Said Lurker21, in the comments to this morning's post about Joe Rogan, which included appreciation of Joe's line, "I love Joni Mitchell, I love her music, 'Chuck E.'s in Love' is a great song" ("Chuck E.'s in Love" being a Rickie Lee Jones song).
Since we're talking about Spotify, I'd just like to say that on Spotify, anybody's music is a genre of its own. You search the artist's name and, from among the results, choose the icon with the artist's name followed by radio. Thus, for Joni Mitchell, I find "Joni Mitchell Radio" — with varied artists along with Joni:
It works, as I say, with any artist. Just to pick someone I like who was obscure to me until recently:
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That's the entire Pandora model. Definitely a great way to be exposed to new artists. But if you listen to one station too long without thumbs upping or downing anything the algorithms can send you off the rails.
I always thought "Chuck E's In Love" was in the Tom Waits genre.
I put her in English, Canadian, white female, singer/songwriter... not even a long shot to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
#UnexpectedAmericanPolitics
Does Spotify have Tiffany Eckhardt? In particular from "Looking for Signs" the song "Talk about Love." It's a classical barcarolle in form. Fromt he same album "Love" is nice too.
I have an autographed album, which seems to say All the best Tiffany XX, which I gather anybody who sent her the money for the CD got in return.
Her first album Girl Guitar (very rare) had a nice song "Boyfriend." Recorded in a laundromat for the acoustics.
Her own genre pretty much all around.
Most famous for the Toyota Corolla (Looking for Signs album) and Think about You (From Nino's Cafe, the next album).
I just read this on Substack - the premise is '70s Joni (who knows what's going on because "she reads") is explaining to 70s Neal what 2022 Neal has done.
Joni: In 2022 you want this guy — Joe Rogan — dropped from Spotify. “It’s him or me,” you said. “You can’t have both.” Now look man, this Rogan - he’s basically a stoner dude who shoots the shit with people on his show. It’s wildly popular. Hundreds of millions of people listen to him.
The next line is why I put in this comment, and it agrees with what the Rogan post from earlier today had to say. It's just the way it is said. I laughed so hard my teeth almost came out. Just go. The whole thing is brilliant.
https://sashastone.substack.com/p/70s-neil-young-and-joni-mitchell
Other interesting Australian folk singers, Cyndi Boste, Penelope Swales, their own genres too.
I look at life from one side now.
I’m tickled that there’s “John Jacob Niles Radio” on Spotify.
Next: "Roscoe Holcomb Tik Tok."
The idea of making a radio station based off an artist or a song goes back at least to the early days of Pandora. It was one of their selling points. It can be an interesting way to identify new bands and songs that you like, but it can also get horribly repetitive as all the songs sound the same.
There's also the matter that some artists are terrible for this sort of thing. For instance, The Kinks have changed their music style so often through the years that the automated playlist is either going be all over the place or focused on a particular era so it no longer sounds like The Kinks. Then again, the The Kinks do not sound like The Kinks. On the opposite extreme is Primus, a very unique band that play a style of music so technical that most artists could not do it even if they wanted to. When I plugged that into Pandora, all the songs were either by Primus or members of Primus. They were pretty much a genre unto themselves.
@PM, for the win!
Works the same on YouTube and Amazon Music apps. It is just the "AI" routine that looks at the artist, looks at people who listen to the artist, and the provides you a list of the top songs listened to by those people as a suggestion of a "genre". No comparisons to style or tempo are made, just listening habits. And the information that created the list is the stuff people worry when they talk about internet privacy. Personally, I've found these routines to be about 20% successful in suggesting something I mildly enjoyed.
I have my own music server at home, with about 2.4 TB of content. I have a daily script that generates a pseudo-random playlist for me based on my favorites (60%) as well as pure random songs (30%), and anything classical (10%).
I've "discovered" a number of different songs/bands this way. And if the playlist gets a little weird, I can be confident that it'll return back to bands I like.
Pandora/Spotify could do this kind of thing too, if they wanted to. But it's easier to have fewer genres, lumping all bands into conveniently labelled boxes, rather than presenting "truly random" content.
It's pointed out right now that Chrissie Hynde had no problem with Rush using My CIty Was Gone as his theme, even though she's a leftist.
The Negro work song was the best. Like the Byrds "turn turn" too. Puff the magic dragon. Lots of chick stuff though.
Tiffany Eckhardt is, indeed, on Spotify. I think her largest download is < 20,000.
Joni's genre is pop-hippie.
She was a good singer and a looker in her time.
But every dog has its day, and hers is not now...
Dave Van Ronk- Both Sides Now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMhBdIu8gaI
This was the solo version on youtube. Somewhat liked this version, except it went on too long and he sang too slow. I speeded it up to 1.25 at times, and enjoyed it more.
VONCKEN does it well too.
Tiffany Eckhardt is pretty much all Australian - lives in Tasmania now, moved from Victoria. It's just a question whetner America discovers her, how the downloads go.
She's the kind of person who, if you sent her cash money, sends you the album even with overseas postage.
To flesh-out PM's brilliant twist @ 11:45:
I look at life from one side now,
From the far-off left, but anyhow,
It's all illusions if I recall,
I really don't know shiiiiiiiiiiiit
at all
It Is good to hear of the different music listened to on this Blog. As Andrea said "More More More!"
"But every dog has its day, and hers is not now..."
Hopefully, she doesn't fly experimental amateur aircraft.
A good looking babe in her day with one, repeat one, hit song. Goodbye Joni.
"Whiskeybum said...
To flesh-out PM's brilliant twist @ 11:45:
I look at life from one side now,"
I look at life from the far side now.
Best cover, in fact only cover of a Joni Mitchell song I know of that's as good as Joni's own take, this is Ana Moura's v. of "A Case of You" : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPh9jp9CR9k
Don't know about Spotify, never used them. But Pandora is about 98% with me. I created one station, based on the Highwaymen, and then just hit the thumbs up button while listening on and off over the years, and they play about 49 out of 50 songs that I really like. Never had a need to create another station, the one I have plays songs across all genres, and I swear it is uncanny how well they predict what I will like.
"A good looking babe in her day with one, repeat one, hit song."
Oh, come on. "Big Yellow Taxi," "Help Me," and "Free Man in Paris" were all hits. ("Both Sides Now" was a hit, but for someone else.)
"It's pointed out right now that Chrissie Hynde had no problem with Rush using My CIty Was Gone as his theme, even though she's a leftist."
I heard that Chrissie Hynde's father was a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. So she agreed to licensed her song My City Was Gone to Rush's show so her Dad could hear it everyday.
I was going to make a snarky, low-quality comment, but "Have a Little Faith in Me" is one of my all-time favorites, so I will just say that.
It seemed to me that Joni's world is dead and gone. You can be a White chick with stringy blonde hair and nobody cares about the sun through yellow curtains that's the first thing that you see outside your Chelsea window. But everything persists at a subcultural (or microsubcultural level). There are new Joni Mitchells out there, though we will never hear their names.
Is it strange that so many woke PC have blackface in their past? Check out the cover of "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter." Joni's defense, apparently, was that she felt in some way Black. Similar to Whoopi's defensive claim to feel in some way Jewish.
"It's pointed out right now that Chrissie Hynde had no problem with Rush using My CIty Was Gone as his theme, even though she's a leftist."
I'm guessing there were many, many reasons Chrissie allowed that and they all had George Washington's picture on them.
This comment is the best of January 2022:
PM said...
I look at life from one side now.
1/31/22, 11:45 AM
Good call by Rollo on blackface Joni ("Don Juan's Reckless Daughter.")
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37781800
Joni Mitchell had a beautiful voice, but she ruined it with chain smoking. In her latter works she sounds like Kermit the Frog.
Neil Diamond had the same problem.
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