The band Joni Mitchell said no one should follow: “It’s not going to be great”
Musicians are often known for being opinionated so-and-sos, but there’s a handful out there who you can’t possibly imagine being uber-critical of their peers, even if pressed to give their hottest of takes.
For how mild-mannered and warm she often seems in public appearances, it’s difficult to picture Joni Mitchell making any outlandish statements about how dreadful another artist is.
Of course, she had plenty of other musicians whom she publicly expressed a dislike for, but for the most part, these were as a result of her calling out their asshole behaviour rather than being critical of their musical output. Living next to Frank Zappa was never something that Mitchell was particularly pleased about, with her expressing a dislike for his lifestyle, and she was also known for bashing Janis Joplin for being insecure and jealous of her own success.
That being said, she has gone as far as remarking that Bob Dylan was a “copycat” and that he didn’t have an ounce of originality in his work, and has quipped that she doesn’t care about Taylor Swift or anything she has to say. Mitchell may not necessarily be the most opinionated artist in history, but she’s more than capable of getting the claws out when she feels it’s necessary to throw someone’s name in the dirt.
However, by the 1990s, Mitchell’s career was nowhere near the same level as it had been when she was at her unmatchable peak in the ‘70s, and having spent the entirety of the ‘80s creatively in the wilderness, her return in the final ten years of the 20th century was not one that she found easy to navigate. Having been absent from the spotlight for such a long time, Mitchell was forced to contend with a lot of significant changes in the modern music sphere, and it was evident that she wasn’t a massive fan of the direction things were moving in.
While she may not have been releasing music as frequently, that wasn’t stopping her from digesting what else what going on culturally, and one particular act who started to gain popularity in the early ‘80s were exactly the sort of band that she warned others about following in the footsteps of due to how bland and insipid she found their artistry to be.
In an interview with Mirabella in 1995, Mitchell discussed the influence she’d had on other contemporary acts of the time, but despite acknowledging that there were some similarities, she seemed to dismiss the notion that any of them were meeting the same high standards she was known for creating for herself. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding snotty,” she proclaimed, “But if you’re building [your music] off a base of 10,000 Maniacs songs – if that’s the kind of music you took in and that’s the kind of music you want to make – then it’s not going to be great.”
While 10,000 Maniacs have never suffered as a result of this criticism, it’s certainly one of the most damning things that Mitchell has ever said about another artist, and one that would surely have cut deep for plenty of others if they were on the receiving end of it.
