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Friday May 11. 2001 revelling in the reckoning My plan for riding the bus downtown while listening to the new Ani album kind of went awry. First, I had the misfortune of picking a bus where the air conditioning wasn't working. And then my discman sputtered and died halfway downtown, even though it said it had full batteries, so I had to sit in the silence and heat, a big black guy next to me slowly crushing me into my seat. So I had to listen to it when I got home. My discman was shot, my computer speakers are fucked up, so I had to rely on my nearly 8 year old stereo, which, ironically enough, functions the best of all my cd players. I really liked a few songs on the Revelling disc. Very funky and very cool. It reminded me of when I saw her with Maceo Parker two years ago. But besides the first few songs, I was generally unimpressed. It just doesn't sound like she's trying to do anything different musically. The other disc, Reckoning, disappointed me even more. When I was at the fourth track, I got up and skipped through the songs in a desperate attempt to find some sort of change of speed or timbre in the songs. But they're all the same - slow, unneccessarily long guitar ballads occasionally utilizing some sort of weird sound or loop. I'm not saying every album she produces has be a great work of art, but it's saying something when half of her new double album is substandard. It sucks, because I know she's capable of so much more. Her voice on her very first album was just gorgeous, smooth and sensuous, a perfect complement to the spare, ethereal guitar. I listen to her voice now, it's degenerated into these strange squeaks and breathiness that she seems to think convey emotion, but just sound put-on and plain stupid. You know what this album really makes me want to do? Go listen to her first five or six albums. These first albums were very very tight. Every single song on them was excellent, every song had a chorus and bridge and verses. I am a sucker for conventional song structure, what can I say. I don't like the Ani that endlessly and tirelessly pontificates on gun control and abortion and women's rights and the corrupt system of whatever. I don't like the Ani whose songs are one long sigh of regret and loss. I liked the Ani that wrote lesbian love songs. I liked the Ani who stared fiercely at the conventional world and dared them to take her on. I liked the Ani who screamed, growled and spat into the microphone, her fingers trying to beat the hell out of her guitar. And I haven't seen that Ani for a long, long time, live or on her albums. I hate to say this, but this girl needs a producer. One that is not her. This is what a producer does, people. They take a good hard look at all your material and separate the good from the bad. It's admittedly hard to do this yourself, because you are not exactly the most objective observer of your own art. Some people can produce their own stuff successfully (Tori Amos is one example that comes to mind), but it's just not working for Ani anymore. Everyone is always saying how great it is that she runs her own record company. The things she writes could and would not be released to the public under any other circumstances. I am not disputing this, but everything has a downside. This is the downside: there is no one telling her that maybe, just maybe, this music is not your best, and you should maybe pare this down a little. This really pains me, you know? To really dislike an album by an artist whose music and philosophy you love. Nothing of Ani's has really electrified me since 1997's Living in Clip. And for a girl who puts out an album or two a year, that seems like a eternity ago.
One Year Ago:
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