joni Mitchell to The Cure. Music critics praised the quartet's lyrical "atmosphere," paralleling it with the Cocteau Twins' vocal texture, 10,000 Maniacs' ethereal instrumentation and The Smiths' all-around indie dynamism. When The Sundays accompanied Belly on their 1990-91 tour of the UK, the two female vocalists naturally became the focus of similar scrutiny: whereas Belly's frontwoman Tanya Donelly balanced her more direct and powerful voice against...
...fall, I happened upon Erykah Badu's debut video "On and On." Coming on late in Black Entertainment Television's "Planet Groove"--after an hour and half of rejects from the Mary J. Blige school of intonation and generic girl groups whose lyrics made the Spice Girls seem like Joni Mitchell--"On & On" was unlike anything I had seen or heard in awhile. A pastel-infused riff inspired by The Color Purple, I fell in love with the song's sweet sass, thoughtful hip-hop jazz-poetry. In the year of 'Lil Kim, Erykah was a refreshing surprise, reminiscent...
...upbeat, pop-oriented grace. On the title track, Davis coasts into a relaxed jazz-jam mode. And then on Turtle, her voice arches above the chorus, R.-and-B. diva-like, aching with emotion. Davis will no doubt draw comparisons to acts from various genres--you can hear Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and even Stevie Wonder churning inside her songs. But like most true talents, she eludes direct matches. The gentle waves of her music beat against the shore, recede and then wash back again...
...same time, though, Lord promises fewer and fewer covers in the future: she's tiring of her original influences, including Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. "All songwriters start out as fans," she says. "They do all covers, then they get bored playing the same songs over and over again, and start thinking, 'Maybe I'll write my own.' It's like looking back at a relationship, like a part of growing up." At this stage in her career, Lord's ready to come into her own; see admits she's "rest-less for [my] own niche...