2. Joni MitchellHejira

It’s notable that you haven’t included her most famous record, Blue.

Well, I wanted to be specific. I mean, Blue‘s one of my favourite records of all time, maybe more than any other record on this list but that doesn’t mean I can include it. It’s so etched in stone that I wouldn’t know how to draw from it. And I think a lot of what happened after that record – the bulk of her work in the 70s, which I think is her most important work – is maybe a reaction against the succinct emotional heft of those Blue songs. Every record after that became slightly more exploded and she started to take her interest in the arrangements of jazz music and other forms of music. She started to become very serious about it and then she dismantled her career, took a major beating and never came back. I like cool stories and that’s a cool story.