Ani DiFranco
To The Teeth
»
Ani DiFranco
To The Teeth
Righteous Babe, 1999
RiYL: Suzanne Vega, Joni Mitchell, Aimee Mann |
For most of the 1990s, DiFranco epitomized female rock star strength by owning her record label and because her early audience was virtually male-less, but politics were always less prevalent and important than the way songs such as 1994's "You Had Time," 1995's "Sorry I Am" and 1996's "Untouchable Face" became universal anthems for the heartbroken, regardless of sex, race or sexual preference.
Marriage would inherently take away that self-pitying and melancholic side of her, because like Tori Amos, for some reason it's a little uneasy to hear her sing bitter love songs now. Realizing this, or perhaps the "angry acoustic" artist simply has happier relationships, DiFranco has reconnected with her punk rock roots, and the misleading anti-male focus placed on her early records has blossomed into pro-mankind through anti-industry. This was hinted on a slew of past songs and most of last year's Up Up Up Up Up Up, but this is the first full record to live up to her Righteous Babe moniker. However, for someone customarily criticized as repetitious because of her voice/guitar minimalism, the more thematically varied and musically expansive her songs become, the further DiFranco strays from the first-person narratives that made her so fascinating.
The new challenge is to find places to go after being a mother, big sister, teacher, prophet and goddess to thousands of women -- and even many men -- without losing attributes already gained. While she doesn't have Amos' knack for progression or experimentation, Liz Phair's blunt lyrics, Danielle Howle or Beth Orton's charm or Polly Jean Harvey's pure genius, she's the first to evolve into a universalist.
The self-titled track deals with the 1999 Columbine massacre and gun control with focused and storming lyrics, including, "Some boy gets the milkfed suburban blues / reaches for the available arsenal and saunters off to make the news." She ironically declares, "Open fire on the NRA," but attacks MTV, ABC, CBS and NBC without ever mentioning cable news, which has as large an impact as network, nor explains why she appeared on past MTV shows such as "120 Minutes." Her assault on an easy yet inexact target such as Hollywood is no less conservative than Rosie O'Donnell, never placing the blame on family, environment, or the in-crowd Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold so desperately needed/despised. The song is uncharacteristically overlong and overstated, but the ending lyric, "And if I hear one more time about a fool's right to his tools of rage / I'm going to take all my friends and I'm gonna move to Canada / and we're gonna die of old age" brings back the witty and drastic DiFranco the experimentation sometimes compromises.
Her backing band is a big part of the problem, since she's overwhelmed on "Back Back Back" and "Going Once" by distracting drums and out of place, jazzy horns. Brian Wolf may be the best or worst trumpet player in the world, but it doesn't matter because DiFranco is a china shop and he is the bull, making the sweet vocals almost unlistenable. The opposite goes for drummer Daren Hahn, because instead of overpowering DiFranco, he's too submissive, and should have studied Matt Chamberlain, who has become as indispensable a component of Tori Amos and Fiona Apple's songs as their own voices or pianos.
With three records released in the past 20 months (four if you count her recent Utah Phillips collaboration), DiFranco has become folk-rock's Wu-Tang Clan, she still writes amazing songs ("Hello Birmingham" and "Wish I May"), but like DMX, condensing the last two average records would have produced a much better one. Her last amazing record, Little Plastic Castles, came just two years before this one but seems so much longer. Last year's "Tis Of Thee" and "Trickle Down" were ambitious crusades about America's drug war victims and factory workers, but only "Hello Birmingham," about murdered abortionist Dr. Bernard Slepian, lives up to its poignant subject matter. With harrowing lyrics such as, "A bullet insuring the right to life / whizzed past his kid and his wife / and knocked his glasses right off his face," it's hard to demand songs about broken hearts when she's moved on to broken lives.
ROB BERNSTEN |