Joni Mitchell (1994)

This being my 19th entry, you may or may not have noticed a complete lack of female artists. In fact, the only significant female contributors to the 18 preceding artists (not including Jon Anderson) are the aforementioned Emmylou Harris, Jayhawks' keyboard players Karen Grotberg and Jen Gunderman, and various women who've recorded alongside Neil Young, including Harris.

I'm not sure why this is. For whatever reason, I've always been partial to male performers. Despite this, there have been occasions that I've been totally captivated by female vocalists, and Joni Mitchell was perhaps the first of these. A year or so prior to this, I was completely enthralled with Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes and Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, but the successors to both of these albums were slightly disappointing, as both artists eventually proved to not have much staying power.

Around this time, Jen made me a mixed tape, one side of which entirely consisted of Joni Mitchell songs. I just dug this tape out this afternoon. On it she wrote, "Hope I didn't spoil the Joni by overdoing it", this despite the fact that I'm sure I made her at least two or three mixes entirely made up of Neil Young songs. Blue and Court and Spark would quickly become my favorite Joni albums, although "You Turn Me On I'm a Radio", with its classic line, "You don't like weak women you get bored so quick, and you don't like strong women 'cause they're hip to your tricks", still remains one of my favorite songs.

Prior to meeting Sara a few years ago, Jen is the only woman who had ever had an influence on my musical taste, other than my sister, of course. The significance of this is that none of my girlfriends have ever really made an impact on what I've listened to. I'm not sure what to make of this either...is it that women I've been with simply haven't been passionate enough about it to influence my musical taste, or that I generally seem to get involved with women with bad taste in music? Hmmm...maybe a little of both.

1994 was also a year in which a certain major void became a permanent part of my life. I don't know if there's a connection between this and a sudden interest in female artists or not. I would tend to think it's just a coincidence, but one that I feel like pointing out nonetheless.