You are a china shop and I am a bull, you are really good food and I am full

On the weekend I went into JB HiFi and bought the Ani DiFranco best-of Canon (the double meaning of which is played up on the CD packaging). Even though I own most of her stuff already, I don't have a favourite CD from her repertoire. The best songs are peppered across her albums. Plus, I don't own Knuckle Down or the other more recent album she's produced and there's a good stash of recent material on the best-of compilation.

What impresses me about Ani (and has for awhile) is the sweetness in her writing, contrasted to the nastier, more cynical edge. There's songs like Both Hands and You Had Time alongside the angsty Dilate (the anthem for unrequited love) and Gravel. There's accusatory rock on Little Plastic Castle, swinging jazzy tracks on Revelling/Reckoning, quiet pretty folk on Not So Soft and other songs that manage to bypass genre classification all together. It's also full of wise lyrics and quotable quotes, political statements and personal manifestos. Her sheer level of output (one album per year on average) suggests she could cull some of the more average songs, but in general she's fairly consistent. Even when you think you're sick of her, you can always dip back in for another taste because her styles are so varied.

Anyway, there's a review of the album in last week's Beat here and I think I'll follow this entry up with a top ten Ani list later in the week. That saves the entry on why best-of compilations are allowed in your top ten albums for later. That's a story for another time, however.