Joni Mitchell - Dog Eat Dog - is it time for a re-appraisal of this fine album ?

Impossible Dreamer is a minor classic

 

I was a big Joni fan up through "Hejira". "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter" left me cold, however, I enjoyed "Mingus" quite a bit, maybe because I too am a Mingus fan. After that Joni & I parted company. She seemed to have lost her "MoJo".

 

Might be time for a reunion. While her '80s output isn't as uniformly stellar as that run from '68-'79, there are some beautiful tracks underneath the synths. Her '90s records--especially Night Ride Home and Turbulent Indigo--are beautiful, too, sort of a "return to form" or as close to a return as you could expect from a trailblazer like Joni. Both Sides Now the album may not be essential listening, but I love what she did with the old standards and the perspective she gave on her re-makes of "Case of You" and "Both Sides Now".

 

Forty years later I'm also still undecided on Don Juan, but hasn't stopped me listening to it on a fairly frequent basis....

 

Dog Eat Dog is pretty forgettable. Hey, she's human. Even a genius artist like her is entitled to at least one stinker. The good news is even a second-rate Joni Mitchell album is still pretty damn good.

 

Dog eat Dog came out October 1985. The music scene at the time was strongly synthetic ... in that Terry Wogan video posted earlier she was dressed a bit like Blondie. A long way off from the admirable younger lady who recorded Blue.

The stars and her peers of the lates 60's were unrecognisable ... Dylan's next release was Knocked out loaded, Neil Young had previously released Everybody's Rockin', and was about to dump on us Old Ways and then Landing On Water. Graham Nash would release in'86 the appalling Innocent Eyes. Crosby was in drug freefall. And most of my eighties albums have long gone to second hand shops.

This is why I'm surprised I've come back to appreciate this album....

 

That is exactly how i feel. Like the original poster you replied to, i am not so keen on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, but along with you, I really like Night Ride Home and Turbulent Indigo, and would wholeheartedly recommend them to any Joni fan. Both Sides Now is a real favourite too and her re-makes of 'Case Of You' and the title track are remarkable. I was really excited after this album and particularly those 2 songs, when it was announced she was releasing a double cd of her originals redone in the same style, but for some reason it fell completely flat for me. I have never been able to get into 'Travelogue' at all. Strange choice of material coupled with lacklustre arrangements and performances make it a real let down and a head scratcher after 'Both Sides Now' worked so well. It seems to be of a piece with her final 2 albums of original material, 'Taming The Tiger' and 'Shine', which are, imo, similarly tepid and rather bland in terms of songwriting, production, arrangements and performances (though Taming... has a lovely cover painting). Now that she is unlikely to ever record again it seems churlish to say this and dismiss 3 albums, but i sort of wish she had bowed out with the really strong duo of 'Turbulent Indigo' and 'Both Sides Now' which would have been a fitting end to a great career.

 

Old Ways is quite good, but the others you mention are indeed dire. Nash's late 70's album Earth And Sky is an excellent underrated record that came out at the wrong time when their star was waning but Innocent Eyes is dreadful. Stills had a really bad 80's, i think it was like Scarface minus the guns (although he seems to like them too from what i have read) and the music was a distant 2nd. After Crosby came back from rock bottom in the mid 80's, his come back album Oh Yes I Can is surprisingly good. A while back, I was going to trade that in second hand like you have done with a lot of the albums from that era from these folk and gave it another listen to check and was surprised to find out how decent it is. No classic but well worth hearing. Unfortunately all the CSN and CSNY ones from the 80's and into the 90's are pretty much useless. I wish Neil had walked out on American Dream when Stills turned up a raving basehead pulling out guns and waving them around, but he made a promise to Croz he'd make an album if he cleaned up. That video online of Nash chewing out a coked up Stills in rehearsals from around that time is excruciating. 'Looking Forward' is poor too. Wish Neil hadn't bothered and had kept his songs for Silver And Gold. Crosby/Nash made a much better album and now CSN has finally been killed by Croz's big mouth it has freed him from artisitically debilitating cash cow CSN tours every year to make 3 great albums in a row and find his artistic muse again.

Joni seemed to be the only one to make some good albums in the 80's into the 90's alongside Neil who despite the Geffen years seems to have managed some great work on and off then with a couple of real classics in Ragged Glory and Harvest Moon.

 

Here is a stripped down version of "Good Friends", just Joni and piano.

 

Just gave this a listen after dismissing it out of hand in the 80s. It's pretty damned good. I'll put up with drum machines to listen to Joni's voice and songs. In fact I prefer this one to the lackluster Wild Things, and over produced Chalk Mark...

 

Picked up a Japan for U.S. copy with smooth sided case at Goodwill yesterday not thinking much of it and I ended up really liking it. I've got 4 or 5 other albums of hers and quite honestly I like this one as an album more than the others. Love her hits of course, but I like her style of singing on this much more than most of her 70's work. The 80's production actually works for me since I have a soft spot for that, and my copy actually has some fullness to it.

 

No complaints here about the Geffen years. (The Nonesuch years, OTOH...)

 

Nonesuch is just Travelogue...

 

Horrible production that was already dated by the time it came out didnt do Joni's songs any favours but for me the biggest drop in quality from her 70s work are the lyrics - they used to be sublime but on WTRF and DED they are clunky and obvious. Both albums feel like they are trying to catch the wave, but in the 70s Joni was making the waves and everyone else was trying to catch up.

 

I only picked up WTRF years after, and it remains my least favorite Geffen. Love DED. "Guest artist Billy Idol" should be blasphemy writ large, but I find "Dancin' Clown" from Chalk Mark irresistible.

 

You know, SO MANY THINGS went wrong with my fasvorites 1985-1986: X, the Ramoes, the Stones, Talking Heads. She seemed (to me) to avoid an unmentionable nadir like other giants. Maybe I was too glad to have Joni making albums again, I dunno.

 

Ah, I see from Wikipedia that "Turbulent Indigo" was still Reprise. Never a big fan of it. I thought Nonesuch started then.

 

I have Joni's first nine albums on vinyl but my collection stops with Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. I've always thought that was all the Joni I needed — but maybe I'm missing out?

 

You need this new Archives set.

 

I welcomed it at the time, feeling glad she was still willing to experiment, having passed through the folk and jazz phases.

I still love it. The 3 Great Stimulants is worth the price of admission alone, but there are other great songs there too.

 

I love my Japan for USA CD of Dog Eat Dog .

 

And you need „Shadows and Light“ and „Night Ride Home“

 

Chalk Marks, Dog Eat Dog, and especially Night Ride are all worthy

 

I love Dog Eat Dog. It's my 2nd favourite 80s Joni album after Chalk Mark but I will admit that punch-for-punch DED is the stronger record. I just have a nostalgia for Chalk Mark.

I even re-bought a Geffen pressing last month, as I stupidly let mine go when I bought the Geffen Recordings box. And, despite the Archives set arriving the next day, I played DED again first!

The production is amazing. Joni's lyrics are her sharpest. The whole thing is glorious.

EG.

 

I want "Night Ride Home" on vinyl. Maybe when the Archive set gets that far it'll happen.