Joni Mitchell is the kind of aging egoist who gives ecology a bad name. On her first album in five years and first for Starbucks — a connection some anti-corporatists will foolishly disparage — she rails against environmental ills with the privileged pique of someone who considers the world's failure to resemble the one she grew up in a cosmic affront. Skillfully marshaling the jazzy growl and desultory melodies she's cultivated for decades, she observes that "there's just too many people now," compares our world unfavorably to the Garden of Eden and heaps cell phones with her gorgeous wrath. Given Mitchell's talent and prestige, it's a waste of precious resources that she couldn't have emulated the kindhearted heroine of "Hana" when reminding the caffeinated consumer that nature is gravely out of whack. Instead, her most nuanced new lyric details an apostate tour-bus driver's descent into a luscious sin she probably knows better than she lets on. The runner-up is the title tune, where she grants the sun leave to bless all sinners — even cell-phone users! Text her your thanks.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”