Blue by Joni Mitchell is the Greatest Album Of All TIME*

Just a few reasons:

1. The songs are spectacular. They are proper poems set to music, not just a bunch of clichés or random words - I heard a bit of Ed Sheeran on the Jubilee Concert and he sang a lyric about someone’s face being like pastry. WTF.

2. The songs are wonderful to sing, they fill you with joy or hope or sadness. (Just thinking about the songs has me fighting the urge to go “YOU’RE IN MY BLOOD LIKE HOOOOOLY WINE”)

3. Every song is so real and raw that she could be singing the songs directly from her soul. I watched a documentary where she said she felt like cellophane when she was making blue: "there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either."

4. There is a song or lyric for nearly every possible mood:

What it feels like to be in love? TICK

What it feels like when love dies? TICK

Wanting to go and drink? TICK

Needing change? TICK

Wanting to go home? TICK

Feeling disillusioned? TICK

Feeling Christmassy? TICK (kind of... Christmas is mentioned)

Feeling hopeful? TICK

Thinking about the child you gave up for adoption? TICK

5. It’s by Joni Mitchell which means it’s sung by Joni Mitchell which means it’s excellent.

from jonimitchell.com

*of the ones I've heard so far....