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