Ani DiFranco

Knuckle Down comes with a precious, fancy-papered chapbook stapled into the middle of it. Filled with bare lyrics and even barer pencil sketches, it's the perfect manifestation of everything that sucks about Ani DiFranco: pseudo-literary pretension, coffeehouse glibness and the false impression that she's some kind of grassroots underdog rather...

By Jason Heller

January 27, 2005

Audio By Carbonatix

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Knuckle Down comes with a precious, fancy-papered chapbook stapled into the middle of it. Filled with bare lyrics and even barer pencil sketches, it's the perfect manifestation of everything that sucks about Ani DiFranco: pseudo-literary pretension, coffeehouse glibness and the false impression that she's some kind of grassroots underdog rather than a chart-riding, Grammy-nominated multi- millionaire. Knuckle travels even farther down the path of meandering song structures and jazzy wankery of 2004's Educated Guess, swiping shamelessly from Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits without ever tapping into the genius of either. It isn't until the fourth track that a coherent vocal melody surfaces -- on the earthy if blandly prosaic "Sunday Morning," one of the disc's few redeeming moments. DiFranco has proven herself in just about every way imaginable: as an entrepreneur, an activist, even a cultural icon. Too bad she still has a problem writing a convincing -- or at least listenable -- song.

Jason Heller is a staff writer at Westword. He's the author of the book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded (Melville House/Penguin Random House), and has contributed to the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and NPR.org. His work has won a Hugo Award and a Colorado Press Association Award.

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