Although I can't point at one artist and say "So and so saved my life" I can certainly point at a group of them...and right there are the very top (although not alone) is Joni Mitchell.

Her music is all purpose and whenever I need a pat on the back, her music is there. Whenever I need to cry it out, her music is there. Whenever I want to lay around the house in my P.J.'s and sing really loud, her music is there. etc. etc. etc.

I don't have a favorite album persay, but I think I can mostly relate to Hejira right now, as I really do have the itch for travel and don't quite feel right if I'm in one place too long...and the album screams wanderlust.

But what about everyone else? Do you love Joni?

Joni Mitchell is a huge part of my life, music is a large part of my life so she is, too. ****ing huge.

Blue is my favourite album ever. I am not unwilling to settle on that. I love her catalogue. I have been ignorant of her later stuff (except for Turbulant Indigo) just because of suspense issues, but I really want to ease myself into not believing the bad criticisms (mainly because she entered jazz).

Actually, I'm impressed by how much I still like her. There're only about 5 artists I truly love as much as her (well, less than her, but in that range and not because they're "worse") because I can actually connect to the severe depression and whatever the lyrics are, even if they're story-related -- I can still get into that moment that nothing can capture. I thought I knew depression when I was 14/15, but I have been through the ringer and I have my eyes opened now. There is nothing like a Joni Mitchell album on a ****ty afternoon and a lonely night. Blue is about as vulnerable as you can get in music, I haven't heard anything that reaches that level of musical genius. No, not even the Beatles, but I was never really prone to them anyways. Way too much expectation for their music that I always back out halway through Revolution 9 now.

She also wrote one of my (if not the) favourite song, Both Sides, Now.
I'm not saying the rest of her stuff is bad, it's beyond a rating and ranking system, it's just dandy.

I love and appreciate Joni Mitchell and I want to spread it, infectiously. And now I feel like I'm on some damned TV awards show...

blue or clouds are my favourite albums ... most probably blue.
joni is amazing ...

I remember when I first "got into" her. I had heard her song "Help Me" on the radio and thought it was absolutely wonderful so my dad bought me Court and Spark for my 16th birthday...and I was in a trance.
I thought for years I had heard nothing more wonderful than Court and Spark and played it over and over...and played "Trouble Child" whenever I got depressed.

I thought I had heard nothing more wonderful...until I heard other Joni albums
I love all of her albums that I've heard thus far (more to go for sure) but I'd have to say that right now "Amelia" is probably my favorite. The lyrics reach me, and the mellow tone makes me want to cry (and does sometimes).

See, I'm just as bad as you.

The best kind of bad. Twisted.

I really love that album, it's always in the background of my mind somewhere. Furry Sings The Blues, Amelia, Coyote, especially, and Song For Sharon.

She's so... egoless and free. I want to be in that. I want to be in that forgetful era where nothing was bad, it was just calmer, and all of the music was so great and it was just starting. And you could die doing drugs and drowning while thinking you could breathe underwater instead of being ripped apart by angry Nazis like the last generation. It was a completely different world and I wouldn't trade the feeling of wanting it for anything other than having it.

The 60's were the best and I think Joni Mitchell was the best thing about the time because she prevailed. She has maintained an artistic value over anything else, even if she has lessened her hippie philosophy slightly over the years.

She's inspired me and that's all that matters because criticisms may annoy me temporarily but her music sets me free in ways the journalists can't possibly understand.