Ani DiFranco
Little Plastic Castle (Righteous Babe)
by Jamie Kiffel
As usual, Ani DiFranco‘s devoted fans will be pleased to receive yet another tightly-wound knot of napkins binding up a variety of feminine pathologies. Little Plastic Castle dips deep inside the bell-shaped goldfish bowl, sailing powdery-voiced tumults through introspection and over rivers of guitar-speak that comment very quietly and ripple only rarely. DiFranco achieves a state of rhyme that drums out rhythms that roll as satisfyingly slickly as limericks, often wrapping some of her most acidic neuroses within her phrases’ alacrity to be spoken or sung.
DiFranco delivers lyrics with the same stylistic pizzazz that won her cheers from audiences throughout her live album,Living in Clip. Her hesitation in stating, “I would give you my… pulse” (on “Pulse”) is startling with its lip-popping evocation of a real pulse. On “Loom,” DiFranco brazenly calls in a lusty feline voice, “I won’t do anything/you can’t tell your wife,” making aural scars in any guard against emotional adultery.
Being used and oppressed is terrible, and DiFranco has proven that there is a lot to say about it. DiFranco’s lyrics are good enough, however, and her style powerful enough, that it is time for her to stop circling in the fishbowl of society’s assumptions and to use her talent to show that her oppression is not the confining limit of her art.