Joni Mitchell: Everything about Bob Dylan is fake

Aktivator

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Oh my I just lost a lot of respect for Joni and I'm a fan of her music. I'm sorry Dylan has written 100's of songs and she is picking on him for songs on his first album and one song from modern times? Plus the modern times song is a few passages not some one else's song. In regards to house of the rising sun who the hell has ever thought that was a Dylan song it's been known for ages it goes back further than that.

Then picking on Janis and grace for drugs and sex in the 60's? She sounds like a prude and bitter old lady.
 

Khor1255

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So, women are prudes if they don't sleep with their entire band? Yes, times they have changed. I think Mitchel is honest to herself but do not at all agree with the notion of plagiarism unless something is directly lifted from something else in it's entirety.
Music is a vocabulary. Drawing phrases whether they be musical or lyrical from what has come before is perfectly acceptable in my book. Where it crosses the line is when an artist lifts an entire passage and does not give credit to the originator. I don't think that's what Joni is accusing and she always was a bit of a wet blanket. Her remarks at Monterey Pop (or was it The Isle of Wight?) are evidence enough of her thin skinned nature but I think she is an honest person who happens to have a different standard when it comes to the definition of plagiarism.
 

gorgon

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I'll weigh in on this. Why couldn't I have been in the band with Grace Slick?:D
 

AboutAGirl

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Wow, sounds like Joni had a hell of a bad day and decided to take it out on everyone except for whoever was really responsible.

Much as I love Joni, it's in poor taste and ill intellect to go around lambasting all your contemporaries. As Bob Dylan (and others?) said, "[He] does not care to come up any higher, but rather get you down in the hole that he's in." Spitting vitriol at other musicians does more harm to you than it does to them.

As far as Bob Dylan plagiarizing, I couldn't care less. Led Zeppelin plagiarized most of their songs and they're still the best band of their ilk that the human race will ever see. Same goes for Bob Dylan, he's a goddamn genius of music in the purest and ultimate sense. Most of creativity comes not form inventing anything out of thin air, but of compiling the right variety of influences to create something even more spectacular than the sum of its parts. The older I get the more obvious it all becomes, that everything is a jigsaw puzzle composed of past works. The only things that seem completely new are things whose common threads you happen to be personally unfamiliar with. As if Joni invented her sound all by herself? As if.
 

LG

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I'll weigh in on this. Why couldn't I have been in the band with Grace Slick?:D

Indeed she was really sexy back in the day Gorgon.:heheh:

AAG, you make a good point and nice to see you again.

I've always said not much is new in music, anyone that goes back to the Baroque classical era and follow the progression to the modern age will come to the same conclusion.

I've warmed up to Dylan somewhat over the last ten years, but he will always be vastly overrated in my book. Not saying he isn't a legend and deservedly so, but I don't worship at his altar either.
 

Mistral Wind

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Just to give my two pence about what Joni has said, I think she could freely say what she wants about Bob Dylan. I mean, she one of the most important woman in music and she must have a wide knowledge of that kind of music. If now that she's old she has formulated this opinion in her mind, why not to tell it?

But I'm disappointed about what she's said about Janis Joplin and Grace Slick.
I don't like the idea Joni tries to give, for which she's better than them because they used to make love. Come on'! I really didn't think Joni was such a sanctimonious bigot! She's intelligent, so I think that before of expressing such judgements, she should have contextualized it in the period they lived in! In addition, an opinion about the artistic side of the music made by a person should not consider the private behaviour (even though personal life does influence music...)

Ps: I will always love her cd "Blue", anyway! :p
 

AboutAGirl

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Thanks LG. I never really leave this place I just sometimes don't have anything interesting to say for extended periods, lol! I do love Dylan but I don't think he's the end-all. He has 30, 40, or however many albums and I only love 8 or 9 of them.

Mistral Wind you make a good point. Slut-shaming is a hot button issue these days, I'm sure a lot of feminists are tearing Joni apart right now. I'm opposed to promiscuity myself but that's just for me and my own life, whatever anyone else enjoys is strictly up to them. If there's something wrong with having more than one sex partner most of us are doomed, and damn near 100% of rock stars.

If Joni has something to say about authenticity, plagiarism, etc., I'm sure she's more than equipped to say something thoughtful on those subjects without resorting to pointing fingers at everyone she can think to name. Wouldn't it be more productive to discuss how to be genuine rather than simply saying this person or that person, they're not genuine? It comes off sounding like mere jealousy, the same way all this bickering sounds from 60 year old musicians who suddenly decide to start hating everyone who made music in their era.
 

LG

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Bigot? The opposite of slut is now bigot?

Wow.

You do realize Mistral Wind's first language is Italian right Khor??

I know I would have trouble finding exactly the right word in an Italian language forum.

When I read her comment, she's just saying Joni's opinionated and set in her ways.
 

Mistral Wind

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When I read her comment, she's just saying Joni's opinionated and set in her ways.

Yes, I meant to say this. I excuse for the improper use of the term. I'll try to be more careful. Anyway, I just wanted to say that she seems to judge too harshly Janis and Grace, because they lived in a very particular period.

Ps: ehm... I'm a man! XD (I guess I'll have to update my profile, if my nickname seems feminine XD)

AboutAGirl said:
Slut-shaming is a hot button issue these days, I'm sure a lot of feminists are tearing Joni apart right now. I'm opposed to promiscuity myself but that's just for me and my own life, whatever anyone else enjoys is strictly up to them. If there's something wrong with having more than one sex partner most of us are doomed, and damn near 100% of rock stars

I agree.
 

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