Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		5.0

Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 28, 2025

Rhino absolutely made my day/week/month/year/decade/whatever when they released Joni Mitchell: The Asylum Albums a year or so ago. I mistakenly thought at the time that the release was going to be the first of several similar multi-disc sets offering Mitchell's recorded output with lossless audio, but if that initial impression was incorrect, Rhino may be at least partially fulfilling my hoped for prediction with what might (fingers and/or ears crossed) be the first of several standalone releases of various Mitchell albums with lossless audio. Blue was of course her last album for Reprise before joining David Geffen's then nascent Asylum label, and it stands as one of the touchstone singer songwriter offerings of all time. This is an interesting release in addition to the iconic status of the album itself, in that this is a very rare example (in my review experience, anyway) of Rhino including two bonus tracks not part of the original release as well as a vintage music video.

Blue features some of Joni Mitchell's most redolent writing, and the album's track list can be seen in screenshots 2 through 8 included with this review. More information on the disc's authoring is offered in the video section, below.

Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blue, as mentioned above, does include a music video in addition to its static menu. The AVC encoded 1080p music video is in 1.78:1 and I've included screenshots from it in positions 1 and 9. It's a fairly minimalist effort from 2021 (according to the copyright), and mimics Mitchell's evocative water colors. The main disc menu seen at boot up is shown in screenshot 10. Unfortunately, this is yet another disc from Rhino where they've authored things so that once the album starts playing, if you want to change audio codecs navigating through the disc menu, you have to scroll through the tracks and select your "new" codec, at which point the song starts over. While the colored buttons on your remote aren't operational, you can use the audio button itself (if your remote has one) to toggle between the codecs, and in utilizing this method, the song does not start over.

Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blue features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and Dolby Atmos mixes. The Atmos mix in particular is rather interesting and my hunch is potentially controversial since engagement of the rear channels is almost indiscernible at times. I literally had to get up right next to my rear speakers during songs like All I Want to hear even distant spill of ambient "hall reverb", and so a lot of the Atmos mix struck me as kind of peculiarly front heavy. There is clear engagement of the rear channels at various moments like the pedal steel guitar in California and the fun percussion in Carey, and there's no denying the spaciousness of the Atmos mix, I just personally found it a little strange that it's so anchored toward the front. The quad mix certainly provides more consistent engagement of the rear channels, but it has its own kind of peculiar anomaly, very faint but still audible background issues that at times are either lower hums or higher frequency spills. I still think I preferred the quad mix to the Atmos mix, as these background issues really only are apparent very intermittently, typically at track start up or ending. The stereo mix is fantastic, if less full sounding that either of the surround mixes. It's probably salient to mention the quad and Atmos mixes were done by the legendary Bruce Botnick.

Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I'm counting the two non album tracks and the music video as supplements for the scoring above.

• River Music Video (HD; 4:14)

An insert booklet contains lyrics and production credits.

Joni Mitchell - Blue Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell were often a musical "devil vs. angel" on my shoulders as a young musician myself, but in terms of some of Nyro's perceived darker elements, Blue comes startlingly close itself at times. I'm going to be really curious to hear what other fans think of the Atmos and quad mixes on this disc, but one way or the other, kudos to Rhino and Warner Music Group for continuing to mine Mitchell's unmatched discography. The pre-Asylum and pre-Blue Reprise efforts might be a good place to start, hint, hint, nudge, nudge, say n'more. Highly recommended.