Review: Ani DiFranco's "Educated Guess" is only half-right


Around the time I started getting into music, whenever I would listen to a song, I would typically focus more on the lyrics than the music. I've mellowed on that belief since then; some artists are more focused on music than lyrics and that's fine.

However, one artist whom I still go to mainly for lyrics is Ani DiFranco. Her 13th studio album, "Educated Guess," released on Jan. 20, 2004, is a decent example of why.

Two songs into my first listen, I was getting a feeling that DiFranco was retreading old waters. Following the intro song "Platforms," "Swim" and the title track both sound like lesser versions of her classic material. Luckily, this was her first album in a while where no songs exceeded six minutes.

Standout tracks that assured me the album was worth sticking out include "Origami," a song about needing space to breathe in a relationship, and "You Each Time," which is about ending a relationship going nowhere but in circles.

DiFranco returns to spoken word with "The True Story of What Was," "Akimbo" and "Grand Canyon." The latter surprised me by being a three-minute poem about America, her longest up to this point.

I'm glad I stuck it out, because the second half of the album was considerably stronger than the first half, with tracks like "Company" featuring memorable harmonies and fingerpicking from DiFranco.

However, I would still stick "Educated Guess" in the lower echelon of Ani DiFranco's discography, simply because it doesn't have enough of what makes her music both charming and biting.

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