Best Joni Mitchell Albums: Her Complete Discography, Ranked And Reviewed

21: ‘Taming The Tiger’ (1998)

A lengthy interview Joni Mitchell did while promoting Taming The Tiger underscored the extent of her disenchantment with the music industry. Upset at being characterised as an artist from a previous era, she told Mojo magazine, “I was just shut out, period, after the Mingus album.” She added: “You only get about five or six years before they’re sick of you in the business generally.”

One of the best Joni Mitchell albums of the 90s, Taming The Tiger alternates between this kind of bitter spirit (particularly on its vicious title track) and a miniaturist’s eye for the commonplace details of life. Face Lift, written about Mitchell’s relationship with her mother, is almost pointillist in its analysis of the everyday. But however spiky the lyrics, they are tempered by the album’s gorgeous guitar washes, courtesy of a new digital guitar processor.

Must hear: Face Lift

20: ‘Joni Mitchell At Newport’ (2023)

The blistering surprise of Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage – her unannounced set at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival – led to this release documenting the performance, credited to “Joni Mitchell featuring the Joni Jam”. Sharing the stage primarily with Brandi Carlile, Mitchell’s presence is almost spiritual – spiritual in the sense of soul-moving at points; yet also spiritual as in ghostly and ephemeral. On Joni Mitchell At Newport, there are moments where she haunts her own songs.

It’s hard to deny the love suffusing this album, the pure joy of having Mitchell back; and her frequent laughter throughout is absolutely infectious. She’s treated as a goddess by her fellow musicians, and who could deny them the pleasure of standing in Mitchell’s warm shadow?

Must hear: The Circle Game

19: ‘Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm’ (1988)

Collaborators Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty and Billy Idol all bring their own sounds and egos to Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm, yet Mitchell’s sharp songwriting remains, and when she’s in the driving seat, she shines: The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms), written about her parents’ meeting during World War Two and featuring Prince’s Revolution band members Wendy Melvin and Lisa Coleman, is a particular dreamy highlight. The Beat Of Black Wings looks at war from a different viewpoint, about post-traumatic stress disorder endured by Vietnam veterans.

Among the best Joni Mitchell albums, Chalk Mark In A Rainstorm was a return to critical and commercial acclaim after Dog Eat Dog, garnering its creator a Grammy Award. But Mitchell had to keep her poise with it, battling a nervous record company. “It took me two and a half years and a lot of thought and a lot of work,” she said, in 1988, of the album. “I was very proud of it. But the initial feedback I got on it was terrible. Nobody could recognise it. Everybody wanted it to be something other than what it was.”

Must hear: The Tea Leaf Prophecy (Lay Down Your Arms)

18: ‘Wild Things Run Fast’ (1982)

Joni Mitchell’s first studio album of the 80s, Wild Things Run Fast represented a move to a new label (Geffen) and an embrace of a more orthodox sound following the outré nature of 1979’s Mingus. “There is a return to rock steady rhythms,” Mitchell said of this album, “which I’d abandoned for a while simply because I was sick of the backbeat, but I think the music is quite progressive. And there is still a lot of jazz in the vocal phrasing.” This emphasis on rhythm, she has said, came from listening to contemporaries including The Police, Steely Dan and Talking Heads.

The interpolation of Unchained Melody, the cover of You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care) and the difficult nostalgia on Chinese Café all give this album a sense of time passing. On the latter, Mitchell sings plainly – without the poetic veil of Blue’s Little Green – of her daughter, placed for adoption in 1965, giving the song a direct autobiographical power. There is a similar lyrical openness elsewhere that mirrors Wild Things Run Fast’s accessible musical textures. “The new album is good and has the potential of reaching a lot of people,” she said at the time, “and I haven’t made an album too many people could relate to in a long time.”

Must hear: Chinese Café/Unchained Melody

17: ‘Both Sides Now’ (2000)

When Joni Mitchell sings a song written by another, it’s a statement in itself. From The House Of The Rising Sun, recorded when Mitchell was just 19 and released as part of the Joni Mitchell Archives series, through her famous cover of Twisted, on Court And Spark, to this: her orchestral interpretation of jazz standards. Sequencing the songs to reflect the growth, flourishing and withering of a love affair, Both Sides Now is unique among the best Joni Mitchell albums for only containing two of her own compositions.

Mitchell’s voice on this record has garnered comparisons to Billie Holiday. It has her lifetime scarred into each note; and what she has lost in range she has gained in worldliness. The effect is particularly powerful on the album’s closer and title track. Dating from 1969’s Clouds, Mitchell sings the song now as a woman well into her 50s, looking at what she thought she knew as a youngster. The results are stunning.

Must hear: Both Sides Now

16: ‘Travelogue’ (2002)

The follow-up to Both Sides Now – and, in many ways, its perfect partner – Travelogue reimagines some of the best Joni Mitchell songs within the orchestral format. She doesn’t concentrate solely on her famous cuts for reinterpretation, either; the set opens with Otis And Marlena, from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, and includes underheard tracks such as Borderline, Cherokee Louise and Be Cool, all present in intriguing new arrangements. The cast of musicians includes Wayne Shorter, Billy Preston and Herbie Hancock.

Travelogue was accompanied by the announcement that it would be Mitchell’s final album. Citing the nature of the record business itself, she told Mojo magazine (in typically forthright fashion), “I’ll be happy if the industry goes down the crapper.” She was also plagued by health issues at the time, and returned to the healing nature of painting (her first love). For years, it was assumed that Travelogue would be the final recorded word from one of the 20th century’s greatest artists.

Must hear: Amelia

15: ‘Night Ride Home’ (1991)

Probably the most melancholic entry among the best Joni Mitchell albums, Night Ride Home has many shadows and very little light. Mitchell creates a tableau of loneliness, whether in her elegiac tribute to German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (on Two Grey Rooms), or her reinterpretation of WB Yeats (Slouching Towards Bethlehem).

Part of her despair that is, at points, palpable on Night Ride Home relates to environmental destruction. This was a theme Mitchell had been exploring in her work for years, and she was now starting to link it to myth and theology. “I don’t want to be Doomsday Joan or anything, but all the images [in the Book Of Revelation] kind of hook up,” she said in an interview to promote the album. “I’ve been struggling to warn everybody my whole career, and now it’s here.”

Must hear: Two Grey Rooms

14: ‘Miles Of Aisles’ (1974)

There’s a story, repeated in the music press of the time, that certain fans were unhappy with Joni Mitchell’s decision to tour with a band in 1974. Used to her solo performances, one fan heckled her in Chicago, shouting, “Turn down the volume!” Joni zinged back: “What’s the matter, do we have a hall full of purists? I thought Chicago liked to boogie!”

“Boogie” is definitely the word for Miles Of Aisles, which captures that intense tour during its Californian leg. Accompanied by the fusion ensemble LA Express – many of whom had appeared on Court And Spark – Mitchell was able to display how advanced her musical knowledge had become. “Her harmonic structures for her tunes were so elusive that when we came back after a two-week vacation, we’d have to go back to the studios and rehearse,” said Max Bennett, the group’s bassist.

Must hear: Real Good For Free

13: ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’ (1977)

The songs of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter are dotted from Mitchell’s recent past. There’s Jericho, which had been played live for many years (and appears on Miles Of Aisles); Dreamland, which was considered for The Hissing Of Summer Lawns; and yet more which Mitchell had performed when accompanying Bob Dylan on his 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue. The result is a sprawling, yet highly disciplined album. Its abstractions never feel unmoored, its lengthy tracks perfectly appropriate for the complicated ideas they contain.

Controversial not only for its perceived difficulty, the album also came with artwork featuring Mitchell in blackface, portraying an alter ego she named Art Nouveau (it has subsequently been changed). Chaka Khan – who performs on the album – later explained the spirit she feels Mitchell was trying to express with the cover. “She’s into colour,” Khan has said. “She’s a world of person, and she lived that, she sang that, she is that. I am, too. It’s a wonderful thing.”

Must hear: Paprika Plains

12: ‘For The Roses’ (1972)

Despite the album’s floral title, and its bucolic cover featuring a gently smiling Mitchell, For The Roses was an early exercise in Mitchell cynicism (a trait that would become more pronounced on later albums). The title itself was sleight-of-hand: it was a grim horse-racing metaphor. As Mitchell explained in 1972, “for the roses” means “when you take this horse and he comes charging to the finish line and they throw a wreath of flowers around his neck and then one day they take him out and shoot him”.

Almost in reaction to its immediate predecessor, Blue, For The Roses’ lyrics veer away from moonlight tête-à-têtes. Instead, Mitchell grows a new layer of skin, as if to protect herself as she creates song after song with clever, sardonic words surrounded by a mosaic of new musical ideas. For The Roses is a metamorphosis among the best Joni Mitchell albums; a work that finds Mitchell wading in waters she would soon soak herself in on The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and Hejira.

Must hear: Banquet

11: ‘Shadows And Light’ (1980)

Shadows And Light is a vital live album, and a document of the richness within Joni Mitchell’s later 70s catalogue. In a live environment, Mitchell sought to recreate and deepen the relationship between herself, her lyrics and the musical feeling of the band. “Because of my wordiness, I am first responsible to my words,” Mitchell has said. “So when I play with a band, I have to be the leader. Well, the words have to be the leader. And if there’s any room for anyone to get in, well, good luck!”

This collection thankfully does provide that room, for it definitely showcases the superlative skills of her musical unit. The gigantic talents of bassist Jaco Pastorius and guitarist Pat Metheny are essential to the album’s sensitivity and grace, and a cappella group The Persuasions back Mitchell on two tracks. Mitchell herself stands atop it all, majestic and confident in her artistic voice.

Must hear: Edith And The Kingpin

10: ‘Song To A Seagull’ (1968)

A folk album from someone who resented being called a folk singer, Song To A Seagull was Mitchell’s assured debut. She was already an experienced songwriter and performer by the time of the album’s release, and on Song To A Seagull she is tugging at the frayed edges of folk music. She has described the album as “scratched, like an old silent movie negative”.

Lyrically, though not as complex as other entries among the best Joni Mitchell albums, there is already a questioning, deep quality to her work; relationships are represented in nuanced and often confrontational terms. The original 1968 release of Song To A Seagull was, however, plagued by bad luck, with production work by an inexperienced David Crosby flattening out its sound, and poor cropping of the artwork obscuring the title. However, 2021 saw a Mitchell-approved remaster, and the foundation stone for one of music’s most complex mavericks can now be heard in its original vision.

Must hear: Cactus Tree

9: ‘Shine’ (2007)

Since Travelogue, and the assumption that there would be no new Mitchell material to come, fans got used to basking in her incredible back catalogue. But, five years later, Mitchell surprised everybody when she returned with Shine, a truly great album that meditates on the state of the world.

“One day I was sitting staring out to sea at my house in Canada and just feeling so grateful to have such a beautiful place,” she said in 2007, recalling how the album’s opening song, One Week Last Summer, came to her. “I ran in and I played this piece on the piano which is the first cut on the album.” Further songs followed, some inspired by contemporary conflicts such as the Iraq War, others by the climate crisis. The gravity of the themes is reflected in the minimalist approach to the music, which also features guest appearances from singer-songwriter James Taylor and bassist and Mitchell’s former husband Larry Klein.

Must hear: Hana

8: ‘Turbulent Indigo’ (1994)

Many of Joni Mitchell’s own paintings were used as album covers, and with a framed self-portrait of herself as Van Gogh on the sleeve, Turbulent Indigo is the finest album of Mitchell’s later recording career. It came from a place of anger and dissatisfaction; the record features a lot of barely-suppressed rage that had only featured briefly before (such as on 1972’s Woman Of Heart And Mind). There’s a nihilism, almost, to this entry among the best Joni Mitchell albums; there’s dark matter of domestic abuse and the lack of justice in life. Mitchell also felt that, as an older artist in an industry focused on youth, her current work wasn’t being taken seriously in the way her younger work had been, and this frustration also permeates the album.

By this point, Mitchell’s voice had decisively altered, too. She was no longer someone who could “sing soprano in the upstairs choir” (a lyric from Rainy Night House, on the Ladies Of The Canyon album). Mitchell’s lower tones, which suited the material on this album, were the result of decades of cigarettes and a blasé attitude to her own health. “She was just incorrigible when it came to taking care of herself on the road,” said Larry Klein. “Knowing that she had a tough time going to sleep every night, she would still drink cappuccino after the gigs, and of course was smoking from the moment that she woke up to the moment that she fell asleep.”

Must hear: Sex Kills

7: ‘Ladies Of The Canyon’ (1970)

An underrated aspect of Joni Mitchell’s artistry is how skilled she is at evoking place and environment. Later in the 70s, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns would conjure images of a dystopian Los Angeles, but on this earlier album (Mitchell’s third) she was more celebratory of her then homestead: LA’s Laurel Canyon.

Containing three of her best-known songs (Big Yellow Taxi, The Circle Game and Woodstock), Ladies Of The Canyon is probably the most commercial the best Joni Mitchell albums ever got. It also finds Mitchell in her most big-hearted mood, with tributes to her neighbours on the title track; the belief in people-power on Woodstock; the optimism of Morning Morgantown; and, of course, the pioneering ecological anthem Big Yellow Taxi.

Must hear: The Priest

6: ‘Court And Spark’ (1974)

Released at the start of 1974, Court And Spark caught a moment in time. It walked a delicate balance between folk, soft rock and jazz; almost accidentally, Mitchell had made a zeitgeist record, and it was her biggest seller up to that point. Moving decisively away from the intimacy of 1971’s Blue and the hard emotional injustices of that record’s follow-up, For The Roses, Court And Spark was bigger and mellower than both of them. Its expansive vision is realised by a wide variety of crack LA musicians, many of whom had jazz chops, which was starting to become a serious Mitchell interest.

At the time, Mitchell said that Court And Spark was an emotional release for her. Coming through a period of difficult mental health, she said in 1974 that, “Yes, it has to do with my experiences. I feel I want to go in all directions right now, like a mad thing.” Easily sitting among the best Joni Mitchell albums, this record, with its dizzying range of styles, from the light-hearted to the intensely earnest, finds that whirligig in full flow.

Must hear: People’s Parties

5: ‘Mingus’ (1979)

Ending the 70s is Joni Mitchell’s most unusual collaboration, and the final album of her most audaciously experimental period. One of the greatest jazz musicians in history, bassist Charles Mingus had instigated the partnership, and though Mitchell was flattered at being asked to work with him, she was initially unsure whether this musical relationship would work. The project had a particularly tough theme, too: exploring the jazz icon’s state of mind at the end of his life. She stated in the sleevenotes to the Mingus album that it was “a difficult but challenging project” on which she “was trying to please Charlie and still be true to myself.”

Just as Mitchell predicted, the relationship was stormy at points, Mitchell resisting certain directions Mingus wanted to take her in. Yet both persisted and the result was elegiac, lyrically unusual, with spoken-word “rap” segments that directly include Mingus’s voice. Mingus became the last album that Charles Mingus worked on (he died five months prior to its release) and also became one of the most spectacular sonic explorations among the best Joni Michell albums.

Must hear: A Chair In The Sky

4: ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’ (1975)

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns is Mitchell’s take on bloated, monied LA culture. Released just as rock music was becoming radio-friendly (and when many previous folk rebels were smoothing out their sounds for airplay), Mitchell casts a cynical eye on how this commercialism can become a prison. Dubbed “dark yacht rock”, the album spotlights the weeds shooting up under those carefully manicured lawns.

It followed the huge-selling Court And Spark, yet sounds very little like its predecessor. Mitchell knew she was sabotaging her own potential sales with The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, both in its lyrical content and in the more challenging musical styles she employs (including an early form of sampling, on The Jungle Line). She openly talked of “moving away from the hit department to the art department”. And she never went back.

Must hear: Harry’s House/Centrepiece

3: ‘Blue’ (1971)

Blue, Joni Mitchell’s most obviously confessional album, was written in harsh personal circumstances. “We had to close the doors and lock them while I recorded [Blue], because I was in a state of mind that in this culture would be called a nervous breakdown,” she said in 1996. The album is, emotionally, a tough listen. Mitchell never encourages you to feel pity for her (“I’m so hard to handle, I’m selfish and I’m sad,” she confesses on River), yet her longings, whether for romantic relationships, for home, or for the daughter she birthed but could not raise (on Little Green) are all too human.

Musically, the album introduced new elements to Mitchell’s sonic palette. May of its songs were written on a mountain dulcimer, which Mitchell had bought at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival. Blue is also the sound of Mitchell’s piano, which had grown from tentative experimentation, on Song To A Seagull, into a profound vehicle for her art only a few short years later. One of the best Joni Mitchell albums of any era, Blue highlighted Mitchell’s restlessness – a quality that would soon be supercharged as the 70s ticked on.

Must hear: The Last Time I Saw Richard

2: ‘Clouds’ (1969)

Mitchell’s second album, and her first as a truly confident artist, Clouds was named after the recurring metaphor in the song Both Sides, Now: things that get in the way, things you project dreams on to, things you have to understand from different perspectives and, ultimately, a stop on the journey to wisdom. All of these things could be said of Mitchell’s narratives on this record. Nothing is simple here, and there is danger in a single story. Clouds is sadder than her first record, despite the glee of its classic opener, Chelsea Morning.

Released at the end of the 60s, it also captures the tense mood in North America at the time and anticipates the failures of hippie idealism. Fragile mental health, Vietnam, the difficulties of romantic relationships in a superficial world – all are covered by Mitchell’s unforgiving lyrics, which exemplify her status as one of the truly gifted songwriters whose work also stands as poetry. Clouds was also a landmark in terms of Mitchell’s artistic control. After an unhappy experience with production on her first album, and a false start with a house producer on this record, Mitchell took charge of production herself, setting the foundations for all of her future projects. “A producer is a babysitter if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Mitchell has said. “A producer is an interior decorator. I decorated my own house. I don’t need a decorator.”

Must hear: The Gallery

1: ‘Hejira’ (1976)

“To me, the whole Hejira album was really inspired,” Mitchell said in 2019, of the release that tops this list of the best Joni Mitchell albums. She believes that no one else alive could have written the songs on Hejira, and she is right.

Written at a time of great personal and practical flux – road trips, truncated tours, relationship endings and new sonic explorations into jazz – Hejira’s title reflects this wildness. Mitchell had previously written songs on the lure of escape, from the early composition Urge For Going to wishing for a river “to skate away on” on Blue, but nowhere before or since would Mitchell feel so desperate for change.

The songs themselves are complex in structure and brilliant in their execution. Unlike her earlier work, which foregrounded relationships and found Mitchell using her life as narrative (however unconventional that narrative may be), Hejira takes a more modernist approach. Sentimentality is banished, but meaning remains clear. Song For Sharon is a perfect example of this: the Sharon of the title is a friend of Mitchell’s from childhood, but the song isn’t about Sharon, or their relationship. It considers past and present, mixing up truth and conjecture, all interpreted by the looping musical accompaniment.

Hejira may not have been Mitchell’s top seller but, over the years, its reputation and power has grown. “It’s like the opposite of AWOL,” Mitchell said of the album’s title, in 2022, while talking to the crowd at her surprise Newport Folk Festival appearance. “It’s running away from something but without blame. With honour.”

Must hear: Song For Sharon

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Original article: 7 November 2023

Updated: 21 June 2024