Joni MitchellLadies of the Canyon

The first record where Mitchell set piano beside her guitar, and you can feel the room open up. "Big Yellow Taxi" paved paradise and put up a parking lot, that bright strum hiding a sting. "Woodstock" is the haunting, definitive take on a festival she never attended, sung slow and cavernous on electric piano. "The Circle Game" turns time passing into a singalong ache. Loose, sunlit, and bottomless. The sound of an artist about to crack everything wide open.