Joni Mitchell: "Madonna is like Nero"

Joni Mitchell has described Madonna as a turning point towards a more vapid culture in America.

The 'Blue' singer told the Los Angeles Times that her own work was set in opposition to the idiocy of how people live in the modern world.

Mitchell said: "My first four albums covered the usual youth problems - looking for love in all the wrong places - while the next five are basically about being in your 30s.

"Things start losing their profundity; in middle-late age, you enter a tragedian period, realising that the human animal isn't changing for the better."

She added: "In a way, I think I entered straight into my tragedian period, as my work is set against the stupid, destructive way we live on this planet.

"Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point."

Mitchell also accused her contemporaries Janis Joplin and Grace Slick of sleeping with "their whole bands and falling down drunk" and described Bob Dylan as "fake" and "a plagiarist".