Hissing of Summer Lawns

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Product Details

Artist : Joni Mitchell
Binding : Audio CD
EAN : 0075596060622
Label : Elektra Entertain.
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : Music
Release Date : 1987-07-23
UPC : 075596060622

ASIN : B000002GY2

Track Listings for

Disc-1
1. In France They Kiss on Main Street
2. Jungle Line
3. Edith and the Kingpin
4. Don't Interrupt the Sorrow
5. Shades of Scarlett Conquering
6. Hissing of Summer Lawns
7. Boho Dance
8. Harry's House -- Centerpiece
9. Sweet Bird
10. Shadows and Light

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.ca Canadian Essential

Joni Mitchell has made prettier albums; more successful albums; albums with more hits, but she's never made an album as challenging or as visionary as Hissing of Summer lawns. Combining folk, jazz, pop and world music, Mitchell makes her intricate, beguiling songs sound easy, but something easy could never be this interesting. -- S. Duda

From Amazon.com

Court and Spark had earned Joni Mitchell mainstream pop acceptance, but its underlying spirit of discovery pushed her to risk new-found success with this edgier, experimental sequel released in 1975. Although the session crew is largely the same, and sleek jazz elements again abound, these songs find her introducing Burundi drums (on "The Jungle Line"), layering magisterial but forbidding vocal harmonies ("Shadows and Light"), and casting rueful shadows across the sun-dazed Southern California of the title song. Her daring promptly earned critical scorn and halted her commercial expansion, but the album's confident eclecticism and dark beauty have outlived that reception: from the safety of hindsight, Hissing was a promise to stay hungry and creatively adventurous, a promise kept then and now. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

In limbo between greats (2004-04-14)

Like Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks," this is one of those albums people either get or they don't, and thus they tend to love it or hate it. I like much of Joni Mitchell's work, but I have to confess that I'm not particularly fond of this album, though I certainly don't hate it. The jazzy pop Mitchell had delved into with "Court and Spark" is here taken a step further, with an accent more on the jazz than the pop. The result features some beautiful moments and moods, but precious few memorable melodies. Even "Hejira," the next step in the experimental process, seemed to feature better songwriting to my ears. Mitchell's lyrics are good as always, and vaguely thematic in their approach to urban life. I'm glad she chose to get experimental, though I don't care for some of the results, especially "The Jungle Line," a clunker full of some annoying moog synthesizer programs that might have sounded better if somebody had even just mixed it differently to emphasize different sounds in it. Some of her "contemporary" (yuck) jazzy sounding basses and guitars sound rather cloying and lack bite, but Joni's voice is wonderful as usual and "In Paris They Kiss on Main Street" is a genuinely exciting track.

One of my "deserted island" choices (2004-04-13)

Other reviewers waxed eloquent about this jewel, and rightly so. I can't add much add other than that this is one of the handful of albums I'd want on that deserted island, along with these:

Pink Floyd / Dark Side of the MoonPat Metheny Group / Path Metheney GroupMiles Davis / Kind of BlueWeather Report / Heavy WeatherBruce Springsteen / Born to RunSteely Dan / AjaJames Taylor / Greatest Hits

It's the kind of album that still sounds fresh and relevant after 25 or 30 years. Albums that have stayed at arm's reach the entire time, never forgotten or falling into disfavor.

If you liked "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris" from Court and Spark, or "Last Time I Saw Richard" from Miles of Aisles, chances are you'll like this album too. The folksy Joni has been put on the back burner but the jazz Joni hasn't quite emerged yet. What you get instead is the sophisticated pop Joni at her very best. If you're looking for folk style or very jazzy stuff, this isn't it. Also, there's less of her floaty guitar style on this album than on subsequent ones like Hejira.

This album is also ideal for people who thrive on searching for various levels of meaning in the lyrics. As Joni states in the liner notes, the album was conceived as a whole, and all the pieces fit together conceptually as well as musically.

Great backup work by Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, Robbenn Ford, Jeff Baxter, Max Bennett, Victor Feldman, John Guerin, and Chuck Findley, and including backing vox and other instruments by James Taylor, Graham Nash, and David Crosby.

Joni's most ambitious one (2003-12-09)

Joni Mitchell is one of the best female vocalist in the popular music. Her earlier works were anchored in folk-music, she then turned to a more jazz/pop-oriented music. THoSL is a hybrid, blending pop songs, balads, jazz and an african influence on 'the jungle line'. Not only is Joni a gifted vocalist, but she is also a great drawer (she is under most of her albums' covers artwork). Returning to the review, THoSL is IMHO a true masterpiece and shows Joni's ability to play different kinds of music. Joni's voice is beautiful, and not less is the music that accompanies it. She played with the biggest jazz artists after this recording : Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Jaco Pastorius and her music was still pleasant, although exploring other horizons. If you want to discover Joni's best works, begin with THoSL and follow with her other 70's recordings, from 'Court and Spark' to 'Mingus'.

A decade ahead of its time (2003-10-17)

This record is both "the beginning of the end" and "the end of the beginning" for Joni Mitchell. It's an ambitious, complicated record that alienated a good number of fans and began the precipitous decline in Mitchell's sales, popularity and respect. It's also a kind of graduation. Her skills are complete, and now she's free to synthesize everything she's learned into something no one else could create. Sonically, it's a decade ahead of its time, full of sampling and tape loops and ethnomusicology. Lyrically, Mitchell is looking outside herself in a new way, revealing a keen social critic. And it rocks, which wasn't often true of Joni Mitchell records in the past. I won't single out any tracks for special praise, because it works best all in one go, as a kind of journey. Aside from the groundbreaking music, the "Hissing" LP had maybe the best packaging of any album ever.

An enduring precursor of things to come (2003-06-21)

Who said that there wasn't life after Court and Spark?

For one who has always been adventurous and challenging, Joni Mitchell would create another masterpiece that proved once and for all that there indeed was life after Court and Spark; from the very first track, one can sense that this album (like Court and Spark before it) could not only captivate the listener with repeated spins; it could also surprise as well ("The Jungle Line" is one great example of what Mitchell had in mind in the process of making Lawns).

Some critics, however, weren't so kind toward Joni and the direction she consciously chose to take with her music. They readily dismissed it as fluff, lightweight, generic jazz-pop music - one bad move on the part of those who never really took the time to hear this album from front to back. But for longtime JM fans, as well as the newcomer who wanted to hear JM for the first time, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns once again confirmed that Joni Mitchell was, is, and will always be an adventurous singer-songwriter whose strengths after Court and Spark remained intact - even if this was the end of the line for her commercially.

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns also was a precursor of things to come for other musicians. Like Steely Dan in and around that timeframe, whose own music became increasingly jazz-pop oriented. Or even further up the ladder with Chicago's post-rock mainstays The Sea and Cake, whose blends of jazz and pop (besides dub and electronic) still continue to surprise and amaze. Without this album in mind, these groups wouldn't be performing the type of music which they're presently making (and making well).

When critics knocked this album (and Joni while they were at it), they made one mistake: they could try their hardest to take the adventure away from her music, but failed miserably.After listening to Lawns for the first time, I realized that they missed out on an awesome album which is able to cover any and every musical base Joni has been outstanding in covering for the past four decades.

This is a must-listen opportunity for those who are open to musicians who aren't afraid to take risks (like Miles Davis). Believe it or not, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns will not disappoint those who give it a spin with all their heart.

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