Court and Spark ****

"I had visions, I was in them, I was lookin' into the mirror/ To see a little bit clearer/ The rottenness and evil in me."

-Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"

Sean Nelson, lead singer of Harvey Danger and MSN Music editor, knows how to write a hit song. He also knows how to write about the creation of a hit song (make that an entire album of hit songs).

In Court and Spark, the former Daily staffer and UW dropout (who went on to teach a course on songwriting) analyzes Joni Mitchell's hugely successful 1974 album, which simultaneously cemented the folk musician's fame and marked her downward spiral into obscurity.

The book includes just the right balance between criticism,biography and personal narrative so as to be informative and entertaining to both Mitchell fans and those wholly unfamiliar with her work.

Court and Spark is part of a rapidly expanding series called 33 1/3 (why, I'm still not sure), which gives everyone from English professors to professional musicians a chance to expound on an album that they find meaningful and/or interesting. So far, there are more than 40 titles in the series, including Led Zeppelin IV, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, Stevie Wonders' Songs in the Key of Life and many, many others.

In addition to an impressive diversity of perspectives and albums, each book features a unique approach and writing style. The Decemberists' Colin Meloy interweaves The Replacements' Let It Be into a dialogue laden mini-autobiography, while Dai Griffiths, a music professor at Oxford Brookes University, goes the more technical route[HTML_REMOVED]quite appropriately[HTML_REMOVED]breaking down Radiohead's OK Computer into "wordy" and "wordless" sections (to "determine the role of the voice", naturally) and analyzing its place in music history as a CD album (vs. a vinyl album).

One needn't be a fan of author nor subject to appreciate and enjoy Nelson's Court and Spark. Coming into it, my familiarity with Nelson and Mitchell began and ended at "Flagpole Sitta" and the Counting Crows' cover of "Big Yellow Taxi," respectively. A sad statement to be sure, coming from an aspiring arts and entertainment writer, but also a testament to this book series' relevance.

My approach to reviewing Court and Spark was to read the book half-way through before listening to the Mitchell album under investigation. For the most part, this technique worked out well and proved to be quite enjoyable. Particularly because the first third of the book is spent giving some history on Nelson's passion for Mitchell's work (a passion which was borne in the backseat of his mother's car) as well Mitchell's career pre- and post-Court and Spark.

At this point, the album is broken down and analyzed song by song. After reading Nelson's appraisal of the first four tracks, I found that it was definitely time to start listening to the music itself. Part of this urge resulted from natural curiosity, but part of it was due to the album's increasingly repetitive theme; namely that of the struggle between love and freedom. It was time to gain some perspective of and appreciation for the increasingly tedious details being presented.

Once I had gone through the CD once or twice, I was able to play a fun guessing game, trying to predict how Nelson would react to each remaining track.

"Oh, man!" I said to myself. "'Raised on Robbery' was a great song! I wonder if Sean'll mention the funky clavinet!" And, "Dude! 'Twisted' totally sucked! Surely Sean won't approve of that jazz-addled number [earlier in the book, Nelson had pointed out the correlation between Mitchell's jazz experimentation and the increasingly unlistenable nature of her music]".

It turned out, however, that Nelson didn't care for the faux-rock presentation of "Raised on Robbery", whereas he greatly enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek album closer "Twisted".

(Keep in mind that the aforementioned tracks were used for dramatic purposes only and are far from representative of the album as a whole. Songs such as "Help Me", "Car on a Hill", "Down To You" and "Trouble Child" make Court and Spark the classic album that it is.)

Ultimately, I found that Mitchell's music made for better stories than pop songs (and pop is what I was promised, damn it!), but such is my appraisal of most overly wordy folk music (Note to Mitchell: consider implementing more "wordless" content...or at least a few less breathless moments). Regardless, the book and album proved to be great companion pieces, both entertaining and enlightening. Nelson's writing was, on the whole, engaging, bringing Mitchell's lyrics and career to life.

In contrast, the In Utero entry in the 33 1/3 catalogue lacked a strong authorial voice, presenting a straight ahead history of the album's creation. It did include some compelling factoids (for example, "Scentless Apprentice" was apparently inspired by the novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which was recently released as a movie) in addition to interesting quotes from Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and producer Steve Albini, but otherwise it felt a bit limp and lifeless.

[HTML_REMOVED] [HTML_REMOVED] Christian Nelson