Evolve

Ani DiFranco

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 11, 2003)
• Original Release Date: March 11, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Righteous Babe
• ASIN: B00008BL67
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,557 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #9 in	Music > Indie Music > Folk > Contemporary Folk
  #11 in	Music > Indie Music > Alternative Rock > Singer Songwriters
  #15 in	Music > Alternative Rock > New Wave & Post-Punk > Urban Folk

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Some 15 years and nearly as many albums into her career, Ani DiFranco--the original girl-power prophet and folkie punk--is still as willful as ever. Her lyrics remain poetic, polemical, and yes, occasionally maudlin; her musical explorations sound more like refinement than radical revision, but it's clear that she's still, well, evolving. Always a strikingly gifted and expressive singer and guitarist who employs her voice and guitar as both rhythmic and melodic instruments, DiFranco builds this set of songs on those basics but draws generously from the wide range of styles she's sampled since her stripped-down early days. A slinky Latin guitar line snakes through "Promised Land," gutsy New Orleans brass adds swagger to "In the Way," and jazzy keys, cool clarinets, and mournful muted trumpets lend color and tone to nearly every cut. Hooks are scarce in the disc's mushy middle, but the lush, horn-laden groove of "Here for Now" recaptures the momentum, and DiFranco even drops a signature 10-minute epic in "Serpentine." Like Evolve itself, "Serpentine" is sprawling, funny, angry, compelling, and entirely unafraid. --Anders Smith Lindall

Product Description

Japanese edition of the iconic singer/songwriter's 2003 album includes one bonus track, 'Your Next Bold Move' (live version from the movie Render). Digipak housed in a slipcase. Righteous Babe/Victor. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Landmark album gets me all jazzed, March 16, 2003

By	Pandora "adelita21" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

I've been a fan of Ani for years, and this album is a definite landmark. It's jazzy, funky, latin, folky, fantastic. If you're gonna give it a try, I recommend listening to it a number of times to really fall into it. Like a lot of her albums, it takes repeat listening to appreciate the depth of the music, and this album especially can be very subtle in its texture. Listen to the sample tracks a coupla times (I just *love* Slide), but my three very favorite songs don't even have samples (Here For Now, Phase, and Serpentine). Go to Ani's website at righteousbabe.com to listen to more tracks.
If you've never listened to Ani before, I recommend this one for her mellower jazzier stuff, 'Dilate' for her [ticked]-off, righteous, rockin' girl power, and 'Little Plastic Castle' for fun upbeat tunes that are easier to appreciate on the first listen.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Fate is not just whose cooking smells good...", March 13, 2003

By	Eva Taylor (USA) - See all my reviews

When buying the newest offering from the little folksinger, youll find yourself winding around her songs with parabolic strides. Starting by only seeing a couple of intriguing pieces, you will cautiously twist around the intricacies of Ms. Difrancos art, and then find you've discovered more gold in the pan with each successive listen. Hear it once and youll discover 'Slide' and 'Evolve'. Listen twice and 'Second Intermission' and 'Shrug' will have nestled comfortably into your subconscious. Listen three times and something pungent and overwhelming starts to happen. The previously inconsequential melodies (although classic Ani) seem to start the task of unburying themselves from the layers of elaboration in which they are wrapped. By your fifth or sixth time through you start to wonder whether or not this might be the most original album of recorded music youve heard in a decade. And by your second day, when you havent turned off the cd player for 32 hours straight, you are quite sure that genius is buried within the simple iridescent cover.

There is more in this one little album, in terms of poetry, lyricism, rhythm, melody, justice, passion, intellect, and groove  than you will find in any thousand albums randomly chosen in a store. While I admit I hail from the more fanatical end of the spectrum when it comes to Ani, there is no denying that this womans fingers are exceptionally skilled at their practice, that her left brain and right worked in a lyrical symbiosis when composing these 12 poems, that her songs have a palpable affect on your surroundings. It takes many fans a few years to really appreciate her music, and, likewise, it will probably take you a few full listens until it is clear how incredible this body of work really is.

Appreciating this album is difficult; there are no easy hooks here, no obviously loopable clips. Die-hard fans, poets, and appreciators of Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell and spoken word will love this album, but Im guessing that a lot of other people will have difficulty. Believe me when I say that, if you put in the effort (of listening, repeatedly, of paying close attention), there are few musical works this year that will be more worth it. The ratio of brilliant moments is excessive for any single album. How many other artists do you know who can use the word exoskull in a song like the title track, and sing lyrics like I walk in stride with people/much taller than me/and partly its my boots/but mostly its my chi with a breathy twang that has enough rhythm in it for Motown? Or how about the last minute of 'Oh My My' when youre sure youre listening to Patsy Kline? From the whispery jazz in the beginning of 'Shrug' to the flamenco inspired rapid fire of 'Here for Now' to the tight cooperative groove of' Slide', the sheer musicality of these creations will inspire anyone who has played an instrument, and will overwhelm those who know the level of work it takes to play them well. Simply put, an impressive contribution from the most righteous babe of them all.

This is my one desert island cd from here on out. Im telling you, genius.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do It Yourself-er does it for me, March 13, 2003

By	Donnie (Boston) - See all my reviews

This is my first Ani Difranco cd. At best I have a pedestrian knowledge of her music, so I have really no idea how this compares to any of her previous recordings. Now that that's taken care of, this is an AMAZING cd. The line she walks between jazz, rock and folk is so thin that you really can't label it. The folk/funk and rock/jazz combinations are so incredibly good that even non-Ani Difranco followers like myself have no choice but to take notice. She is the real deal. Incredible voice, incredible music, incredible songs. At this point I'm not ready to single out any particular tunes as choice cuts, and even if I were this cd is meant to be listened to as a whole (you simply cannot skip over any tracks, it's THAT good). Get this cd and hear what I'm talking about.