Joni Mitchell’s latest album ‘Shine’ has thankfully fallen into my hands and I’ve been taking my time, savoring her songs for this review. ‘Shine’ is an emotional album. The lyrics and the messages within may be harsh for the optimistic listener, but as a Joni Mitchell fan, it’s fortunate to be able to join her on her lyrical and instrumental journey in the year 2007.

‘Shine’ opens with “One Week Last Summer”, a gorgeous instrumental track that includes a wonderfully mixed piano, sax solo and full harmonies sure to make mouths water. I wondered why she may have chosen to open the album with an instrumental song, but after digging around found the explanation on her website.

On “This Place”, the sweet cries of a pedal steel guitar, one of my favorite instruments, is a welcome addition to Joni Mitchell’s eclectic use of instrumentation. It intertwines with the sadness of the lyrics, about the beauty and the destruction of “this land”.

I can see how difficult it would be for Joni Mitchell not to write about what’s going on around her in today’s world. “If I Had A Heart” is a song that songwriters are made for. Mitchell sings about the state of the planet with a message of despair.

One thing I really love about Joni Mitchell’s singing is not only her recognizable voice, but it’s her phrasing within a song. She has one of the most percussive voices out there and “Hana” is a perfect example of trademark Joni along with calypso beats and harmonies.

Her voice in “Bad Dreams Are Good” is reminiscent of Billie Holiday and throughout the album I had thoughts of Joan Armatrading. It’s great to hear the new version of “Big Yellow Taxi” which, once again, features her brilliant vocal phrasing along with beautiful harmonies, a cool rhythmic guitar and sparse, staccato instruments.

‘Shine’ is a daring and honest piece of art produced and shared by Joni Mitchell. Whether the lyrics are read alone or along with the album, her talent shines through as a true poet, singer, musician and storyteller.

Buy Joni Mitchell – ‘Shine’ on amazon.com

‘Shine’ lyrics on Joni Mitchell’s website
Joni Mitchell Official Website

By: Jenny May – Band Weblogs

Related: Watch Joni Mitchell performing “California” on the BBC

Watch the BBC video of Bruce Springsteen performing “We Shall Overcome”
The BBC Sessions was a great concert and I was intrigued with the idea that Bruce Springsteen would commit a whole night’s worth of music to folk songs by musical and political activist Pete Seeger, which seemed a drastic change from the Bruce Springsteen music we all know and love. I must admit that I didn’t know too much about Pete Seeger and that it was Bruce Springsteen who had brought my attention to him and his music for the most part.

When I was reading about Pete Seeger’s interesting life, family and of course his music, I learned that in addition to the catalog of songs that Bruce Springsteen has covered on his new Live in Dublin CD/DVD, there were surprisingly, some other very familiar song titles.

“Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is A Season),” made famous in the 60’s by The Byrds, was written by none other than Pete Seeger, though the lyrics in the song are text taken from the Bible and then set to music.

Pete Seeger also wrote “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” – which I also hadn’t been aware of. I’ve known that song since I was in the first grade. When our teacher was away on maternity leave, the substitute teacher would come in with her acoustic guitar and sing songs to us kids, including that one. She must have been a Pete Seeger fan and I’ll always remember her for bringing that guitar into class.

Watch Pete Seeger perform Wimoweh and Where Have All the Flowers Gone on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
Buy: Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band: Live in Dublin on amazon.com

More information:

Pete Seeger Appreciation Page
Bruce Springsteen Official Website

By: Jenny May

So with the thought of the infamous cocktail I couldn’t help but start singing the song. You know the one. Then I had to look up the video on YouTube and then the lyrics. What a great song it is – and you know, I never knew that the official song title is “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”.

The story within the song is brilliant and all of these years of knowing the melody and chorus I must admit I never really knew what the song was about. Now I know. Basically there was this guy who was “tired of his lady” and then he saw a personals ad in the paper from someone who was looking for someone who likes Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain and so on.

Without writing down all of the lyrics, which now a days I’m not sure is an okay thing to do without having to worry about copyright infringement etc. (believe it or not), the guy responds to the personals ad by saying “Yes, I like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain …” Eventually they meet up and low and behold, it’s his wife! Great story. Classic song by Rupert Holmes.

Watch the video of Rupert Holmes performing Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

Rupert Holmes on Wikipedia

By: Jenny May

MusicDish Network Sponsor

Once you’ve established your myspace site, selected a terrific photo or graphic that accurately signals your primary artistic sensibility to casual surfers, and your band name or label name signal the same (hopefully), a few practical strategies can be employed to help you maximize your marketing efforts. These basics are worth mentioning because I see so many artists overlook them that I cannot assume that you know to address them. We’ll start with your music player, as your music is, of course, key to your marketing efforts.

By the way, before we move on, I’d like to mention one simple strategy I’ve seen some solo artists employ on myspace that helps to inform surfers that they are, in fact, an artist: they add the word “music” behind their name. Example: www.myspace.com/kellybrockmusic. It’s simple. It works. Do it.

OK, back to your music player. I want you to answer these questions about your music player:

Your Music Player

What does you music sound like?

Crummy sounding demos and recordings sound crummy on the myspace player. Period. You gain nothing by advertising to potential fans, venue owners, bookers, and industry folks that you have crummy sounding demos. I’ve been on terrific sites only to be disappointed the moment the music began, and not because the songs were bad, but because the sound was terrible: muddy vocals, little or awkward mixes, and the like. You must treat your myspace site as a professional marketing vehicle because your site is a professional marketing vehicle. Make your demos/recordings clear and ensure your vocals are upfront.

Did you post your lyrics?

People like to read lyrics ­ that’s one reason why they still buy CDs or search the Internet for lyric sites. Fans love to know the words to your songs so they can sing along. If you’re a songwriter pitching your songs, then lyrics are a must. Don’t make folks look for your lyrics elswhere or try to write them down or memorize them ­ post them on the lyric page of your music player. Make it easy for people to understand your songs and like your music. And don’t forget to include the following on your lyric sheet:

* Authors/composers of the song
* Your publishing company (if you are an unsigned artist/songwriter, then you are your publishing company)
* Your performing arts organization affiliation if you have one, such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC
* A copyright notice! You can simply type “Copyright 2006″. Don’t neglect to add this important information.

I would also suggest that you include your business mailing address and contact information, along with your band website, on the lyric sheet so that if someone copies and saves/prints out your lyric sheet, your contact information is readily available. Make it easy for people to find you.

Do you permit rating and comments?

Use your player to gain valuable information about how fans perceive you and your music. Don’t be afraid to let people rate and post comments about your songs. If the ratings are poor and the comments are negative, figure out why and use that information to improve your songwriting, instrumentation or recording. You can always delete negative comments, but at least you’ve received input about your music to help you improve what craft. In addition, comments give you an opportunity to contact the commenter, thank them for their comments – even if they are negative – and turn the “friend” into a fan. The same goes for song rating.

Have you enabled the Add feature to your songs?

When I land on an artist’s site and hear a great song, I may want to feature that artist on my myspace site for The Aspiring Songwriter. I regularly feature myspace artists who are friends on my site and play their song to promote them. I cannot tell you how many band and artist site I visit that don’t enable the add feature on their music player!

Ask youself this question: “What am I on myspace for?” The whole point here is to get people to add your song to their site so that everyone who visits their site hears your song (and the play is counted on your music player song counter). If your fan’s visitor likes your song and clicks on the the “visit” option of your fan’s music player, they will be directed onto your site where, hopefully, they will ask to join your site because they like your music so much, and you have a potential new fan because he or she was sent from your other fan’s site. And, that new friend/fan may add your song to their site. Comprende?

The music player add function is viral networking at its simplest! You will rarely hear me scold, but this is such a no-brainer that I am confounded when I run across artists ­ and some really good artists ­ who don’t enable their player’s add function. I’ll assume it was a momentary lapse in good judgment and I’ll be sure to revisit your site sometime ­ if I remember you ­ after you’ve had the chance to make the necessary adjustments. Enabling the add function does NOT enable fans to download your song; it only permits them to stream your song from their site much like web radio. Do it.

Do you enable the downloads?

If you want to enable free song downloads, let me run this idea by you: Do you want potentials fans to download your song from your myspace site and your have no way to obtain precious contact information from that downloader (e-mail, address, etc)? I wouldn’t.

If you want to offer free downloads, I would argue that you get those myspace friends to visit your official fan site to download a song, and require the the downloader give up on e-mail address at the very least to benefit from your largess. Your purpose is to build your fanbase, and if you don’t have their direct contact information, such as an e-mail and/or a mailing address, then you’ve squandered the chance to obtain that information by enabling downloads on your myspace site. There may be others who disagree with me on this point, but I’d rather have the contact information as an exchange for a download.

If you don’t have a home page or download service that enables you to obtain the downloader’s contact information, then at the very least post an offer on your myspace site indicating that you will e-mail your myspace friends a free MP3 of the song in question IF they send you their e-mail address. Don’t give away your goods and get absolutely nothing back for it!

Do you employ the song graphics option?

Again, a no-brainer. Let your fans see your song while they’re hearing your song. Don’t waste another opportunity to more effectively market your music. Fans want to see and hear. Get that graphic or photo up on that player, a different one for each song!! Yes, I’m scolding again, but there really is no excuse for not marketing your music properly, especially when the marketing mechanism is free.

Should you use the song rotation option?

Whether you push one song by making it the default song when someone lands on your myspace site or let the songs rotate depends upon your overall marketing plan. If you’re pushing a song as a single, then default to that song playing when your site is opened. Build up the interest and the play numbers for the song. Tie a featured song with a free download on another site (for which they must give your contact info), build your fan base and create some press about how many friends turned into fans by signing up to get their download. Make myspace work for you. If you’re not pushing a song as a single or as a free download, or you are a label that is promoting a variety of artists, then letting the songs rotate makes sense.

MySpace Band Feature: The Amino Acids

Let’s take a look at a site that’s working the myspace player the way it should be, one of my myspace favs, The Amino Acids, at www.myspace.com/theaminoacids . The Amino Acids, a surf-punk band from outer space, has a great myspace site. They’ve done just about everything right, but for this discussion I want to mention their music player.

Visitors can rate and comment on each of their four songs as well as add them to their sites, promoting The Amino Acids. They don’t have lyric pages because the Amino Acids are primarily an instro band, so in this case lyrics are a moot point. You cannot download their songs from the myspace player, but they provide their fans several options to migrate from their myspace site to download songs elsewhere, where the band can garner more information from the fan. And, each song is presented with a great graphic.

Just about everything on The Amino Acids’ myspace site drives home their primary artistic sensibility, and they make good use of the strengths of myspace. The Amino Acids also give their fans plenty of opportunities to leave their myspace site to places where they can obtain fan information. Stop by the Amino Acids’ myspace site: It’s worth a visit. For a hoot, watch their live video when you visit. These guys slay me! Congrats to The Amino Acids for a job well done.

Provided by the MusicDish Network. Copyright © MusicDish LLC 2006 – Republished with Permission