― Felcher (Felcher), Tuesday, 11 November 2003 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Adrian (Adrian Langston), Wednesday, 12 November 2003 09:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Lauren S, Tuesday, 30 March 2004 06:23 (twenty years ago) link
― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 12:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt Smut, Tuesday, 11 May 2004 15:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 16:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 16:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Tuesday, 11 May 2004 16:18 (nineteen years ago) link
"Folky Drivel" would be a great name for a record label. Better than "Righteous Babe", at any rate.
Now where did I put that "A Mighty Wind" DVD?
― kjoerup, Wednesday, 12 May 2004 04:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― djdee2005, Wednesday, 12 May 2004 04:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 04:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Al (sitcom), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 05:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 12 May 2004 13:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― subgenius (subgenius), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 15:12 (nineteen years ago) link
Although maybe she's hot. Is she?
― Sasha (sgh), Thursday, 13 May 2004 04:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 13 May 2004 12:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:10 (nineteen years ago) link
Incidentally, the irony of Sasha's complaint is that Ani's old (and not especially numerous) feminist rants were always funnier and more involving than the more generalised Mike Moore style anti-military/industrial complex stuff that she does now (though in her defence "Your Next Bold Move" - which I disliked initially for the aforementioned reasons - utilises its inter-connected metaphoric imagery superbly)
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 13 May 2004 22:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sasha (sgh), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― the 'surface' 'noise' (electricsound), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:06 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.righteousbaberecords.com/images/m_chunkmagnets.jpg
― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 13 May 2004 23:10 (nineteen years ago) link
Haha Revelling/Reckoning was my introduction to Ani! And it's ironic given what's generally considered to be her biggest flaw (self-editing) that her double album is the only consistently brilliant LP I've heard of hers. Dilate comes close, but nothing else.
― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 14 May 2004 01:58 (nineteen years ago) link
Yeah what's also weird is that all the Ani fans seem to rate To The Teeth and Evolve - neither of which really struck a chord w/ me bar a few fantastic songs on the former - and dislike Revelling/Reckoning.
Here's what I wrote on R/R when I got into it.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 14 May 2004 02:15 (nineteen years ago) link
"So What" might be one of my favourite Ani songs... lyrically amazing, and I love the distant jazz clarinet circling her.
― The Lex (The Lex), Friday, 14 May 2004 10:45 (nineteen years ago) link
"So What" *is* great - the 3 drinks/2 drinks bit in the chorus, or "but nothing comes at first/and little comes at all/and when inspiration finally hits you/it barely even breaks your fall". Likewise I love the line in "Rock Paper Scissors": "Desire drags me right out of myself/like a gas-soaked rope tied to a piece of coal/i'm getting pretty good at looking on the bright side/while the flames rip along the sand and swallow me whole." Or the extended riff in "Marrow" on "a taste of your own medicine". Great stuff! Some of my favourite lyrics ever.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 15 May 2004 12:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 15 May 2004 13:55 (nineteen years ago) link
The 3 beers/2 beers line - yes! Also, the munificence of metaphors on "School Night", and the "you were the make-me-mad guy... now I am the bad guy" couplet on "Sick Of Me". R/R is a perfect summer album, actually - the ballads are all languid and warm, and the more upbeat ones are totally sun-kissed. "OK" in particular needs some love!
― The Lex (The Lex), Saturday, 15 May 2004 14:58 (nineteen years ago) link
now i have to find out what alex in nyc looks like.
― mike bott, Saturday, 15 May 2004 15:14 (nineteen years ago) link
*cough*FranklinBruno*cough*.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 15 May 2004 15:45 (nineteen years ago) link
Disapointment awaits ye
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 15 May 2004 17:25 (nineteen years ago) link
Yeah the whole house burning down metaphor thing in "School Night" is amazing. It's almost as if she realised at some point that formulating extended metaphors was her special skill like a strong backhand or something and just spent months and months stretching it and stretching it. Love "OK" too!
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― 24 hours with the King of Snake. (SNAKE!) (ex machina), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― christhamrin (christhamrin), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― christhamrin (christhamrin), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― 24 hours with the King of Snake. (SNAKE!) (ex machina), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― christhamrin (christhamrin), Sunday, 16 May 2004 04:35 (nineteen years ago) link
Ani is attractive.
― don carville weiner, Sunday, 16 May 2004 10:22 (nineteen years ago) link
The extended metaphor thing also works really well on the more political songs on R/R too - Ani's so much better when she makes her point by twisting and bending language rather than sloganeering. It comes across in the performance too - the way she rhymes on "Tamburitza Lingua" is so offhand and natural, in stark contrast to something like "Serpentine" which is very forced.
― The Lex (The Lex), Sunday, 16 May 2004 21:57 (nineteen years ago) link
I suspect the reason why the political songs on R/R work is that she sounds so tired of didacticism. In a funny way I suspect that September 11 "rejuvenated" a lot of occasionally political musicians like Ani in a manner that was ultimately negative - the perceived urgency of saying something once again took priority over the other two crucial issues: whether something can be said, and, if the answer to that is yes, how it should be said.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 17 May 2004 01:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 17 May 2004 11:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 00:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 08:49 (nineteen years ago) link
"i search your profile for a translation i study the conversation like a map 'cause i know there is strength in the differences between us and i know there is comfort where we overlap
come here stand in front of the light stand still so i can see your silhouette i hope that you have got all night cause i'm not done looking yet
each one of us wants a piece of the action you can hear it in what we say you can see it in what we do we negotiate with chaos for some sense of satisfaction if you won't give it to me at least give me a better view
i build each one of my songs out of glass so you could see me inside them i suppose or you could just leave the image of me in the background i guess and watch your own reflection superimposed
i build each one of my days out of hope and i give that hope your name and i don't know you that well but it don't take much to tell either you don't have the balls or you don't feel the same
come here stand in front of the light stand still so i can see your silhouette i hope that you have got all night cause i'm not done looking yet"
I love how each verse introduces a slightly stronger note of doubt and bitterness into what is, musically and in its chorus, a very sweet love song. And again the the use of extended metaphors: the notion of glass houses used to imply both transparency and reflectivness.
It all probably comes across as deeply unimpressive to the non-fan...
Similarly I love the first stanza of "This Bouquet":
"Got a garden of song where I grow all my thoughtsWish I could harvest one or two for some small talkSeems like I'm starving for words whenever you're aroundNothing on my tongue, so much in the ground..."
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 26 February 2006 14:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Sunday, 26 February 2006 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
Part of what I've been thinking about was inspired by listening to Imperfectly, which is probably her most didactic album in terms of so many of the songs being almost straightforward statements of her politics etc. (see "In or Out", "Make Them Apologize", "The Waiting Song" etc.) and thinking "okay, so these lyrics are pretty didactic, but I still love them. What's wrong with didactic ultimately?
Like most things when talking about music you can dig deeper here, and say, "okay, so it's not a question of whether something is didactic or not, but whether it gets away with being so." And then you have to work out the ways in which the music is persuasive in making you either accept or look past or even enjoy the didacticism.
I think with Ani, or at least with her early stuff, it's precisely because you can tell that she's drawing no distinction between her personal songs and her political songs (I think I made this point upthread) that the rants lose their lecturing, hectoring quality - she's too personally caught up in what she's singing abou. So when she sings "cos the music business is still run by men/like every business of everything/but I can sing/like a son of a bitch/make 'em twitch around their eyes/make them apologize" it doesn't actually feel that different to elsewhere on the album where she sings, "oh it's good/good to see you again/good to meet your girlfriend/I'll try not to wonder where you are/when you go outside to kiss her/in the front seat of your car."
This becomes less true later on, perhaps "Fuel" was the first political song she did that felt more like propaganda than confession, even though I liked it a lot at the time. Now it reminds me a bit of Michael Franti's "Rock The Nation" or something.
I don't think that this early entanglement of personal and political goes all the way in explaining why Ani's lyrics work for me, but it's a big part of it. Another part of it that, because so much of the politics is expressed through stories or vignettes or very carefully constructed metaphors, you get these very specific and at times quite layered "political" statements - like, the fact that people call "In Or Out" her "lesbian" song seems so off the mark to me, and perhaps even ironic, when it is in fact skewering the possessive chauvinism that straight men and lesbian women feel towards her.
More generally though, I guess a lot of my liking this stuff comes down to getting into Ani when I was 14 and thus almost having a contractual agreement with her music that I'll at least give it a chance to win me over.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 27 February 2006 09:26 (eighteen years ago) link
is this a joke?No disrespect intended, it's just a funny agreement from someone whose vocal affect could also be deemed unique in this way.
Her vocals never really bothered me. I think what drew me to her work was a combo of the prose and instrumental precision. Excellent on the acoustic. And, I really do think she has some great lines, but those, also, can at times be hit or miss. There are certain vulgarities she fits into her verses that make me wonder, why. Just. Why? ("but you can't will yourself happy/you can't will your cunt wet." Really, did she HAVE to? The tune is grating along just fine and then I realize, ehh, I just can't belt along any more.)
"More generally though, I guess a lot of my liking this stuff comes down to getting into Ani when I was 14 and thus almost having a contractual agreement with her music that I'll at least give it a chance to win me over."
I might say this is part of the reason that I genuinely do still enjoy her music. I've been an Ani fan ever since I heard the live track "Gravel," and only an amateur on the guitar, I could not for the life of me figure out how she was playing like that. Maybe it's the curiosity as to if she can continue to impress on that level.
― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Monday, 27 February 2006 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
1. Her hair2. The mispronunciation of her own first name. There are few things more obnoxious than having an Ani fan lecture you about how it's pronounced "Aah-nee", and not Annie.
― Okeigh, Monday, 27 February 2006 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link
Most of the negatives about Ani have been cited here; annoying vocal stylings, a lyrical persona bordering on the narcissistic, jam band/world music/fake funk moves, slam-poetry-style wordsmithing, heavy-handed political posturing. What redeems her is strong songwriting and a body of work that's nothing to sneeze at; her first 6-7 albums are pretty consistent. As a non-fan, I think her best is '94's Out of Range, though Living in Clip is the perfect primer/crash course/compilation for that period.
Those who hate her voice should check out the self-titled first album. Stripped-down production, her vocals are straightforward - this was before her goofy melisma went into overdrive. And it's arguable that she never wrote anything as good as the first track, "Both Hands," a perfect little jewel of a song (avoid the pretentiously overblown version on Living In Clip - a portentous sign of the beginning of the end).
The earlier material derived a lot of its crackle from the tension between Ani and her drummer, Andy Stochansky. Clearly it's always been The Ani DiFranco Show, but when Andy left in '98 things declined in intensity. I saw them (w/ Sara Lee on bass) do a version of "Shy" in '97 in Nashville that was so urgently desperate it was frightening. There's always been something a little punky about Ani that separated her (at least in my mind) from Dave Matthews and others of his ilk.
And yeah, she's got a way with words. Here are a few of hers that stuck with me:
In each other's shadows we grew less and less talland eventually our theories couldn't explain it allI'm recording our history now on the bedroom wall and eventually the landlord will comeand paint over it all-Both Hands
I was 11 years old he was as old as my dadand he took something from meI didn't even know that I had- Letter To A John
One thing I find interesting about Ani DiFranco's career is how it demonstrates the speciousness of the "selling out" concept. Musicians don't sell out as much as they burn out, as inspiration provides diminishing returns over the course of a career. This naturally-occurring process is usually mirrored by an increase in popularity and an affiliation with larger labels that is mistaken for a cause-and-effect relationship. Ani's independence did little to prevent an eventual aesthetic decline. Even my wife, the self-described "Ani nut," finds the post-Little Plastic Castle material slow-going.
― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 27 February 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:01 (eighteen years ago) link