Shine (Joni Mitchell album)

Shine is the 19th and final studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, released on September 25, 2007, by Hear Music. It is Mitchell's first album of new material since Taming the Tiger (1998).

Shine
Studio album by
Joni Mitchell
ReleasedSeptember 25, 2007
Recorded2006–2007
StudioCastle Oaks (Calabasas, California)
Genre
Length46:57
Label
ProducerJoni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell chronology
Songs of a Prairie Girl
(2005)		 Shine
(2007)		 Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967)
(2020)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[2]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[3]
The Guardian[4]
Los Angeles Times[5]
Mojo[6]
Pitchfork8.0/10[7]
PopMatters8/10[8]
Q[9]
Rolling Stone[10]

In the US, the album sold 40,000 copies in its first week, debuting at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 chart;[11] this was Mitchell's best peak position in America since Hejira (1976). Shine peaked at No. 36 on the UK chart, making it Mitchell's first Top 40 album there since Night Ride Home (1991). In its first week on sale, Shine sold around 60,000 copies worldwide.[12] As of February 2008, the album has sold 372,000 copies in the United States.[13]

Background

In 2002, Joni Mitchell famously left the music business. The public first learned that she had returned to writing and recording in October 2006, when she spoke to The Ottawa Citizen. In an interview with the newspaper, Mitchell "revealed she's recording her first collection of new songs in nearly a decade" but gave few other details.[14]

Four months later, in an interview with The New York Times, Mitchell said that the album was inspired by the war in Iraq and "something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: 'Bad dreams are good—in the great plan.'"[15]

The Sunday Times wrote in February 2007 that the album has "a minimal feel, a sparseness that harks back to her early work," adding that "rest and some good healers" had restored much of the singer's vocal power.[16] Mitchell herself described Shine as "as serious a work as I've ever done".[16]

The album was launched at the Sunshine Theater on Houston Street, New York City, on September 25, 2007, with a film of the Alberta Ballet performing The Fiddle and the Drum, a ballet devised by choreographer Jean Grand-Maître in collaboration with Mitchell that had premiered in Calgary on February 8 that year. The ballet uses a selection of Mitchell's songs, including "If I Had a Heart" and "If" from Shine, along with images from her art installation Flag Dance, which are projected as a backdrop.[17] The album cover features a scene from The Fiddle and the Drum. The CD was distributed with a matching blue band around it, not glued on, which obscured the bodies of the male dancers in tights from the general public.

Shine is only the second Joni Mitchell album never to have been distributed by Warner Music Group, the first being Night Ride Home, which was released by Geffen Records after the company was sold to MCA.

Reception

Shine has a 77/100 on Metacritic.[18]

Track listing
  1. "One Week Last Summer" – 4:59
  2. "This Place" – 3:54
    • In an interview, Mitchell referred to a "second guitar song [inspired when] they decided to whittle down this mountain behind my sanctuary and sell it to California as gravel for McMansions."[19]
  3. "If I Had a Heart" – 4:04
    • "If I Had a Heart" is a reaction to the state of the environment and what Mitchell called the current "holy war". In February 2007, The New York Times described the song as "one of the most haunting melodies she has ever written". Of the impetus that inspired her to write the song, Mitchell explained, "My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can't cry about it. In a way I'm inoculated. I've suffered this pain for so long. ...The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species."[15]
  4. "Hana" – 3:43
  5. "Bad Dreams" – 5:41
    • "Bad Dreams" was inspired by a comment Mitchell's grandson made at the age of three: "Bad dreams are good, in the great plan." In a March 2007 BBC Radio 2 interview with Amanda Ghost, the singer jokingly said she'd promised to "cut him in" on the song's profits.[20]
    • "Bad Dreams Are Good" lyrics appeared as a poem in The New Yorker, September 17, 2007.[21]
  6. "Big Yellow Taxi (2007)" – 2:47
    • In March 2007, The Guardian reported that Shine will feature a "new version" of Mitchell's 1970 environmentally-themed hit single.[22]
  7. "Night of the Iguana" – 4:38
  8. "Strong and Wrong" – 4:04
  9. "Shine" – 7:29
  10. "If" – 5:32

Personnel

Charts
Chart performance for Shine
Chart (2007) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[24] 71
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[25] 19
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[26] 44
French Albums (SNEP)[27] 103
Irish Albums (IRMA)[28] 59
Italian Albums (FIMI)[29] 30
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[30] 10
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[31] 25
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[32] 100
UK Albums (OCC)[33] 36
US Billboard 200[34] 14
US Top Rock Albums (Billboard)[35] 3
US Top Tastemaker Albums (Billboard)[36] 12

References
  1. Jurek, T. (2011). "Shine - Joni Mitchell | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  2. Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
  3. Collis, C. (2011). "Shine | Music Review | Entertainment Weekly". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  4. Petridis, Alexis (2011). "CD: Joni Mitchell, Shine | Music | The Guardian". TheGuardian.com. Archived from the original on April 22, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  5. Powers, Ann (2011). "Mitchell, at home and in homage - Los Angeles Times". articles.latimes.com. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  6. "Joni Mitchell: Shine (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. 2011. Archived from the original on January 26, 2009. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  7. Sodomsky, Sam (2020). "Joni Mitchell: Shine | Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved April 11, 2020.
  8. Layman, Will (2011). "Joni Mitchell: Shine < PopMatters". popmatters.com. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  9. "Joni Mitchell: Shine". Q. No. November 2007. p. 140.
  10. Christgau, R. (2011). "Joni Mitchell: Shine : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 25, 2009. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  11. Katie Hasty, "Rascal Flatts Races To No. 1 In Debut-Heavy Week", Billboard.com, October 3, 2007.
  12. Keith Caulfield, "Ask Billboard: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Chart-mas", Billboard.com, December 21, 2007.
  13. "Perky Sellers" (PDF). Billboard. February 16, 2008. p. 28. Retrieved July 20, 2019.
  14. Fischer, Doug (October 8, 2006). "The trouble she's seen: Doug Fischer talks to Joni Mitchell about her seminal album, Hejira". The Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved March 9, 2007.
  15. Yaffe, David (February 4, 2007). "DANCE: Working Three Shifts, And Outrage Overtime". The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
  16. Eggar, Robin (February 11, 2007). "The Renaissance Woman" (reprint). Sunday Times. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  17. David Yaffe, "Working Three Shifts, and Outrage Overtime," New York Times, February 4, 2007. Retrieved March 5, 2015. The ballet was not performed in the U.S. until February 2010, three years after its Canadian premiere, when it was praised in Seattle but panned in Los Angeles.
  18. "Shine by Joni Mitchell". Metacritic. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
  19. Eggar, Robin (April 2007). "Both Sides Now" (reprint). jonimitchell.com. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  20. Come In From the Cold: The Return of Joni Mitchell, BBC Radio 2 programme, March 20, 2007.
  21. Mitchell, Joni (September 17, 2007). "Bad Dreams are Good". The New Yorker.
  22. Sexton, Paul (March 19, 2007). "Captive on the carousel of time" (reprint). The Guardian. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  23. Gill, Alexandra (February 17, 2007). "Joni Mitchell in person" (reprint). The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved February 29, 2012.
  24. "The ARIA Report: Week Commencing 8 October 2007" (PDF) (918). Australian Recording Industry Association. October 8, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 22, 2008. Retrieved April 12, 2020 – via Pandora Archive. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  25. "Ultratop.be – Joni Mitchell – Shine" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  26. "Dutchcharts.nl – Joni Mitchell – Shine" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  27. "Lescharts.com – Joni Mitchell – Shine". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  28. "Irish-charts.com – Discography Joni Mitchell". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  29. "Italiancharts.com – Joni Mitchell – Shine". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  30. "Norwegiancharts.com – Joni Mitchell – Shine". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  31. "Swedishcharts.com – Joni Mitchell – Shine". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  32. "Swisscharts.com – Joni Mitchell – Shine". Hung Medien. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  33. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  34. "Joni Mitchell Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  35. "Joni Mitchell Chart History (Top Rock Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  36. "Joni Mitchell Chart History (Top Tastemaker Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved May 3, 2022.
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