BOTH SIDES NOW
Judy Collins

The first time most people were exposed to Joni Mitchell, even though they didn’t know it.

This single was iconic, mostly for the sound and Judy Collins’s voice.

When we ultimately heard Joni’s version, on her second album, 1969’s “Clouds,” we were astounded to find it sounded completely different, with a heavy emphasis on the lyrics. Joni’s is a song, Judy’s is a record.

“Both Sides Now” cemented Judy Collins’s stardom, it’s a linchpin in her career, but just a member of Joni Mitchell’s canon.

P.S. Many people STILL haven’t heard Joni’s version. Her first two LPs were nearly ignored. The mainstream did not catch on until her sixth LP,” “Court And Spark,” and some went back, but many did not. They’re missing out.

URGE FOR GOING
Tom Rush

This will positively blow your mind, it will become your favorite track if you’ve never heard it before and if you know it…no one captures the sound of fall better than Tom Rush does here. It’s eerie. You feel creeped out and connected at the same time. This is what music does best.

From Tom’s 1968 Elektra album “The Circle Game” (that’s right, he covered that Joni song too…before anybody knew it), which was a college favorite that Tom leveraged for a deal with Columbia and further penetration into the public consciousness. But, “The Circle Game” is his best work.

Meanwhile, most people didn’t hear Joni’s version until 1996, when it appeared on her collection “Hits.” It had previously been released as the b-side of the single “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio,” but almost no one heard it.

Once again Joni’s take is different. It’s the wistfulness in her voice that gets you.

THAT SONG ABOUT THE MIDWAY
Bonnie Raitt

Absolutely, positively magical, from Bonnie Raitt’s relatively stiff follow-up to “Takin My Time,” “Streetlights,” which was produced by Jerry Ragavoy and suffered for being a bit too slick. But not this.

At this late date, “Streetlights” is famous for the first appearance of Bonnie’s cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” and that’s fantastic, but Bonnie’s never sounded more mellifluous than she does on “That Song About The Midway,” the story comes alive.

Joni’s take is from six years before, 1968, on her aforementioned second album “Clouds.” In this case, it’s the same song, but the effect is different. It’s like Joni’s sitting on your living room floor, alone, telling her story, and you’re so riveted and intrigued that this exquisite person is letting you inside her world.

DREAMLAND
Roger McGuinn

Most people have heard neither this nor the original, which closes side three of Joni’s 1977 release “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter,” the first of her projects after her breakthrough to suffer not only critical barbs, but less than grand commercial success.

Meanwhile, Roger had burnt out the audience with so much mediocre material that “Cardiff Rose,” from which this track emanates, was unjustly ignored.

Released in 1976, McGuinn’s take trumps Joni’s, it sounds like the Byrds with an edge.

Joni’s take is nearly a cappella. It suffers from this sparseness.

But McGuinn renders the lyric unforgettable…

It’s a long long way from Canada
A long way from snow chains

THIS FLIGHT TONIGHT
Nazareth

I haven’t heard this in eons, but I’ll never forget this. It was released in 1973, before Joni had really broken through and only the cognoscenti realized “Blue” was one of the best albums ever cut. So, to hear this heavy version by this hard rock band was head-spinning. Meanwhile, it made inroads at radio, it was prevalent. And I’m stunned all these years later it works.

As for Joni’s take… I’d say it’s uncoverable, but it was!

“Blue” plays as a travelogue, this comes right after the legendary “California,” and if you don’t know that album, stop reading this and cue it up immediately, your life is not yet complete.

FOR FREE
James Taylor

And here we have the miracle of the internet.

The first time I heard this song was when it was performed by James Taylor at the Sanders Theatre at Harvard in April 1970. This was before “Ladies Of The Canyon” came out, when the two were dating. And I never forgot it. And STUNNINGLY, there’s a recording of it on YouTube!

James Taylor – 1970 For Free (Joni Mitchell Cover)

You get something great the very first time through!

Shortly thereafter, I heard “Ladies Of The Canyon,” and it cemented my love for Ms. Mitchell.

Once again, it sounds like Joni is playing in her living room, just for you.

Meanwhile, this song goes through my head all the time…

And I play if you have the money
Or if you’re a friend to me

Don’t ask me for free work.

Unless you’re a friend of mine. Then there’s no limit to what I’ll do for you.

A CASE OF YOU
Tori Amos

Arguably Joni Mitchell’s most famous song.

HUH?

Sure, there were bigger hits, but “A Case Of You,” from “Blue” is the one that means the most to people.

Tori’s take is just as haunting and intimate as Joni’s, but Joni’s has got that dulcimer that brings a humanity no synthesizer can ever evidence.

Tori Amos – A Case of you (Joni Mitchell cover)

A CASE OF U
Prince

Once a rare track, self-released by Prince and mostly unknown, it resurfaced in an edited iteration on a Joni Mitchell tribute album.

The greats know who’s great, and Prince has always testified about Joni.

MICHAEL FROM MOUNTAINS
Judy Collins

From the same album that contained “Both Sides Now,” 1968’s “Wildflowers,” not enough people know this, the cover or the original, from Joni’s very first album, produced by David Crosby, “Song To A Seagull.”

I DON’T KNOW WHERE I STAND
Barbra Streisand

From her 1971 album, “Stoney End,” wherein Barbra tried to be hip.

It worked commercially, if not artistically.

But Barbra’s vocal is just too perfect, it’s equivalent to that of a TV contestant as opposed to the original, wherein Joni injects juice that Barbra just can’t find.

THAT SONG ABOUT THE MIDWAY
Dave Van Ronk

You know the name, but you may not know the material.

A folk legend, Dave’s take is not in the league of Bonnie Raitt’s, but you’ll feel like you journeyed back to a Bleecker Street that no longer exists when you hear it.

Dave Van Ronk – That Song About The Midway

CHELSEA MORNING
Judy Collins

I could have included the Fairport Convention take, or Green Lyte Sunday or Sergio Mendes’s hit versions, but this is the one that inspired Bill and Hillary Clinton to name their daughter…”Chelsea.”

WOODSTOCK
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

From “Deja Vu,” when they were the biggest band in the land.

This is the first time many people realized who Joni Mitchell was, because it was strange for this entity not to record its own songs, the story of how she missed the festival and wrote the song got press.

It’s the stinging guitar that closes you.

Meanwhile, SiriusXM has the alternative take in its library, from 1991’s boxed set, with a different chorus, and it BUGS ME when they keep playing it on Classic Vinyl. They need to replace it with the original!

Joni’s entry is completely different. It’s more of a late night in the mud, less of a celebration, it’s haunting.

WOODSTOCK
Matthews’ Southern Comfort

This went to number one in the U.K.

Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock (1970)

BIG YELLOW TAXI
Counting Crows, Vanessa Carlton

After their first album, Counting Crows ran out of material, never mind lacking the production skills of T-Bone Burnett. And on some level, this is offensive, and on another it works. I’ll let you decide.

She + Him covered “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio,” CeeLo did “River,” Carly Rae Jepsen recorded “Both Sides Now,” Joni Mitchell’s legacy is not fading away and it is most certainly radiating. And although she had some hits, that’s not what it’s about, she’s left us a singular body of work…some so incredible, it’s nearly uncoverable, like “Song For Sharon” (even though people have attempted!) And we wish her a speedy recovery, because in an era of me-too, where everybody’s just repeating what came before, afraid to innovate and be out of the box…

Joni Mitchell is an original.

Rhinofy-Joni Mitchell Covers

The price?

A COOL TEN BILLION!

It had to happen. Apple’s stock rises when it has a monopoly. And despite all the iPhone profits, Android has greater worldwide market share. This is not the iPod revolution, wherein a seamless hardware/software combination, of iPod iTunes and FairPlay DRM, ensured that no other player could gain traction. Hell, Apple is losing traction every day in music. And if you believe that Jimmy Iovine can pull a rabbit out of his hat, you believe Jay Z is gonna turn Tidal into a raging success.

That’s right, Jimmy was left out of the negotiations. Tim Cook is still pissed about the U2 fiasco, wherein Iovine paid back the has-been stars and Apple ended up with egg on its face. Apple is a bigger brand than U2, and Cook feels like the company got hijacked, so therefore, just like David Geffen was left out of the MCA/Matsushita negotiations, Jimmy had no part in this purchase, it’s news to him.

Actually, credit Scott Forstall. You remember him, right? Mr. Software, Steve Jobs’s right-hand man? Forstall was agitating for a music streaming service so loudly that he got fired. But after promoting Jony Ive and closing ranks Cook had a chance meeting with Daniel Ek at the San Jose airport, while their respective jets were being gassed, and Cook realized the error of his ways. He couldn’t bring back Forstall, but he was man enough to recognize he’d been wrong, as Steve was too, files are history, streams are forever.

So the seed was planted YEARS ago! That’s why Spotify has never gone public. Projects at Apple take as long to develop as movies at Pixar and while you were looking for an Apple TV set and deriding Jony Ive’s Watch, Cook was positioning the company to win, and win big.

That’s right, now Apple’s going to own streaming music, no one else will be able to compete, it’s monopoly time all over again.

So what’s the first lesson here?

Live like a king. Get a NetJet account. You can’t advance your career flying coach. Just like a wannabe leases a BMW in Los Angeles, in Silicon Valley you fly private. For the hang. For the business.

Anyway, Apple is behind the eight ball in music. iTunes sales are faltering and iTunes Radio is a disaster. Sure, iTunes Radio may ultimately triumph in countries Pandora has not entered, but it doesn’t look good.

And Spotify looks great.

Don’t believe the naysayers. Spotify’s footprint is immense, it’s in almost every country with an economy. And as Daniel Ek so famously says, if they stopped expanding/investing, they’d be profitable today. Sure, the business was built on musicians’ backs, but we reward superstar coders more than superstar musicians, and conception is everything. In a world of me-too music, Spotify was never a me-too music service.

Spotify had first-mover advantage.

Which is why Beats Music could never catch it. Why Rdio and Deezer can’t catch it.

Along with the deep pockets to give the music away for free.

And no one has a deeper pocket than Apple. They’re the only one who could overpay for Spotify, because not only do they have the cash, they’re the only one who can benefit from the synergy of the acquisition!

That Beats Music service that Ian Rogers has been working on so hard?

It’s the equivalent of Copland, the unworkable OS that caused Gil Amelio to purchase NeXT and gain what evolved into OS X.

That’s why Beats/Apple Music has never relaunched. It’s too buggy!

So, Spotify will now be Apple’s default service. With a reskinning and a rebranding. They’ve been working on this for two years, but the software is now launch-ready. It’s akin to the Mac’s switch from PowerPC to Intel. By time they announced it, they were ready to do it, all the work had already been done!

But the free tier doesn’t go away.

This is Jimmy Iovine’s middle finger to the music industry.

That’s right, Jimmy is incredibly pissed the label bosses wouldn’t agree to lower the price of an Apple streaming service to $7.99 a month. And he’s now getting the last laugh. Because with Apple the only game in town, Lucian Grainge has to bow to his will. It’ll be ten bucks a month for all you can eat, or you can experience the ads and listen for free. Apple has money to lose as it tightens its grip on streaming music.

That’s right, it’s over. No other enterprise has pockets this deep, software this good and mindshare/rep of an equivalent stature.

Launch date is Friday May 15th.

Why?

BECAUSE IT’S THE START OF TAYLOR SWIFT’S 1989 TOUR!

It was all a head fake. The joke is on you. Taylor’s been in cahoots with Apple for nearly a year. She removed her music from Spotify in order to drive down the purchase price! Every dollar below $10 bil was hers to keep. Alas, she was unsuccessful in this effort, but she’s coming out fine. She’s gonna get a dollar for every sign-up for the first twelve months. So, expect her to hawk Apple’s streaming service like she hawked her album, and no one’s a better marketer than Taylor, no one’s got a better relationship with the press. Didn’t you notice her absence at the Tidal press conference? She, of all people, should have been there. But “1989” isn’t even streamable on Tidal, doesn’t that tell you something?

And now you know why Mercedes-Benz was a late addition sponsor to the Rock In Rio festival in Las Vegas. That’s where Taylor’s headlining on the 15th. Mercedes-Benz is going to give everyone who purchases an automobile a lifetime subscription to Apple’s streaming service, as long as they continue to drive an MBZ. It’s a win-win.

So where does this leave Tidal?

Dead in the water, where it already is. A bunch of the artists involved were already eager to bolt from Live Nation’s management division after Monday’s debacle, now this sale will anger them even further. It was all masterminded by Guy Oseary, the same guy who was responsible for the U2 album fiasco. Rumor has it they’re all going to march en masse into Irving Azoff’s fold, now that his non-compete has expired, but that has not yet been substantiated. But the reason MSG is dividing in two is to free up money for further acquisitions by Irving, so all signs are pointing in this direction.

The other streaming services will fade away and will not radiate. Because online only one entity wins, you gravitate to where all your friends are.

All the exclusives will be on Apple. The streaming service will work on Android and Windows, but icons will not look as sharp and functionality will be hampered in order to force people to buy Apple hardware. It’s all about the hardware, you know that, right? It’s the reverse razor blade theory. You give away the software to sell expensive hardware!

So now Apple owns music.

They’re not going to buy labels. That’s ridiculous. Who needs the headache?

But they are going to release data, so that acts will know that it’s the labels screwing artists, not the streaming service.

So the war is over. You can stop bitching about Spotify. You can get back to making good music, if you ever did.

As for consumers, this is heaven. And books and television are next.

Apple plans to corner the market on TV distribution, their deal with HBO is just the beginning. And despite being judged guilty of price-fixing re books, the publishers are still angry at Amazon and are willing to throw in with Cook for a subscription service. They get to set the price. Apple will just take its traditional 30%. Amazon’s reading devices suck anyway, and this is just a further way to cement Apple’s power in tablets, a way to goose sales, which have suddenly stalled.

So, it’s been proven that Tim Cook is quite the match for Steve Jobs. Just like he green-lit the evisceration of skeuomorphism, he’s pivoting the company to streaming content. He knows that streaming is the future.

DO YOU?

Now let me get this straight…piracy can be eradicated if artists just band together in the name of money?

That’s what this is all about, cash. For the misguided artists who believe this is their financial savior but primarily for Jay Z, who’s using OPM (other people’s money) to have a big score.

But it don’t really happen that way at all.

Did Jay call Peter Thiel?

Then he would have learned to go where there’s no competition. That’s how you win in the tech space. But Spotify’s got traction, Apple has a ton of cash and Deezer and Rdio are players. If you think Tidal’s gonna walk right in and get huge market share, you probably believed iTunes Radio was gonna neuter Pandora. But it did not. Hell, even Jimmy Iovine couldn’t neuter Spotify. Beats Music was a disaster in its initial incarnation. Give Jimmy credit for selling the enterprise to Apple, but without the profit-making headphones, there wouldn’t have been billions involved.

Headphones… A market where the usual suspects were asleep. Sennheiser, AKG, even Sony, they could not see the opportunity right under their noses. So Jimmy walked right in and gained market share, hell, built a MARKETPLACE, and the established entities are still trying to catch up.

But everybody knows what streaming services are. Thank Taylor Swift, who provided Spotify with its greatest marketing campaign ever. Suddenly, everybody knew what the Swedish streaming service was.

And why was Spotify successful? Because of the deep pockets of the owners, who were willing to lose on the way to winning. Beats Music did not have these deep pockets, and Tidal certainly does not. Unless the artists are all willing to kick in double digit millions, out of their fortunes, to turn the tide.

But that’s what a VC does. That’s his area of expertise. To see Jay Z try to triumph in tech is like watching WME and CAA and Universal lose cash on their investments/incubated projects. IT’S NOT THEIR BUSINESS, NOT THEIR AREA OF EXPERTISE! Why don’t you just decide to play in the NBA while you’re at it, or watch a lot of YouTube videos and become a doctor. Sure, we’re all envious of the money techies make, but if you think it’s easy, you don’t know any of them, or their stories.

So first and foremost you’ve got to pay for Tidal.

And therefore it’s dead on arrival. Just like Apple’s new music service. Because people are CHEAP! They love their money more than their favorite artists, never forget it. And the kind of person who pledges devotion to Tidal artists is the same kind who’s home alone, broke, waiting for their parents to put cash on their debit card. Now if Tidal had a free tier… But it doesn’t. It can’t afford to lose that much money. It’s not about the long haul. No one in music has been about the long haul since the turn of the century. First you get traction, then you monetize/charge. Can you say Instagram, can you say Snapchat? But suddenly, just because Jay Z is a famous musician he expects all of his fans to pony up ten bucks a month? Raw insanity.

As is the position of the artists on the stage. I’d be much more impressed if they all ankled their deals, got rid of the major labels and went it alone. That’s why they’re not making much money on Spotify, not because of the free tier, but because their deals suck. But these same deals apply on Tidal! They’ve got to license the music from their bosses! It’s utterly laughable, like nursery school kids plotting against the teacher, or a kindergartner running away from home. Grow up!

And sure, if you loaded Tidal with exclusive content it would be attractive.

But the iTunes Store wouldn’t promote your new release. And that’s where your money is today, and we’ve already established you’ve got a short term vision.

And what about future artists? How do they get a share of the pie?

And let’s say a new Hozier comes along, and Spotify outbids you, they certainly have deeper pockets. Then your monopoly on exclusive content falls apart, you Balkanize the landscape and you hurt everybody in the ecosystem.

And artists can’t get along with themselves, never mind others. True artists are singular. Come on, when’s the last time you saw Madonna compromise, or do a solid for another performer? Suddenly, everybody’s gonna play nice and get along? And how do they decide whose album gets promoted and for how long? We’ve seen this movie before, read “Hit Men” for instruction. Artists are all about the edge. Labels couldn’t band together to get rid of indie promo, some just saw it as an advantage, they’d pay when others wouldn’t, and then everybody paid once again.

Furthermore, right now Tidal doesn’t have critical mass and artists need other platforms to succeed. You don’t expect retaliation? I do. I certainly expect artists to break ranks, to provide content to other companies, therefore dissipating the hegemony.

And this is a big story today, what about tomorrow?

That’s what we’ve learned in the internet era, it’s about staying power, not the launch. Tidal is news this afternoon, by tomorrow no one is talking about it, never mind next week. Then the hard work begins. Are all these artists going to walk the streets in sandwich boards, garnering sign-ups like a political canvasser gets signatures? Of course not.

But then maybe someone will buy Tidal, and everybody will get paid.

But who is that company?

Apple’s already got Beats.

Facebook is about user-created content.

Amazon is not about acquisitions.

And Google already owns streaming music, with YouTube.

Who is gonna be that stupid?

Maybe there’s a mark out there, but probably not. Because investors are savvy. That’s how they made all that money to begin with.

So why don’t these artists go home and write compelling music.

Jay Z is the king of branding deals, but his Samsung app/album sank like a stone, despite NBA Finals commercial and all that Korean kompany marketing.

Because music is first and foremost about the art.

And great artists are lousy businessmen. There are exceptions, but they’re rare.

As for the self-promotion and the buying of the story by the press, I point you today’s Boy Genius Report wherein Tero Kuittinen delineates how geeks trumpeted something that was not successful and investors poured in after the press took the bait and then the app tanked when Periscope launched.

It’s not like the public has never heard of Spotify.

And the public determines success, not the press.

Are they going to all fork over triple digits a year to stream on Tidal?

Not gonna happen.

“Meerkat is dying – and it’ taking U.S. tech journalism with it”

I can’t get this song out of my head.

It’s very easy to ignore the Top Forty. It’s very easy to ignore all music. That’s what the business and inside fans don’t understand, that they’re in a bubble and what they live for, their passion, oftentimes doesn’t translate.

I live for the Howard Stern show.

Because Howard is so good.

That’s how you cut through the clutter, you search for excellence and pay attention.

And Howard’s shtick has changed. He’s now part of the interview circuit. Because America is about selling, and you can only get someone to go on the record when they’re hawking something. And with Howard’s newfound status, as a result of network television, he gets the A-listers, they’re whores, and Stern gets more out of them than anyone else but now he too cannot make fun of these people, who so often deserve it. Howard “gets” Madonna” so he “gets” her new album? He could be the only one. It’s already been forgotten.

But not Imagine Dragons. They’re a hit act. Already excoriated on their second album.

That’s what happens when you’re not deep inside, you get the penumbra, you get the blowback, those who care say they’re not worth caring about and then I was in a store and I heard “Radioactive” and had to pull it up on Spotify and they perform that on Stern but what got me was the single from the new album, “Shots.”

Now the stories being told are fascinating. Despite the image of reality television, every act worth hearing struggles. For years. Two members of Imagine Dragons quit just before the band got signed. They were sick of playing covers and opening to almost no one. But it’s in the struggle that you hone your chops, that you get really good.

And Imagine Dragons are really good.

I know you don’t want to hear that, because if they’re good, you’re not.

Now I’m not saying you can’t be nearly talentless and be successful. But that’s a different kind of talent, one of conception, one wherein you look at the world a different way and come up with something so mind-blowing that people pay attention. That was Lou Reed’s gift. But we haven’t had that spirit here for so long.

But, if you can sing and write and play… Then you’ve got a chance.

So go to YouTube and pull up this interview.

Start by going to the yellow dot around 48:00, to hear the acoustic version of “Shots.”

Acoustic. Hard to fake it there.

And they’re not faking it whatsoever.

Am I out of touch
Am I out of place

NOT WHATSOEVER! NOT WITH THIS VOICE!

If you’re not enraptured you’ve got no life, no soul.

I’m sorry for everything
Oh, everything I’ve done
From the second day I was born it seems I had a loaded gun
Then I shot, shot, shot a hole through everything I  loved
Oh, I shot, shot, shot a hole through every single thing I  loved

The harmonies kick in and you’re in church. THE CHURCH OF ROCK AND ROLL!

There are changes, hooks. Cast aside your black clothing, your precious image, and just luxuriate in the sound.

And when you pull up the track on Spotify, listen to the studio version, you’ll be horrified, it sounds like the strip mall as opposed to the sanctuary.

And this guy was religious. He went on a Mormon mission to Nebraska. Tells interesting stories about meth and gangs.

He talks about his depression. About his parents. He reveals a three-dimensional identity and you like someone who previously you didn’t care a whit about.

Kind of like “Shots.”

This is the hit take. Because greatness does not need polish, it’s about capturing lightning in a bottle.

And they did here.

AND YOU BUY IT!

“Howard Stern Show Interviews Imagine Dragons 03/24/15”