Joni Mitchell Court and Spark on 180g Vinyl LP  

Ranks #111 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time List

Court and Spark completed Joni Mitchell's transition from folk singer to sophisticated auteur. In addition to meticulously crafted melodies and evocative, image-rich lyrics, the songs here are breezy and immediately appealing. This is in part due to Tom Scott's L.A. Express, a sinuous jazz-based combo, but also to Mitchell's knack for pop hooks. The album's accessibility made it Mitchell's most commercially successful, yet the personal intensity and insight of her songwriting never wavers. Court and Spark confirmed her standing as one of the most important and subtle talents of the rock era.

Named the 111th Best Album of All Time by Rolling Stone, Court and Spark is a fully fledged exploration of emotional opposites. For every positive, there is a negative. As Jon Landau wrote in his 1974 review for Rolling Stone:

"The actual opposites of Court and Spark--the thrill of courtship modulated by the fear of emotional commitment-- suggest a series of choices that Mitchell touches on, passes through, and defines with astounding compression--the alternatives of love and freedom, trust and paranoia, security and rootlessness, concern for herself and for others, compromise and pursuit of perfection, and even sanity and insanity..."