Joni Mitchell – Wild Things Run Fast (1982)

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Uncharacteristically, Wild Things Run Fast is a very glossy album by Joni Mitchell. It’s also unabashedly focused on romantic relationships, not unlike Court & Spark (1973) and Blue (1971), but disappointingly lacking the marrow-like substance of those records.

It contains two of Mitchell’s best songs of her career, which by virtue of their writing survive fad production. They are “Chinese Café” and “Moon at the Window.” Mitchell’s vocal phrasings in these songs further elevate them.

For the rest of the album, Mitchel opts to kick back and have some fun. This results in a set of songs sounding simultaneously frenetic and daft. The construction of giddy tempo changes (“Wild Things Run Fast”, “You’re So Square”) and endless guitar fills are severe and signal a songwriter in skeletal mode. There’s also an embarrassing feel of middle-aged musicians trying to infiltrate a punk-rock aesthetic. On The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975), Mitchell exuded her own kind of sophisti-cool, but here she just imitates, and her cache is exhausted.

“Love” closes the album, in which Mitchell sings of artifice and lust, and the distinction between it and that of authentic love and truth. The words are pulled from a book in the bible, and ironically and unwittingly, it facilitates an indictment of the album’s superficiality.