Originally released June 22, 1971
Reissued October 7, 2022
Rhino
1xLP (Black Vinyl and Indie Exclusive Clear)
More than 50 years on from its release, the fingerprints of Joni Mitchell’s Blue can be found across the musical landscape more so now than ever. From the raw confessionalism of the likes of Boygenius or Fiona Apple to the inventive singer-songwriter approach of Adriane Lenker and Alex G or the California melancholy of Weyes Blood and Lana Del Rey you’d be hard set to press play on a streaming playlist without finding something that owes some debt to this album. After a spell of being out of print on vinyl, and its removal from Spotify earlier this year, Blue has returned from the pressing plants once again and is about to be discovered by a new group of listeners who may know its ascendants but not the source material. It’s an album that is made up of only a few elements: a guitar, the piano and the occasional dulcimer pluck, but has this intangible magic to it that only the best music can gather and has kept it held in such high regard for half a century. Ultimately Blue is an album that is better experienced than described.