Is Joni Mitchell the most influential female musical artist of the late 20th century?

Cafe Society
21

In terms of influence, I’m going to second Carol King if only because she had a career that anyone would envy as a Brill Building songwriter long before Tapestry.

Laura Nyro pretty much invented the confessional ballad.

And Kate Bush has had a longer, more substantial impact on music than anyone since the Beatles. Not just on female singers like Tori Amos, Bjork and Sarah MacLachlan but on performers as wide ranging as Big Boi of Outkast, Tupac, Tricky, KT Tunstull, John Lydon and Coldplay. She also invented the headset performance microphone (hers was built out of a coat hanger) and revolutionized stage performance (Madonna should pay Kate royalties). Everyone who wears a headset and has dancers is pretty much taking their cue from Kate’s one and only tour. She also took over the production of her own records, building her own studio, directing her own videos and being one of the only artists who could disappear for 12 years and manage to re-appear with an album and get universally positive reviews (the only negative review was in Pitchfork - which says more about them than her).

I count someone as “influential” due to their influence on other musicians.

22

And if Mama Cass had shared that sandwich with her…

Is that Annie Haslam on Rasha Kahn?

23

I was twelve years old when Tapestry came out, and very confused. I didn’t know if I wanted her to be my Mother or my big sister. :slight_smile:

24

It’s “Rajah Khan,” and yes, that’s from Prologue, the first album by the Annie Haslam version of Renaissance. (There were two previous Renaissance albums with a completely different lineup.)

25

If Joni Mitchell is in any way responsible for the horror that is Ani Difranco than she should be immediately disqualified from winning any type of award or title.

26

In a word no. Rolling Stone is very biased to people they like and will simply overlook any artist that that particular reviewer thinks is bad, bad for a personal reason.

The two biggest influencial acts since 1955 are Madonna and the Beatles.

But you can easily see the difference.

The Beatles entrance upon the scene CHANGED the rock era. The music of the Beatles changed the direction of music to the Beatles and European sound. This change was not as rapid as we think. Indeed after the inital invasion by the Beatles, Bobby Vinton had the last number one song, before the first number one song by the Beatles and their string of #1 hits was ended by Louis Armstrong’s cover of “Hello Dolly.”

Madonna on the other hand capitalized on changes. She was brilliant because she could spot the direction music was taking before the change took hold and was able to adjust her music to capitalize on that new direction. Her songs didn’t CHANGE the direction of music as much as they just anticipated the new direction and did it better than others.

The “Rock Era” started to wane in the late 80s and was dead by the end of the 90s, though people are loathe to admit it. By 2004 every single #1 song was by an R&B artist. This is clearly a shift in pop music from “the Rock era” to the “R&B-Hip/Hop-Rap Era”

Mitchell was a good songwriter, but her style hasn’t changed. And while she writes well she pretty much does for “message songs” what Dianne Warren does commercially. Basically writing the same song over and over. Mitchell’s songs are all very similar sounding as are Warrens. You can easily see Judy Colliin’s “Both Sides Now,” is a Mitchell written tune. It’s sounds just like it.

“Influence” is too big of a buzz word. Tons of artists say “Bob Dylan” was an influence on them, but how so? He certainly has had limited commerical appeal for a man who gets quoted and referred to as influencial.

It’s hard to be an artist that changes the direction of music consitantly. It’s easier to be one that is able to see changes and adapt. Olivia Newton-John is another female artist that was able to span the entire 70s consistantly because she could adapt her music from “Soft -> Country -> Disc -> Dance.” Her contemporaries Helen Reddy and Karen Carpenter, failed to keep up in the later half of the 70s while her latter contemporaries like Donna Summer didn’t have the indent in the early 70s, while finding their niche in disco. Yet Olivia Newton-John popularized two of the most carried over trends in music, “the breathy style of singing” (from the first part of the 70s) and the “screach” from the latter 70s. (You can see this on her “Come On Over” CD where it’s amazing the strength of her voice, 'cause your used to hearing her all weak and breathless"

Look at Elvis. His influence was really greatest AFTER he died. Before then people wanted to simply copy him to make the money he did. Ironically Elvis (or rather his estate) was much more popular and influencial and made much more money after his death than before it.)

So when you look at influence it’s really subjective and it depends on how you look at it.

27

Remind me which songs Madonna has written, again? And which instruments she plays well? Joni Mitchell could go onstage with just a guitar and piano and perform 2 hours of excellent music, all written by herself. That should carry a vastly greater weight of influence than Madonna, who, when it comes right down to it, is just a really energetic song-and-dance person. She still needs songwriters, a choreographer, a band and backup dancers and singers to put on an effective show.

28

Joni Mitchell is profoundly influential and an amazing songwriter.

Madonna is a performer and very good businesswoman. Mitchell is an artist, in the true sense of the word.

29

Also male ones. I seem to recall the Led Zeppelin guys were in awe of her.

30

Just because you don’t like one of those musicians doesn’t mean Mitchell wasn’t influential. I’m not a huge fan of Ani either but she is an actual singer and musician, she plays the guitar, writes and sings her own songs. Lots of shitty bands were influenced by the Beatles - does that make them not influential? Lots of shitty bands were influenced by The Pixies - does that make them not influential? My point is that Joni Mitchell has influenced MUSIC. Madonna has influenced self-indulgent attention-whoring, on and off stage, which is the only reason anyone even knows who she is. All of her music is trash.

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I didn’t say anything about how influential she was. You did make a great point to whoever you were arguing with though.

32

As was Prince.

Rufus, the fact that Mitchell’s talent should carry more weight of influence than Madonna is beside the point - I could name probably hundreds of artists who should be influential by those standards but never made it past cult status. Not saying it’s a good thing, but talent has little to do with it.

33

I posted this bit earlier while waiting for my wife to finish shopping at Dominick’s. So I couldn’t link to anything (thank you so much for the only computer without cut’n’paste, Steve Jobs). Here is my post again with references:

And Kate Bush has had a longer, more substantial impact on music than anyone since the Beatles. Not just on female singers like Tori Amos, Bjork and Sarah MacLachlan but on performers as wide ranging as Big Boi of Outkast, Tupac, Tricky, KT Tunstull, John Lydon and Coldplay. She also invented the headset performance microphone (hers was built out of a coat hanger) and revolutionized stage performance (Madonna should pay Kate royalties). Everyone who wears a headset and has dancers is pretty much taking their cue from Kate’s one and only tour. She also took over the production of her own records, building her own studio, directing her own videos and being one of the only artists who could disappear for 12 years and manage to re-appear with an album and get universally positive reviews (the only negative review was in Pitchfork - which says more about them than her).

I count someone as “influential” due to their influence on other musicians.

34

Well stated.

I standby my original statements about the Madonna, but don’t feel much passion for the argument because of my deep respect for Mitchell. But this is a really cool discussion - well argued. **gaffa **- nice points about Kate Bush. I don’t think of her as having the crossover, mass-media success that Madonna, or even Mitchell have had, but all your points are strong.

I guess one thing I find frustrating about this thread is the “Ms. Mitchell is an artiste, but Madonna is an entertainer” message. I have to call bullshit on that. Madonna writes great songs - period; end of story. Anything from Borderline up through the stuff I am familiar with on Ray of Light. To be clear: it is *very, very *hard to write a hit song. I know it can feel like a bunch o’ monkeys wrote some of the stuff you hear, but don’t kid yourself: to be a strong, huge commercial presence for 30 freakin’ years, with music and hits being central to that presence? Come on - if you can’t see the art and talent at the heart of that, well, that is more about your biases than the reality of the situation.

I am NOT a big Madonna fan - her stuff comes on and some I listen to and some I flip past. But as musician, her artistry is simply accepted as fact - liking it is a YMMV thing.

As needed, I can geek out about the structure of her melodies and her ability to capture the zeitgeist of today’s music and incorporate it into her sound, or the fact that she picks great collaborators and cutting-edge producers in a way that reflect great musical sense. But again, I shouldn’t have to.

I think **GorillaMan **framed it best when he offered differing definitions of influential:

Madonna is the former and Mitchell is the latter - for now. The question is whether the “sound of current hits” is a 20-year phase that is moved past and filed away or continues to dominate music for much longer…

35

Nobody has mentioned Judy Collins. She brought dozens of songs and songwriters to the public’s eye, and is also a good book writer,.

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You are correct.

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Hogwash. If anything, we’re in the “iTunes Era” where there is no dominant form of music. The Internet has split music fandom into a thousand different niches. Likely forever.

And while #1 singles are overwhlemingly come from the R&B/Rap/Popular genres, album sales are still hugely dominated by rock acts. Take a look sometimes at the Top Singles chart and the Top Ringtones chart. The overlap will make your eyes bug out over the fact that ringtones have so much sway in music. Rock acts have nothing comparable to that and so their singles don’t rate as highly.

Just look at this quote from a Billboard article about Katy Perry (the latest pop-tart in a long line of pop-tarts):

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Interesting related article: What will save rock 'n' roll? - CNN.com

39

She helped carve out the “singer-songwriter” niche, but there were more influential female musicians, like Patsy Cline and Ella Fitzgerald. You need to attach a lot of qualifiers to make Joni Mitchell the “most” anything.

40

Influence does not mean popular, critically acclaimed, or moneymaking. While Madonna is certainly at least two out of the three, she got/gets her fame from following trends, not creating them. Which isn’t to say you cannot be a good musician if you do that, (although I disagree that Madonna is such)*, but you aren’t being influential, you’re being influenced.

In contrast, you can be influential without being huge (reference the obligatory Velvet Underground.) Joni Mitchell falls somewhere in between.

*ETA: a counterexample for me is Panic(!) at the Disco, whose emo offering of A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out contrasts with the more Baroque Beatlesque stylings of Pretty. Odd., both of which are good albums by good musicians, but totally following the musical trends of the times.