I've admired Joni M. from a distance for years, but I never really sat down and listened to her until I popped my wife's copy of Court and Spark on tonight. Holy smokes, I'm hooked. The drama of every song on this album, a woman adventurer throwing herself headlong into love and finding that nothing is more binding than freedom, well, Joni puts it across with some of the most beguiling melodies to ever hit the Top 40. This is not a coffee house folk singer hippie Madonna (no, not Ciccone, I'm talking center-parted hair, peasant blouse, acoustic guitar), this is one tough,clear-eyed woman with a way with words and a rhythmic sense gleaned from her recent discovery of mid-'60's Miles Davis, put over on the really odd but just right chord progressions she strums. Her only pop music peer for words that actually scan well is Lou Reed, except Joni can sing. Lush, deep, and I'll say it again, for a Laurel Canyon millionaire, tough as death and taxes.