Ani DiFranco

Steaming with hip-hop beats, loops, poetry-slam lyrics and endlessly funky acoustic guitars, Dilate bares Difranco's unrefined storytelling in poetic classics like "Untouchable Face," "Shameless" and her unconventional, danceable cover of "Amazing Grace." If your high school sweetheart broke up with you during senior prom, this may be your favorite album. Ever.

Ani DiFranco's independent spirit is admirable. Dilate is her eighth self-released album since
1990, but while most devoutly "political" artists stress polemics, DiFranco stresses music.
She can come on tough, but she's at her best when she picks somber guitar phrases and
lets her voice trail off into a whisper. Her self-deprecating humor prevents her personal
songs from becoming sappy or self-righteous. "I use my dress to wipe up my drin... More >

On an album loaded with quotable quotes, my favorite is the refrain (well, she says it twice) of the six-and-a-half-minute "Adam and Eve": "i am truly sorry about all this." I mean, she knows--knows what a pain in the ass she is, knows how much space her emotions take up, knows she once banged a power line with her stickball bat and blacked out the entire eastern seaboard. She boasts about her integrity, her vulnerability, her joy. She jokes about them too. She has a friend's mom phone in obscure verses of "Amazing Grace." She utters, I kid you not, the most vituperative "f*ck you" in the history of the music. She is herself, and for once that's more than enough. (Grade - A-)