Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976–1980) is a six-disc box set by Canadian musician Joni Mitchell, released on October 4, 2024, by Rhino Records. The box is the fourteenth overall release and fourth offering of unreleased material from the Joni Mitchell Archives, a planned series of releases containing remastered material from the singer's personal archives. Formatted in chronological order, the fourth volume of the series consists of the archived material that was recorded during the second half of Mitchell's tenure at Asylum Records, which includes the years between the release of her eighth studio album, Hejira (1976) and her second live album, Shadows and Light (1980). The album won the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.

Reception

Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 4 has received positive reviews from critics and was awarded the 2026 Grammy award for Best Historical Album. On Metacritic which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the set has a score of 90 based on six reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek complimented the live performances, highlighting an early version of "Coyote", as well as renditions of "Help Me", "Just Like This Train", "Furry Sings the Blues", and "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow". Jurek also praised the set's ability to "illuminate the studio albums" from which the material is derived, as well as display the evolutionary process of the songs.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Joni Mitchell, except where noted.

Disc one

Disc two

Disc three

Disc four

Disc five

Disc six

Charts + Chart performance for Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976–1980) Chart (2024) PeakpositionUK Album Sales (OCC) 38

Hejira Demos

An excerpt of the Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976–1980), titled Hejira Demos, was released on November 29, 2024, by Rhino Records. It features material recorded during the first of two different Hejira recording sessions recovered by the archival team, and is the fifteenth overall release and sixth auxiliary release of the Joni Mitchell Archives project. The album was released exclusively on vinyl LP for the 2024 Record Store Day Black Friday event.

Track listing

References