The Good: Musically diverse, Decent lyrics/concepts, Vocally diverse
The Bad: Feels short(final track is excessively long and pads out album),Trying too hard to be different
The Basics: Good enough to recommend, Little Plastic Castle presents Ani DiFranco making actual music with a strong sense of politics that works!
So, it has finally happened; I found an Ani DiFranco album I would actually recommend! How about that? When I named Ani DiFranco my female Artist Of The Month, no doubt I anticipated liking her works quite a bit more than I have been. However, thus far, I have found myself underwhelmed with the albums of hers that I have heard. Ani DiFranco is hardly as creative, audacious or - and this seems to be my biggest beef thus far - musically competent as many people have tried to sell her to me as.
Then I put Little Plastic Castle on high rotation here at the homestead and . . . I discovered I was not hating it. In fact, there were a few songs I enjoyed and generally, the album was cool and pleasant enough to not pan. That said, Little Plastic Castle is not an extraordinary album and while I did not hate it, I also am not rushing out to buy it. Still, there is enough to recommend it and it is generally enjoyable pop-rock music from a strong female vocalist.
With a dozen songs occupying 61:25, Little Plastic Castle is distinctly the work of Ani DiFranco. DiFranco wrote all of the songs and she produced and co-mixed the album as well. As always she provided all of the lead vocals and she plays multiple instruments as well. On this album, she plays multiple guitars (tenor, acoustic, baritone, and electric), keyboards, bass pedals, drums and percussion and a concertina. In other words, this is inarguably the musical vision of Ani DiFranco.
I have come to the point in my immersion in the works of Ani DiFranco where I believe I have come to understand her popularity, especially among angsty young women; DiFranco says what no other musical artist seems to get around to saying, certainly none of the mainstream ones. While I enjoyed Little Plastic Castle more than any other Ani DiFranco album I've yet heard of hers, I still come around, ultimately, to the idea that it is likely her lyrics more than anything else that is selling her album. That said, on this album, DiFranco at least has more enthusiasm and pep than on many of her other albums.
Indeed, Little Plastic Castle is richly produced, adding a depth of sound to DiFranco's vocals and lyrics that enhances the overall album. DiFranco sounds on this album like a studio-produced vocalist who could be mainstream, were it not for her lyrics. Indeed, on "Deep Dish," she sounds almost exactly like Susanne Vega. The style is more jazz-based, exciting and actually melodic. Nowhere on Little Plastic Castle does DiFranco sound like the coffeehouse "one woman and a guitar" chick. No, here she sounds remarkably mainstream.
Vocally, DiFranco is more developed, carrying a tune on virtually every song. While she singspeaks through songs like "Deep Dish" and "Fuel," the latter arguably just to articulate her long, complex lines, she actually sings and puts the sound of her voice out as an instrument on songs like "Pixie," "Pulse," and on moments of the album's title track.
Instrumentally, DiFranco presents herself as a strong woman with a guitar and keyboards. More than most of her other albums, the percussion section lets loose and she does a pretty amazing job of creating tunes. Most of the sound of the album is upbeat, energetic with a pop-rock feel that sounds much more mainstream than her early folk-rock works. "Loom," for example, sounds like it could be an early Melissa Etheridge track or even something being released nowadays by an American Idol contestant.
That said, it is still the lyrics that do seem to bring people to the works of Ani DiFranco and on this album she is a social commentator more than a relationship counselor. Deeply political, she explores the way media conglomeration affects the U.S., albeit in somewhat cliche terms like "And I wonder who's gonna be president, tweedle dum or tweedle dummer? / And who's gonna have the big blockbuster box office this summer? / How about we put up a wall between houses and the highway / And you can go your way, and I can go my may / Except all the radios agree with all the tvs / And all the magazines agree with all the radios / And I keep hearing that same damn song everywhere I go" ("Fuel"). She makes good observations and DiFranco sings truth to power in an uncommon way.
Frequently, Ani DiFranco rails against capitalism. She does it fairly effectively on "Pixie." There, she melodically decries the status quo when she sings "Maybe you don't like your job / Maybe you didn't get enough sleep / Well, nobody likes their job / Nobody got enough sleep / Maybe you just had / The worst day of your life / But, you know, there's no escape / And there's no excuse / So just suck up and be nice" ("Pixie"). This is precisely the kind of social statement mainstream artists who are tied to big record labels do not sing about. That DiFranco can actually make such sentiments musical is impressive!
DiFranco is also more sexual in some of her lyrics - in a classy way - than many artists on the market today. She mixes the political and relationships when she wrote the lines on "Independence Day," ". . . The birds flew around like the whole world was ending / And I don't think war is noble / And I don't like to think that love is like war / And I gotta big hot cherry bomb, and I want to slip it through the mail slot / Of your front door." DiFranco has decent diction and it is clear she has something to day. To her credit, she is an original.
On Little Plastic Castle, it is that originality that is worth lauding and worth the attention of the listener. She presents it all articulately and musically and creates a pop-rock sound that might sound more mainstream, but a message that is not (yet) what we would consider anything other than alternative.
The best track is "Deep Dish," the low point is the unmemorable "Swan Dive."
For other Ani DiFranco works, please check out my reviews of:
Not So Soft
Not A Pretty Girl
Living In Clip
6/10
For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |
No comments:
Post a Comment