First New Music review of 2012!!!! - Ani DiFranco

I was taken aback as I listened to new releases these past two months. Could there be THIS much terrible music out there. Sadly, yes. Yes, there is.

As much as I love nothing more than ripping untalented losers a new one; I'm trying to keep positive, and focus on what's good. I'm also living by a resolution I kept last year: Thou shalt not listen to mediocre music. What I'm searching for is stuff that really gets to me, impresses me, and that I can forsee listening to all through the year. I'll be writing about the ones that I fall in love with. And in December I'll consider them all for the best of the year. So, here's the first one for 2012

Ani DiFranco - Which Side are You On? 
I once belonged to an improv group that performed at a poetry night at a coffeehouse. I won a Worst Poem contest there, because whereby the other poets brought in things they wrote that were supposed to be good, but ultimately they weren't really satisfied with; I set out to write a truly horrible poem. This revealed to me a simple truth about poets. They NEVER STOP WRITING. Any little thought can be expressed through poetry, and by extension, through a song.
Ani DiFranco is this type of songwriter. She's no longer at the beginning of her career when she has picked the best of the best from her earliest work; she's now recording new material on a fairly yearly basis. The songs aren't so much ideas that need to come out, as they are thoughts she meditated on that particular day. But here's the thing, DiFranco is so freakin' good at this, that everything she writes turns out to be musical gold. Either that, or if this is just the stuff that isn't terrible, then she is a "poem-every-day" type of writer. She segues easily from lightly philosophical to loudly and harshly political. From arty, complex musical works, to folky protest songs.
A warning: she's very feminist and quite Liberal, so if political content differing from yours is a deal breaker for you, you may close your mind off to some of her subject matter. But for the open minded enjoyer of great music, check it out.