Title: A decade ahead of its time
Review: 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.
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