Piece Comment

Review of At Home with Ani DiFranco


An excellently produced piece. The mixture of music and interview keeps the piece moving at a nice clip, while the alternate live versions of the music add interest for people already familiar with DiFranco and with Educated Guess. In particular, the live version of the title track is golden.

As a fan of DiFranco who has heard her dismissed time and again as "an angry chick rocker," I especially enjoyed this piece. It offers an intimate view into her sense of humor and artistry that doesn't deny the anger in some of her songs, but underscores her humanity and makes her an ultimately likeable person.

This hour-long piece offers an intimate and friendly view of one of the most intriguing and revolutionary artists of indie music. Unfortunately, one of the problems with DiFranco as a subject is the speed at which she moves. While she goes through periods where years pass without an album, at other times she can release three albums in three months. The focus on Educated Guess is appropriate as it's what she was promoting at the time, but it dates the piece and makes its value ultimately more retrospective than current.