Joni Mitchell "Blue"

With Blue, Joni Mitchell basically set the template for all singer-songwriter albums that came after. Her three albums before had grown from the barely charting Song of the Seagull, to the Top 40 Clouds, with 1970 bringing Top 30 success for Ladies of the Canyon.

But 1971's Blue was different. It brought an amazing level of personal content, ripped straight from Joni's most personal thoughts and feelings. Simple production focusing on the lyrics brought listeners into Joni's struggles. The songs document the break-up with Graham Nash, complicated new relationship with James Taylor, homesickness, her young marriage, and giving up her child for adoption.

In 1979 Mitchell reflected, "The Blue album, 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."

Blue has received many major accolades over the decades since release, including:

1999, Blue was given the honor of a Grammy Hall of Fame award, which is given to recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance"

2000, Blue won the top spot in Chart's '50 Greatest Canadian Albums of All Time' (Blue was third place in 1996 and 2005)

2001, Blue was ranked #14 on VH1's list of the '100 Greatest Albums of All Time', the highest album by a female artist to appear on the list.

2002, Q Magazine named "Blue" the 8th Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.

2003, Blue was ranked #30 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the highest placement for a female artist

2004, Pitchfork Media ranked the album #86 on its list "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s".

2006, Blue was listed among Time Magazine's 'All-Time 100 Albums'. That year, the album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

2007, Blue was ranked second in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums, behind Neil Young's Harvest (which was the second-place finisher in all three Chart polls)

Blue was also voted #13 on Hotpress Magazine's 'Top 100 Albums Ever', by various other artists

Blue was voted #66 in Channel 4's countdown of the '100 Greatest Albums'

2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album #2 on its list "Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Female Albums Of All Time".

2015, the album was named the winner in the 1960s–1970s category of the inaugural Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize, an annual Canadian music award for classic albums released prior to the creation of the Polaris Music Prize.

2017, National Public Radio ranked the album #1 on its list "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women".