“Ignorant and Arbitrary”: The Album Joni Mitchell Felt Was Poorly Received Because of an “Icky” Music Industry

Joni Mitchell has never been one to mince her words about her feelings on the music industry, and as someone who saw it transform from the grassroots energy of the 1960s to the shrink-wrapped, mass-produced commercialism of the 1980s and beyond, Mitchell has a unique perspective on the matter. Still, when an artist rants and raves about the industry, it’s hard not to assume at least part of their argument has to do with their own ego regarding their art.

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But Mitchell stood by her convictions regardless of whether she was discussing her music or someone else’s, something she proved while compiling a list of “artist choice” records that meant the most to her in 2005. Before diving into the list of her 18 favorite songs, Mitchell shared her thoughts on how music changed in the second half of the 20th century. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t think it was for the better.

“By the end of the 20th century, it seemed to me that the muse had gone out of music. All that was left was the ‘ic,’” Mitchell said. “Nothing sounded genuine or original. Truth and beauty were passé.” This creative degradation, Mitchell argued, led to the poor performance of one 1980 album in particular.

Joni Mitchell Blamed This Steely Dan Album’s Poor Performance on the Industry, Not the Band

The commodification of artists makes it easy to blame the musician when an album doesn’t perform well. But Joni Mitchell has been hip to that trick for a long time. While compiling her “artist choice” album in 2005, Mitchell included “Third World Man”, the closing track to Steely Dan’s 1980 album, Gaucho. While explaining why that song meant so much to her, she threw in a couple of jabs at the business side of things.

“I never understood why Gaucho didn’t receive the critical acclaim of Aja,” Mitchell mused. “I’m convinced that if Gaucho had come first and then Aja, the same thing would’ve happened in reverse. To maintain this high standard of musicality and storytelling through two projects is most praiseworthy. But there is something ignorant and arbitrary in rock journalism—editorial policy, maybe—like, ‘We were kind last time. Let’s kill ‘em this time!’ Or maybe it was like second-date syndrome, where unrealistic expectations eclipse a plenty good reality.”

Whatever was causing the poor reception of Steely Dan’s seventh studio album was obviously potent. In the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Dave Marsh called Gaucho “the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes.”

Mitchell, a prolific and pioneering musician and lyricist herself, disagreed vehemently. “Of all the great songs on these two albums, the first to come to mind was ‘Third World Man’,” Mitchell later said of Gaucho. Then again, Mitchell was so leery of the industry post-1970s that if she had actually agreed with what the critics said, she might have felt more suspicion than relief.

Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns