Word: juan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Although the instrumentation succeeds in Mitchell's newer, freer style, many of the songs on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter do not. The general rule in any style of musical composition seems to be that the less apparent the structure of a work, the more underlying framework and discipline it requires if it is to be interesting, or even approachable. Admittedly, this rule is not universal. But in Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, like Hejira before it, Mitchell is reckless. The album lacks discipline, and suffers...
...Joni of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, however, rarely steps outside herself. When she writes about her emotions, she fails to place them in any sort of perspective, or to fill in a persona around them. Thus, many of the new songs are portraits--not of a neurotic person--but of a neurosis. And Joni Mitchell's neuroses are not zany-funny, common, or even unique. In fact, they are not even all that interesting. Her songs are like a certain kind of friend--a friend of whom you are genuinely fond--but a friend who is forever wrapped...
...Juan's Reckless Daughter is more than a series of uncontrolled, desperate self-portraits. Mitchell does impose some structure on the album, so that it forms a more or less cohesive whole. She is forever the wayfaring stranger of "The Silky Veils of Ardor," moving on, searching for something intangible. She longs to make life click joyously into place. She sees through other people's unsuccessful efforts to "get through this passion play." In "Otis and Marlena," for example, Mitchell depicts a couple visiting Miami Beach, down from somewhere in the north...
Throughout her career, Mitchell has blurred all the ways of enjoying life--love, lust, escape, delight--into the word "dreaming." In the title cut from Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mitchell is still looking around, still trying to lose herself in dreams, in Hell. The song has a dark feel to it, almost predatory, with a driving beat punctuated by sinister, percussive bass notes. Mitchell sings that the serpent in her cannot be denied. But neither can the antithetical pull for clarity and simplicity, for the innocent child within...
...clear that the road Mitchell is traveling leads to home. In fact, for all the analytical self-portraits Mitchell paints, it is not clear where she is going. Too many of the songs on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter lack clarity and perspective, and too many simply fail to be interesting. Not all of the songs fail, however, and the musicianship is consistently creative and imaginative. The end product is a creditable, if somewhat unsatisfying, effort...