Joni Mitchell
Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced (Rhino)Idiosyncratic singer-songwriters seem resistant to career-spanning box sets. Of those never anthologized, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and Steve Earle come to mind. Love Has Many Faces, a 4-CD set curated by Joni Mitchell, allows us to cross her off that list, although its conceit might discourage those looking only for hits and rarities. Love Has Many Faces arranges 53 previously released songs of love and heartbreak from a more-than-40-year career into a four-act ballet with themes and interlocking scenes. This listener couldn’t follow the plot, if there actually is one, but the journey she takes us on is never dull. The first disc, subtitled Birth of Rock ‘N’ Roll Days, revisits a few guises the Canadian singer-songwriter sampled, from sad-eyed folkie to jazz chanteuse. Juxtaposing the foolish “Dancin’ Clown,” featuring vocals by Billy Idol and Tom Petty, with sublime wintertime ode “River” pushes the limits of credulity however. Missing from the proceedings are such fan favorites as “Woodstock,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “The Circle Game,” and more from her early work. Mitchell’s liner notes attempt to explain her process and while the outcome might not be the box set followers wanted, it’s the one she wanted them to experience.
This article appears in December 12 • 2014.