DoubleShot: Nightmare of You

I am going to try something new with DoubleShot. The idea is to highlight an album that truly resonated with me. A personal classic. Or just a really great entry album. By that I mean, the record that brought me in to a band's fold. And, then, their follow up. The sophomore. Slump? Brilliance? We'll see.

We'll start with Nightmare of You.




Nightmare of You - Nightmare of You - 2005 (iTunes)

A band I'm pretty sure you have never heard of. I was at the gym when a friend of mine stuck my earbuds into his iPod and made me listen. One song in and I was hooked. I picked up the eponymous debut album at Amoeba that day and, I gotta tell ya: this album is 5 years old and has never, ever left my iPod. In some playlist or other I have this record. Why is it so good?
First off, there are tremendous hooks. "The Days Go By So Slow", "Dear Scene, I Wish I Were Deaf", these are two epic, hook-laden, retro-80s, lush emo rock songs, deceptively steeped in 50s songcraft. The way singer Brandon Reilly wraps his throat around wordplay and rhyme schemes of, say, Thumbelina, only add to the catchiness of the songs.
The album is relentless in it's pop-hook assault. The electro-nightclubbing Simple Minds-esque "My Name is Trouble" and quasi-college Indie "Why Am I Always Right?', the brilliant "I Want to Be Buried in Your Backyard", paint vivid pictures of desperation, loss, death, love and all of them make you want to lower the top and sing along on a coast drive.
Does it stop?
Nope.
The skiffle pop of "Ode to Seratonin".
The faux-country of "Marry Me".
The urgent "In the Bathroom is Where I Want You".
The driving "The Studded Cinctures".
It's amazing that every single song on this album is great. It's like a best of record by a band you've never heard of but wish you did so you could collect all the rest of their colection. Except that this is the debut.
Closing on the french cabaret inspired, "Heaven Runs on Oil", well, if you can't tell, I think this album is an unknown classic.

Grade A+
A Side: The Days Go By So Slow, Dear Scene, I Wish I Were Deaf, I Want to Be Buried in Your Backyard
BlindSide: Everything Else.
Downside: Nothing.

Septenary

In between this album and this year there was a brief, forgettable ep called "Bang". I have it. I don't care for it.
But a few weeks ago I got a tweet from NoY that their new album was out. I downloaded it from iTunes immediately.

It's called...



Nightmare of You - Infomaniac - 2009 (iTunes)

Starting off with "Good Morning, Waster" I think we're on an interesting ride but, I got the sense that something was wrong. Now, I often give a cursory listen to a second record and dismiss it as not as good as the first, because I'm an impatient a-hole and I want immediate gratification. But this song sounds like a leftover b-side from the first record. It feels like Reilly is trying to sell the tunes through vocal gymnastics, like they all know nothing is really as good as that first record. It's a mellow place to open things with and bleeds into the simplistic "Eustacia Vye" that feels like, gulp, a Panic at the Disco track. A little too Beatles-y for my taste.
The lazy-versed and catchy-chorused, "I think I'm Getting Older" smells of "first single" but it's really obnoxious. What I hate most is that I am singing along even though I know that this is not a great tune.
The first sign that the band hasn't lost all songwriting prowess comes on "Someday, but not Today", which steals heavily from mellow 70s AM radio top 40. It builds to a nice chorus that I can't help but sing along to. It pairs, weirdly, with the retro-70s stuff My Morning Jacket tried earlier this year.
The 50s songcrafting is back on "Hey, Sweetheart" and that's a welcome sign.
But the more troubling things come just after.
"Experimental Bed" should really read as "Experimental Bed of Music that we are not really up to."
"Amsterdam" is just bad but--
"Gavi". Gavi sucks. I assume they are writing from the perspective of a self-serving, indignant, unctuous swinger but the lyrics are so poor and forced that it's almost as embarrassing as its subject matter. In fact, it's really the worst thing this band has committed to...what do we call it now that vinyl is dead, anyway?
The album rights itself, slightly, with "Tell Me When its Over", a song that would fit well into their calssic, hooky, canon. And "Pair of Blue Eyes" and "Please Don't Answer me" are terrificly classic NoY. But they can't save the record.
The last track, "Goodnight, Devil" bookends the album. It wears its adoration of Pink Floyd's the Wall on its sleeve but, even so, that's light years better than most of this record.

Too bad. I was really hoping that this follow up would be as terrific as the first. It's not. It's not awful, but it falls many stories from the debut's heights.

Grade C-
A Side: Someday but Not Today, Tell Me When It's Over, Goodnight Devil
BlindSide: Eustacia Vye, Please Don't Answer Me, I think I'm getting Older
DownSide: Gavi, Experimental Bed

Listening Post: Ani DiFranco - Red Letter Year

Ani DiFranco - Red Letter Year - 1988 (iTunes - Amazon)

Dammit, Ani. Just as I was ready to completely write you off you go and do something like this.
Red Letter Year is good. It's the best she's done since Little Plastic Castles. It's also the first album in 10 years that SOUNDS like something that was made by someone who made that album and the ones that preceded it.
To those who say that motherhood and happiness have had a negative effect on DiFranco's music, I say, pishaw! She wears overt happiness as well as she wears (or wore) anger.
Ani's music has seemed aimless and meandering the last 10 years. Hooking up with her lifemate, Mike Napolitano, has brought the MUSIC back. There are actual, dare I say it, songs here.
The opening, Red Letter Year, is haunting and mellow but incisive and edgy and the album just gets better.
All This actually rocks with ominous fury. Present/Infant is such a pleasant examination of motherhood from a woman who once pined with longing and jealousy so many years ago at the woman who was coiffing herself for a man.
The N'Orleans Jazz of the Red Letter Year Reprise is such an ode to her new hometown but also shows a zest for life that has been missing for so fucking long.
Ani DiFranco has grown up. She's happy...finally!
And she's allowed, gulp, production. Good, layered production.
The glee in the woman in love (without man, daughter, whomever) who is "smiling underneath" is a welcome visitor after those so many years of depression.
Sure Red Letter Year falls into a miasma of repetition by the end. But, who cares? It's better than so much else out there. And it's just nice to see that Ani hasn't used up all her talent or traded it in for Sunday Brunch Music.


Grade B
A Side: Red Letter Year, Emancipated Minor
BlindSide: Present/Infant, Smiling Underneath, The Atom
DownSide: Star Matter

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Now playing: Ani DiFranco - Emancipated Minor
via FoxyTunes

Listening Posts: Ani DiFranco - Reprieve

Ani DiFranco - Reprieve - 2006 (iTunes - Amazon)

An interesting thing happened while listening to Reprieve. I found myself caught up in the mood and ambiance that had left me so cold on the most recent DiFranco records.
The slow, almost inert opening track, "Hypnotized" actually succeeded in keeping me just that. As the album progresses its obvious DiFranco hasn't abandoned her politics. She's still angry only this time her venom is focused less on bad relationships & the record industry (that stuff still lingers) but she takes aim at Halliburton and others on tracks like "Millenium Theater" and "Shroud". It's just that the music is, as so often displayed over the last 2 decades, boring. Uninspired. Overt in it's self-indulgence.
Reprieve isn't a bad record. Ani DiFranco is simply not the same person who recorded those first 8 records. She's, well, she's boring.

Grade C-
A Side: Hypnotized
BlindSide: No surprises
DownSide: Nothing that great.

Listening Post: Ani DiFranco - Knuckle Down

Ani DiFranco - Knuckle Down - 2005 (iTunes - Amazon)

On first listen, the opening track of Knuckle Down, the title track, filled me with a sense of hope. THIS is the Ani that I remember. It's not the best but it's close to the original sound. Maybe, just maybe, she'll give me and her listeners an album filled with what we fell in love with in the first place.

Yeah.

No fucking way.

Ani's still thinking she's a female Tom Waits hoping to score the next Jim Jarmusch movie. Newsflash, Ani! Those movies suck! Oh, fuck it. Never mind.
God help me, I don't think I'm gonna get through this. I can't recall a Listening Post where the artist has fallen so far from their heights.
Oh, yeah. It's a Listening Post now. It was a Reflecting Pool until I had no relationship with the music. Now it's all discovery.
But not good discovery. Not like when you discover a bag of money in the attic of your old house. More like when you discover shit on your shoe that is stuck there with old gum.

Grade D-

ASide: Knuckle Down
DownSide: Don't get me started.

Listening Post: Ani DiFranco - Educated Guess

Ani DiFranco - Educated Guess - 2004 - (iTunes - Amazon)

If I had to make an educated guess I would say that with the exception of putting a gun to Ms. Difranco's head, she wouldn't remember any of these "songs".
These are meanderings.
When Springsteen holed up with a 4 track he came out with the disturbing and penetrating "Nebraska". 3 years after 9/11 and Ani Difranco is still noodling around with her poetry book. And no real ideas. No real songs.
This album is bad.
I think the people that are buying it and making it Number One on the Billboard Internet albums all did so out of habit. Out of Habit. Remember songs like that, Ani? Remember??

Grade F

Listening Post: Ani DiFranco - Evolve

Ani DiFranco - Evolve - 2003 (iTunes - Amazon)

Ugh.
This album, as I've read, is the swan song for the Ani DiFranco "band" and I couldn't be more ready to kiss that crap goodbye. I think the woman that I fell in love with for her ideas, ideals and attitudes, has been bogged down on the ability to experiment and possible cajoled and seduced by other musicians.
But that's not fair because that statement takes the onus off Ani and strips her of the responsibility for these borefests that she's been proffering.
Songs like O My My are the type of syncopated Jazz influenced stuff that, well, I despise. Maybe it's great but it offers me nothing. I'm just not wired to like this stuff.
I think, at this point, it's obvious that Ani Difranco and I do not own any of the same records in our collection. She's got a lot of Utah Phillips, Miles Davis, and protest stuff and I like Queen. I'm also pretty sure that falling in love, having a child, enjoying life, has stripped AD of everything I liked about her.
I need my Ani angry. Not happy.
Her music has never been of interest to me. It was the music coupled with her worldview that made it all work. Now that she fancies herself a "musician", I'm left cold.

Grade D
A Side: Evolve, Here for Now
BlindSide: -----
DownSide: Shrug, Serpentine

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Revelling/Reckoning

Ani DiFranco - Revelling/Reckoning - 2001 (iTunes - Amazon)

At this point I'm not really sure why anyone would care about Ani DiFranco and her records. I think, and I'm not sure, so don't quote me, but, I think she HAS to record something because otherwise, well, that's the way the business works. Record, tour, make a living. You have to give your audience something new so they know you're alive otherwise every tour is really just a best of retrospective, yes?
So, Ani goes about her business, recording new music that makes her happy, even though it has almost nothing to offer the listener. She isn't the finger plucker of yore. She's in love with Jazz and seems to have let those influences take over.
This album isn't offensive, nor is it memorable. It's a Sunday morning, coffee and newspaper background CD.
There is one song that struck me, however. It comes towards the end and it's called "Sick of Me". I'm sure it's supposed to be a relationship song. But when she asks:
how sick of me
must you be
by now?
My answer is: A Lot.

Grade: C
Nothing stands out in any way on this record.

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - To The Teeth

Ani DiFranco - To The Teeth - 1999 (iTunes)

Is Ani DiFranco advocating blowing up and destroying media and corporations? On the title track it sure seems so. Thing is, if this was the younger Ani the song would be an onslaught of frenetic fingering and it would have resonance. Now it just sounds like big chord, semi-country, latter day Springsteen insta-epic.
The SECOND record in one year from Ms. DiFranco starts off just as dour as the previous and seems to be a big middle finger not to her enemies (selling out, corporations, mean people) but, instead, to the fans who have been following her for the past decade.
She hasn't as much grown up as she seems to have grown weary. She's found the key in jams and improvs and Jazz and I'm not sure it's helping her.
This album is her, what, 10th in 9 years? It's been quite the decade for her. I don't know of any other group or musician that I know of whose sound has changed so vastly over such a short period of time. Wait, I do. Between 1974 and 1984 Queen went from glam rock to disco to hodgepodge metal. This is sort of the same to me.
It feels like I'm being left behind. Like everyone is being left behind. Whoever thought that Ani was their voice was really wrong. She's not the voice of lesbians, girl power, feminism. She's the voice of Ani DiFranco. She's just following her muse.
If it's possible, if you can believe it, Freakshow, one of the better tracks actually sounds like what would happen if you took Madonna and forced her to record Sheryl Crow songs but told her that they don't have to be that good, so don't hire the best producers, kay?
I'm halfway through and I gotta say; This is a really boring record. She still writing songs. But there's nothing to hang on to in any of them.
Wait. Rap. There's rap on "Swing". Rap does NOT belong on an Ani DiFranco album. And electro-techno programming on "The Arrival's Gate" which loops a banjo sample and pairs it with a fluid bassline. Ani's lyrics, multi-tracked vocals make this track a treat. It's the most lively on the album. I could actually get into more of this, please.
Now playing: Ani DiFranco - The Arrivals Gate
via FoxyTunes

Oh, and Prince, PRINCE(!!!!) adds backing vocals to Providence. How did THAT happen??? The groove and swinging balls on this song almost redeem the album. I wish it was a) shorter and that b) it had opened the record.

This is my second least favorite Ani record. But, given that its the second one in a row, I don't have a lot of hope for the records of the new century.

Grade: D
A Side: Freakshow (but it's really not that good.) The Arrival's Gate
BlindSide: Clloud Blood, Swing(....almost but then....), Providence
DownSide: Swing...there's fucking rap on this. Maceo Parker's brother fucking raps on this. Carry You Around

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Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Up Up Up Up Up Up

"Why don't you go ahead and turn off the sun cuz we'll never live long enough to undo everything they've done to you."



Ani DiFranco - Up Up Up Up Up Up Up - 1999 (iTunes - Amazon)

I suppose it was bound to happen, right? After four straight brilliant albums in a row Ani was bound to have become stale, bored, self-conscious, a little pretentious. (A Little??)
So, let's live blog it and see what's really going on:
1. Tis of Thee. Oh, you are really going to take the country to task, eh? What's strange to me here is that this is a full year before the Bush administration. I really don't recall it all being so bad. Yeah, there were talk shows, which seem to really piss her off but, sweetie, that's nothing compared to the ass-pit of reality shows that's coming.
2. Virtue. This song is almost daring me to fast forward. It's dour, meandering, processed and annoying.
3. Come Away From It. Remember that playful, fun Ani DiFranco + band from the last album? Apparently, she's been tied up and stored in a closet. And the new Ani writes crap like this. 8 Minutes....but, it's kind of growing on me. Hmm....
4. Jukebox. The Grammy nom track. Within the first 30 seconds it's as though Ani has wiped away the first 18 dour minutes of this record. But, Female Rock Vocalist? But her voice is so...so...processed. It's being wrung through some filters and tweaked and massaged. Hmm. The song? Forgettable.
5. Angel Food. rename this album, Zz Zz Zz Zz Zz Zz. Oh, wait, there's someone making some noise and Ani and Julie the keyboard player don't know who it is. Ani, are you just recording and releasing jam sessions now?
6. Angry Any More. The angry young grrl is finally coming to terms with growing up. This song is one of the most honest and beautiful in her catalog. It's not that great. It's that, if you listen to Ani from the start like I am you get the second best way of discovering the artists. The first way would be to buy each album starting with the first as a 19 year old girl and grow up with her. Since so much of her work is confessional, these records are almost Portrait of an Artist as a teen, young girl, woman, etc. And this short piece sort of sets us up for the rest of the DiFranco catalog. (I am assuming this. All I know is that she got married recently, is no longer gay or bisexual and has a kid). Good tune.
7. Everest. Man this album is slow and in love with the bass. It's pretty. I'm not sure why i should care. I'm not sure she does, either.
8. Up Up Up Up Up Up. Minimalism that would make David Lynch worry that he's too cacophonous. Until it opens up and explodes with...a gigantic minimalism. Does that make sense? No? Hmm...Maybe you should hear it.
9. Know Now Then. What might be considered as this albums spoken word offering, with backing vocals and jazzy backing music. This is futurist, space age, beat poetry.
10. Trickle Down. The "make it stop" song. Ambient guitar noodling. Electro OK Computer gleeps and clicks. And annoying processed vocals. Blech. Is she still angry about Reaganomics? In 99?
11. Hat Shaped Hat. "I will not be afraid to let my talents shine!" Oh, Ani. Where is that lyricist that could destroy and uplift at the same time? Has she really traded her strengths and fortes for hippy dippy jams? And 12 minute ones at that?

I can't chastise an artist for doing what she wants to do. It's her art. her discovery. But I don't have to listen to it again. Let's hope this is just a momentary blip. Like Puddle Dive.

Grade: D
A Side: Angry Any More
BlindSide: Come Away From It, Up Up Up Up Up Up
Downside: Virtue, Angel Food, Trickle Down

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Little Plastic Castle

"People used to make records as in the record of an event...."



Ani DiFranco - Little Plastic Castle -1998 (iTunes - Amazon)

After breaking into the mainstream with the live album Living in Clip and the two phenomenal albums before it Ani was presented with a new challenge. Namely what to do with this newfound respect and notoriety. Should she still be the pissed off bisexual? The angry feminist? The lovelorn folkie? The punditizing troubadour?
Or all of it? But, with two fabulous added ingredients: A band that has really come together over the years and, um a sense of humor.
Opening with the brilliant mariachi strains of the title track Ani takes stock of who she is, what she is and, at coffee she notes to her companion that "you are by far the cutest" but they should be careful because, "these people want to shoot us."
Only Ani isn't defiantly angry about that. In fact, she's a little more pissed that the culture of rebellion in rock has so quickly given over to "cross-marketing" it's about product and sunglasses and the "font of teriyaki". The semi-spoken word "Fuel" addresses this with great alacrity.
For the first half of this album Ani gives the sense that she knows that the world is watching. She isn't compromising but she's not selling out, either.
The traditional noodle-fingered folk rock doesn't really make an appearance until the second half of the album (Loom) but even then, the band won't let her get away with that. This is a big sounding record for her. They are all having a grand time playing with tempos, styles.
I just remembered that this was really my last dance with Ani at the time. Yes, I bought more albums. But I actually never listened to them. I've only gotten the more recent ones for this retrospective.
While LPC was always in my 10 disc cd changer in my car, I never once listened to the second half of the album. So, just hearing it now is a surprise. There is nothing familiar. I would be ashamed but on the other hand I get to experience this and the rest for the first time.
There are a couple curios on this album. The strange, haunting "Glass House" for example. While I am sure that it's about dealing with her critics and/or those who would judge her, its the first time in eons, if ever, that the music of the song outweighs the lyrics. The words are almost buried, the melody more of an improvised music line than melody. And it really works.
The other is "Pulse" a 14 minute (!!!!) spoken word relationship elegy set to a smooth jazz background. It actually kind of works BECAUSE of the music. It's hypnotic and easy to fall into and Ani's voice is jazzy with just the right amount of smoky late night bar. It's easy to forget that it's playing and I would have been happy to fade out about 4 mins in at the seemingly endlessly repeated chorus of "I would give you my pulse, I would offer you my breath." but then, after about a minute of what sounds like a concertina Ani suggests that they "hold here", which is the cue for John Hassel's trumpet to take us on the rest of this dream. The instruments then trade off, the sound gets lusher, moodier. It's lovely.

Grade: A
A Side: Little Plastic Castle, Fuel, As Is,
Blind Side: Two Little Girls, Deep Dish, Glass House, Pulse
DownSide: Nothing.

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Dilate

"The most vituperative "fuck you" in the history of the music." Robert Christgau



Ani DiFranco - Dialte - 1996 (iTunes - Amazon)

Christgau was referring to the opening track on Dilate, "Untouchable Face". As in "Fuck you and your untouchable face!" For a woman whose lyrics have so often danced around with poetry and volume one wouldn't expect something as base as this and yet, it may be her most accurate and devastating lyric yet.
Dilate doesn't change the Not A Pretty Girl formula. And thank goodness. It's just heartbreak, frustration, need, despair and love with a little bit of socio-politics tossed in for good measure.
The title track is Ani at her most longing. Something must have happened over this past year between the two records because there is a lot of unrequited love on this spin.
It's a weighty record, perhaps her darkest. It's also more experimental, with negative space abounding and electric guitars crushing the folkiness.
I could do without a 7 minute meditation on "Amazing Grace" but, it is what it is: A pretentious cover. And I never need to listen to it again.
And there's the sequel to "Million that you never made" in "Napoleon" which is angrier and more frustrated and, in many ways, better, at the very least a worthy successor.
Dilate is less accessible than Pretty Girl but it still packs quite a wallop.

3 in a row, Ani. Nice.

Grade A-
A Side: Dilate, Untouchable Face, Superhero
BlindSide: Napoleon, Shameless, Joyful Girl
DownSide: Amazing Grace, Going Down

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Not a Pretty Girl

"I could be the million that you never made!"



Ani DiFranco - Not a Pretty Girl - 1995 (Amazon)

Embracing a strong production hand and even smirking through some of her offerings, Ani's Not A Pretty Girl is considered by many to be her zenith, a watershed for her. In many ways it is. It certainly builds on the groundwork Out of Range provided. It's stronger as well, with less to prove. Instead of surprising us (and maybe herself) she's found comfort in her role as voice of Indie Folk/punk grrl. The songs groove, not in small part thanks to Andy Stochansky's skittish percussion.
There's something for everyone here. Well, by anyone I mean anyone who has listened to any of Ani's previous 5 records. It's a little folk, a little jazz, some spoken word (Tiptoe, one of my faves and the focus of some great bloopers at the end of the record). There's heart-wrenching singer-songwriting (Sorry I Am) and fast as lightning finger-plucking (Light of Some Kind).
For my money the heart of this record are the title track and "The Million You Never Made".
"Not a Pretty Girl" is perhaps Ani's most self-conscious, self-actualized recognition of just who and what she represents with her music, her personae, her sexuality. It's a responsible song but not one that lets anyone off the hook. "What if there are no damsels in distress? What if I knew that and I called your bluff?" It's a gloriously epic song, at once hard to listen to for Ani's snide sneering and lush thanks to the lovely harmonies she provides and the musicianship and musicality.
The other centerpiece is "Million....". Obviously, after selling tons of cassettes at concerts and the notoriety from local and antional press after Out of Range, it was natural that the big labels would come calling. But, Ani "aint gonna reach for [that dangling carrot]" because she "needs both hands to play my guitar". She doesn't buy the sales pitch. She doesn't need anyone, thanks, she's doing fine. In fact, selling out dilutes integrity, doesn't it? Take this passage:

you can blame it on the devil
(the one who's bed you sleep in)
don't tell me what they did to you
as though you had no choice
isn't that your picture?
isn't that your voice?
if you don't live what you sing about
your mirror is going to find out

Perhaps some of today's younger artists could read that and make a smarter choice. And by "some" I mean, all.
Not a Pretty Girl is a phenomenal follow up to Out of Range. It's mature, smart, funny, sexy, lush at times brilliant, always uncompromising.
It's great.

Grade A+
A Side: Cradle and All, Not a Pretty Girl, The Million You Never Made
BlindSide: Shy, TipToe, 32 Flavors, Coming Up (The same lyrics, same spoken word from "Imperfectly", but set to music and much much better.
DownSide: None. This is a splendid record.

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Out of Range

Bitter and angry troubadour folkie grrl totally redeems herself on a 90s classic.



Ani DiFranco - Out Of Range - 1995 (iTunes - Amazon)

"Just the thought of our bed makes me crumble like the plaster where you punched the wall beside my head."

Well, well, well. This is where I came in. When I was a reviewer for Home Theater Technology in the 90s this CD found it's way to my doorstep. I locked myself in my room for 45 minutes and came out a believer. And I worried that perhaps it had not aged well. Maybe, just maybe, it was one of those records that you REMEMBER as great, but it's really just a moment in time that soars.
That's not the case here.
After 4 grrl power femi-folk records, three that seemed to show growth and one that is just plain too hard to listen to, on her 5th record Ani does something that one might think she is capable of but doesn't care to do: write songs that could actually be sung by, well, anyone else.
Buildings and Bridges, Out of Range, these are songs that benefit from Ani and her singular playing style and attitude but there's no reason someone else couldn't pick them up and make them resonate. At 24 DiFranco seems to have gotten past her growing pains but not her anger. The empowered stripper in "Letter to a John" who is "gonna take the money make and I'm gonna go away", is more akin to a character one would find in a Springsteen song than a self-referential naval gazer that we've come to be accustomed to from her.
"I've got a face like a limp handshake, hair like an accident scene" -from Hell Yeah. The ugly girl is in love with someone out of her perceived league and our heart breaks for her but we know she's gonna be okay because she "learned how to write songs".
It's important that DiFranco allowed a larger "band" to participate in this record. There is percussion, more than ever before, accordion, sax, trumpet, bass, piano and backing vocals. It's all there, it's almost a band but the temper and timbre of the record never once steers away from the defiant DIYer from Buffalo that we have come to love.
And it rocks. "How Have You Been?" is a shaker with a funky mid-section horn break and the percussion solo later, and the full band version of the title track moves as well. It's not as successful but that could just be because we've already fallen in love with the earlier, more sparse version. As one of the first songs by what sounds like The Ani DiFranco Band, it soars, however. And there's a ton of muscle on "The Diner" to show just what this chick-folkie can dish out.

There is a vast expanse of growth between the dismal "Puddle Dive" and the mature, timeless "Out of Range". And it makes me excited to relive the next 3 records.

Grade A
A Side: Buildings & Bridges, Out of Range, How Have You Been?
BlindSide: Letter to a John, You had Time, The Diner
DownSide: The opening 2 minute piano intro to You Had Time. Skip it. Change the settings in iTunes.

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Puddle Dive

Ani DiFranco - Puddle Dive - 1993 (iTunes - Amazon)

The thing about the Listening Posts/Reflecting Pools is that I am not bound by the constraints of really "reviewing". At least not by the rules set forth by Paul Allen's How to Be a Rock Critic Series.
This is about discovery. These are about a lay person who fancies himself a reviewer or erudite or a tastemaker to experience music and talk about it from his own perspective.
Why am I going on about this? I don't know. Maybe it's because I need SOMETHING to fill the space on this page and actually trying to review this record is too much of a chore.
I have been starting this CD over and over the last 24 hours, the last time I accidentally played it on shuffle, and I still had no ability to discern one song from another. Ani Difranco has, with Puddle Dive, worn out her welcome. If this was the record with which I had discovered her there is no doubt that I would have tossed her off as a pretentious, gyno-power windbag.
Take for example, "Blood in the Boardroom". I had hoped that it was a screed against corporate America. I should be so lucky. This is a song about being "in the I'm so bored room." and saved by the early coming on of a menstral cycle.
That's the blood in "Blood in the Boardroom".
Here are the lyrics:

sitting in the boardroom
the i'm so bored room
listening to the suits
talk about their world
they can make straight lines out of almost anything
except for the line of my upper lip when it curls
dressed in my best greasy skin and squinty eyes
i'm the only part of summer that made it inside
in the air-conditioned building decorated with a corporate flair
i wonder can these boys smell me bleeding thru my underwear
there's men wearing the blood of the woman they love
there's white wearing the blood of the brown
but every woman learns how to bleed from the moon
and we bleed to renew life every time it's cut down
i got my vertebrae all stacked up high as they can go
but i still feel myself sliding from the earth that i know
so i excuse myself and leave the room
saying my period came early but it's not a minute too soon
i go and find the only other woman on the floor
it's the secretary sitting at the desk by the door
i ask her if she's got a tampon i can use
she says oh honey what a hassle for you sure i do you know i do
i say it ain't no hassle no it ain't no mess
right now it's the only power that i possess
these businessmen got the money
they got the instruments of death
but i can make life i can make breath
sitting in the boardroom
the i'm so bored room
listening to the suits talk about their world
i didn't really have much to say the whole time i was there
so i just left a big brown blood stain on their white chair

You can make life, Ani? You can make breath? You can make me nauseous. I want so badly to give her props for being so in your face about this situation. But, I can't. I, instead, find it too hard to take. Perhaps this record is really not for me. Or men. Ani is obviously warm in the embrace of her niche audience. If she stays there she will run out of steam fast.

Grade D+
A Side: 4th of July
BlindSide: Egos Like Hairdos
DownSide: Blood in the Boardroom

reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Imperfectly

"What if when we're dead, we are just dead?"




Ani DiFranco - Imperfectly - 1992 (iTunes - Amazon)

Remember that song by Joan Osborne about God being a slob on the bus, like the rest of us? Yeah. That one. It's nothing compared to the desperate, neurotic terror displayed by Ani DiFranco on the opening track on this, her 3rd album in as many years. Dreams get shattered when you grow up and it isn't all princesses and dresses. Maybe God isn't there. Maybe you have to live your life. Maybe.
DiFranco opens her musical pallette with instrumentation and production and thank goodness because she was in danger of becoming a one note parody of dred-locked lesbian coffee shop music.
The pining of the narrator on "Fixing her Hair" is so pinpointedly accurate a depiction of a woman longing for a woman who has so obviously chosen the wrong man. If only she would listen. But she just keeps. fixing. her. hair.
Wow.
If there can be one complaint it's that DiFranco doesn't seem to be cultivating a sense of humor. She's all talons and teeth and very little laughter. But I don't miss it because what i am hearing is an artist, a young woman trying to figure out who she is and does she belong? On "In or Out" for example. And she's also seen the country (Every State Line, an a capella beauty where I can imagine Ani sitting in her cheap motel room in Alabama reflecting on just how hard this touring thing is). I do get the sense that DiFranco spent a lot of her days at the movies when she was on the road, as the cinematic idiom works its way into a few of the songs here.
What's really nice on Imperfectly is that DiFranco's singing is as assured as her playing and production. She's a singer as much as a musician. Her extraordinary talent forged in smoke filled bars across the country and Canada. Outlier, indeed.
Ani's own label's website refers to this records as "The Lesbian One". I won't argue. It's a good spin. But not the best place for the casual listener to start.

Grade: B+
A Side: What if No One's Watching, Fixing Her Hair
BlindSide: Every State Line, Make them Apologize
DownSide: The Waiting Song,

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Not So Soft

Ani Difranco - Not So Soft - 1991 (iTunes - Amazon)

The playing is more confident. More aggressive. The singer more assured. Older, but by just a year. The road has given DiFranco a sense of self assuredness. She knows who her audience is. And she doesn't want to fade into the background.
Not So Soft is Part 2 of the DiFranco DIY onslaught. It isn't as surprising a discovery as the first. It's not terrible, by any stretch, though. The thing about Ani is that she requires you pay attention to her. She's a poet who isn't wasting her words on having you do something else while you listen. She wants you to LISTEN. She has things to say. She may not be of age to drink yet but she's got one hell of a road hewn slew of experiences to draw from.
The highlight of the record is, as has been stated by other reviewers, "Gratitude". A screed wherein she frustratingly can't understand or is unwilling to bend to the concept that her sexuality is of value to men that would have her for some sort of barter. Be it just a place to sleep. This was definitely the mood of the 90s. This is Womyn before Sex and the City. The Murmurs, Ani, Sarah, jeez, every Lilith Fair attendee and performer. They had something to say. They were pissed and they were giving a voice to their socio-political beliefs.
Sometimes it works. Other times it's just boring.
This album's spoken word entry, "Not So Soft" isn't bad, but I got it the first time. She's a poet. She hasn't quite found her voice. In fact, I think she's just egged herself on by her coffee shop acceptance.
And the lesbian flirtation on songs like "The Whole Night" seem like she's courting a short haired, tattooed niche audience who will buy t-shirts, drinks and maybe even empower her a little.
I do appreciate "The Next Big Thing", however. Where she takes on the callous and small minded music industry and flays it while displaying it for what it is. Most 20 year old (!!!) artists would be begging for a record contract in 1991. Not Ani. She's gonna do it her way.

Grade C
A Side: Gratitude, The Next Big Thing
BlindSide: No surprises here.
DownSide: She Stays

Reflecting Pool: Ani Difranco - Ani Difranco

Pre-eminent DIY, Folk/Punk Grrl Power rocker.




Ani Difranco - Ani Difranco - 1990 (iTunes - Amazon)

When "Hear Music" was just a record store on the 3rd St Promenade in Santa Monica, before it was bought by uber-cafe Starbucks, they were one of the best places to find out about new music. I was never let down by a recommendation, and they were an essential resource when I was being paid to review and it was incumbent upon me to find new music.
The folks at Hear suggested I buy "Out of Range" by Ani Difranco. I did, I glowed in my review and I was a fan. I never really delved into her early work and I was out by the time Up Up Up Up Up Up came out. I bought it, but I didn't listen. I kind of got what Ani was all about.
But, she nags at me.
Is she a songwriter? Or is she a folkie who hangs her angst and ideology on a backbone of semi-melody?
As usual with the Listening Post/Reflecting Pool series, I am going to be more generous to the debut albums because who could expect more from a starting artist?
In the case of Ani Difranco it's easy to forget that this coffee shop/bar hopping busking troubadour was 19 when she self-produced this album. She never signed to a major and, subsequently, Righteous Babe records has been seen as a pinnacle of self-production.
Difranco was sort of a perfect storm for this. We were all tiring of 80s posing and style over substance MTVism. Grrl Power was flexing it's muscles and lesbian chic was the rage.
Was the 19 year old Difranco a lesbian? Did it matter? Well, sort of. Because she was embraced by that community and it's hard to imagine her being as successful without them.
How does her music fare on her debut, however? Can we get past the questionable sexual identification? Are there songs? is it any good? Is there promise that shows an artist who would, as of next year, be entering her THIRD decade of recording?
Yes.
The angst in her guitar playing is apparent on the opening track. Although she isn't as manic and multi-faceted as she will become. But, "Both Hands" is an assured poet's observations, an artist unafraid of describing the intimate with a voice clean and elastic and lilting and smart and delicate.
This 19 year old is no Taylor Swift. In fact, Ms. Swift should probably be given a box set of Ani's work to help her grow into what she might yet still become (instead of just selling millions of rekkids...)
On every record of Ani's there is one lyric that stands out. She's definitely hit and miss as a lyricist. Sometimes she is so on the nose and cumbersome that it's off putting. And other times....
"The butter melts out of habit, you know the toast isn't even warm." "My thighs have been involved in many accidents and I can't get insured and I don't need to be lured by you. My cunt is built like a wound that won't heal."
That last line is one that should appeal to lesbians the world around but also send a message to thinking men that this is a woman you can deal with. She isn't flowers and candy. She probably smells sometimes. And that's okay. Because she just wants to be a part of the world. Just wants to be herself. On her own terms.
And she's fucking 19.
The roots of "Ani Difranco" can easily be found in Suzanne Vega's first album, but, Difranco is a different animal. She's hungrier. She's an artist who is desperately searching for herself through her art.

Grade A
A Side: Out of Habit, Lost Woman Song
BlindSide: Both Hands, Work Your Way Out
DownSide: It's a debut. And it's pretty good. We shan't pick nits.

Listening Post: Pearl Jam - Backspacer

Pearl Jam - Backspacer - 2009 (Go to the store and buy it. Why? Answer at the end of the review.)

I recently was asked to list my top 50 albums of the decade for a "best of" the 00s list. I was the one who suggested that this website do this list and I am honored that they included me and my dumbass choices.
Why dumbass?
Because one of the albums that I included on my list was Backspacer by Pearl Jam. Is it their best? Not by far. Is it one of the best of the decade? I'm not sure. I bet there would be plenty of people who would argue with that.
But I love it. And I'll tell you why.
This is a good rock record made by musicians who have been around a while, worn their anxieties and gloomy worldviews for the better part of 2 decades and they've decided to move some units. Have some fun. Bring the rock.
And on Backspacer they do just that.
The opening "Gonna See my Friend" is what we've grown accustomed to on a PJ record: Fast, energetic, rock by the pound. (And boy does Cameron pound!). From there the band doesn't let up. On their catchiest single in years, "Got Some" had me cranking the headphones and humming the chorus long after I turned the record off.
That's the other thing that I love about this record, melodies. These are songs you can sing along to. Especially the weirdo melody of "The Fixer", a song I can relate to being a bit of a "fixer" myself.
The real clunker comes 4 songs in. Johnny Guitar. A track, as best as I gather, about a dude who wonders why an attractive girl would rather be part of the rocker's harem than his one and only. But, it's not a very good song. That's okay, I can delete it.
The album rights itself with the lovely and precious "Just Breathe", a melody as pretty as Vedder's ever sung.
The album is more full of hope and optimism than anything PJ has given us. They must be really happy to be rid of George.
Take for example a track like Supersonic. It could just as easily be a Ramones song. It's insipid but actually makes me want to hit the dance floor. Grab a girl and hit the boards and shake it to a PEARL JAM TRACK? What the??
The album is breakneck. It clocks in at under 37 minutes. Those of you who read the Listening Posts know that I believe less is almost always more when it comes to albums. This record would fit perfectly on vinyl. And we all know what classicists Vedder and the boys are.
Will Backspacer be in heavy rotation forever? Nah. Will it take over the top spots of Ten and Vs? No. But it's a contender for their 3rd best.
And it's exactly what the doctor ordered. A rock record.
I am so tired of people who love rock but love to slam rockers who bring good albums out because they don't live up to the expectations from 18 years ago. Or, even worse, I am disgusted that the current arbiters of taste are Pitchfork. They wouldn't know good rock music if it came to their house and fucked them while doing blow off their sisters breasts. (And that would be very rock)
So. Backspacer. I dig it.
Oh, yeah. One more thing. If you buy the CD it comes with two free live concert downloads. And the two I chose, Santiago and New Jersey are fan-fucking-tastic.
Not a bad deal at all. Give the people what they want. What we want is music. Good music.
Backspacer brings it.

Grade A
A Side: Gonna See My Friend, Got Some, The Fixer, Just Breathe
BlindSide: Amongst the Waves, Supersonic, Force of Nature
DownSide: Johnny Guitar