Ani DiFranco - Imperfectly
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Ani DiFrancoEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1994-07-26
Music Label: Righteous Babe
Soundtracks:
- What If No One's Watching
- Fixing Her Hair
- In or Out
- Every State Line
- Circle of Light
- If It Isn't Her
- Good, Bad, Ugly
- I'm No Heroine
- Coming Up
- Make Them Apologize
- Waiting Song
- Served Faithfully
- Imperfectly
Free Music Notes for Imperfectly
Free Music Review: Her best early album
Hit: 3 Stars
(Actually ***1/2, but Amazon doesn't allow half stars.)
Ani's third record is nearly full of fine Ani songs offering the compassionate, cutting wit that keeps me coming back to her music:
"They made sure I wasn't smuggling someone in from Mexico, someone willing to settle for America 'cause there's nowhere else to go."
"I'm not on the rag, but I'm not on the run."
"I sing what I wish I could say."
"It's Mr. DiFranco to you."
"He caresses every bottle like it's the first one he's had, saying 'It ain't love, but it ain't bad.'"
That last comes from a song in which she cuts some slack to a run-down, drunken ex-con who keeps making unwelcome passes at her, a bit of impressively thick-skinned magnanimity from a principled feminist who forgives because, "You've gotta understand the grandness of the man behind the petty crimes, and let 'em off easy sometimes."
Unfortunately the album's marred by "Fixing Her Hair," which like many bad Ani songs has all the makings of a fine essay but no good musical ideas. But she more than makes up for that with my all-time favorite song of hers: the original studio version of "Every State Line," in which Ani sets aside her acoustic guitar, usually her sole accompaniment on this album, and traces her travels as a woman alone with no money through often hostile country in an a cappella tour de force. (Living in Clip has a completely different and also excellent version of this song that I don't like quite as well.) This is Ani DiFranco's best album before Not a Pretty Girl, and it's a fine place to start getting into her early work.
Song by song:
1 What if No One's Watching ***
2 Fixing Her Hair *
3 In or Out ***
4 Every State Line *****
5 Circle of Light ***
6 If It Isn't Her ***
7 Good, Bad, Ugly ***
8 I'm No Heroine ***
9 Coming Up ***
10 Make Them Apologize **
11 The Waiting Song ***
12 Served Faithfully ***
13 Imperfectly **
Imperfectly Poster
It's only by looking back on Imperfectly, Ani DiFranco's third album that we're able to see how far she's come. It's also easy to see where she came from. At this point, DiFranco was still enough of a traditional folkie to stick a political sentiment like "She sits there like America / Suffering through slow reform" into a personal song that deals with abuse ("Fixing Her Hair"). Similarly, on many songs she sounds as though if she's already come to terms with her sexuality, then she hasn't yet come to terms with the way society deals with it. But she also demonstrates that she's figuring out how to use her voice, charisma, affected delivery, and the chance to play around in the studio on the a cappellas "Every State Line" and "Coming Up." There's also the tender, impassioned tracks ("The Waiting Song," "Served Faithfully"), which DiFranco's never had a short supply of--and never been less than moving on. --Randy SilverAlternative Rock Music CDs
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