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Ani DiFranco: An Anathema to the Corporate Music World,

Heroine of the Independents

By Joni A.E. Lee

joeekhoff@yahoo.com

American Music-A Cultural History

Hubertus Zander

Summer 2006

Artist Ani DiFranco is truly unconventional in terms of mainstream music. In a music industry supported by corporate record companies and filled with bureaucracy, DiFranco’s success as an independent is most impressive. Her funky voice and erratic guitar playing, coupled with politically charged lyrics, set DiFranco apart from the corporate-made “Pop Tarts” and make Ani DiFranco one of the most interesting artists of the 21^st Century. This paper argues that Ani DiFranco’s  unique position as an independent musician and record producer allows her many freedoms not shared by other corporately signed musicians, and has allowed her to retain her creativity and artistic integrity as well as an intimate relationship with her audience throughout the last two decades of her career in the music industry.

Ani DiFranco was born in the fall of 1970 in Buffalo, New York.  She is the daughter of a Jewish-American mother and an Italian-American father, who were both intensely interested in folk music (Wikipedia).  DiFranco grew up listening to great folk artists such as Arlo and Woody Guthrie, Joni Mitchell and the Beatles.  Her music career began at the age of 9, when her guitar teacher helped her land a gig playing covers of Beatle standards at a local coffeehouse (Answers.com).  Ani grew up in a troubled home and her experiences throughout her childhood and adolescence would later become the material for her songs, the angsty teenage poetry that she wrote to cope with her life soon developed into lyrics (Righteous Babe). 

At the early age of 15, DiFranco declared her independence and left her crumbling family life to go live with friends while she toured the Buffalo club circuit (Wikipedia). Four years later at the age of 19, DiFranco had written over 100 original songs (Answers.com).  At her concerts she was flooded with so many requests from adoring fans pleading for copies of her performances that she recorded a demo and pressed 500 tapes to sell at her shows (Answer.com).  After these first recordings were sold out, DiFranco decided to create her own record label, Righteous Babe, so that she could better distribute her recordings (RighteousBabe). Since the creation of her label, DiFranco has produced a new record every year since 1990, not including compilation albums and recorded live performances (Bell).

Unlike many of today’s musicians, who owe their success to sound studio enhancements, and expensive advertising paid for by their record labels, DiFranco owes much of her success to her time spent in front of live audiences. Ani is a true show-woman and her amazing and energetic stage presence and intense live performances are her best publicity (Clark). DiFranco attributes her onstage antics and percussive guitar playing to her early days of playing in noisy crowded bars, when she would have to invent interesting and innovative ways of making herself heard and holding her audiences attention (Righteous Babe). During her performances she often tells off the cuff stories about her life as she tunes her guitar. Although the venues that she plays in front of today are much larger than the smoky bars and college cafeterias of her youth, she still maintains an intimate feel to her shows whether she is playing for an audience of 15 or 1,500 people (Clark).  

Since she hit the road in the early 1990s, she has spent most of her time on tour (Prasad).  DiFranco finds touring to be a very important part of the song writing process.  She feels that audience reaction and interaction to new material allows the song to grow and develop past the words and chords, and really take on a life of its own (Prasad).  Currently, Ani is on tour throughout the United States and Canada, promoting her newest album Reprieve which will debut on 8 August, 2006 (Righteous Babe).   

Ani DiFranco’s musical style is very difficult to classify, as she uses an eclectic range of styles and moods throughout her music (Answers.com).  Her songs are often characterized by popular media as being “angry girl” feminist music, which often alienates her from mainstream attention.  DiFranco resents this label, as she feels that this label pigeonholes her and ignores what she feels to be the universal nature of her creative output (Dietz).  Although Ani DiFranco identifies herself as a folk singer, this description does not necessarily align her with the long haired, guitar-strumming musicians of her parent’s generation. In an interview with Pavement magazine, she describes her somewhat alternative definition of the term “folk:” 

"Folk music is not an acoustic guitar--that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority (Pavement)."

Each one of Ani’s 18 albums is different from the rest in style, mood and instrumentation (Wikipedia). Throughout her career, DiFranco has been highly experimental and has worked with a wide array of styles. She combines elements from many different types of music including: folk, jazz, funk, blues, punk, soul and rock.  She often uses innovative and unusual instruments, often regarded as risky by other artists such as the banjo and accordion in the opening riff of “Angry Anymore,” from her album entitled Up, Up, Up; and a brass ensemble in “Deep Dish” from Little Plastic Castles.  Ani DiFranco’s music is constantly evolving and changing from year to year and album to album (Bell). She has reinvented herself time and again, but still has remained true to her artistic creativity and integrity. 

Although Ani DiFranco often travels with a 5-piece band and has performed with artists such as Prince and Cyndi Lauper, at heart she is a one woman show (Wikipedia).   DiFranco’s unique staccato, finger picking method of guitar playing and unconventional vocals allow her to stand alone as an artist (Meikle). Ani DiFranco uses a wide vocal and audio range in her music. She not only sings, she also whispers, yells, moans, groans and howls.  DiFranco often delivers her lyrics as read poetry, unaccompanied by music. She is known for her unique style of melodious speaking, which is notable for its rhythmic variation, staccato punctuation and humorously sarcastic tone (Miekle).

Ani DiFranco is also known for her technical ability on the acoustic guitar.  Throughout her performances, she uses a variable arsenal of six guitars, each with its own unique sound and voice, (Ouellette, Prasad).   Her rapid finger picking technique is filled with complicated riffs, punctuated by percussive notes. DiFranco has become famous in many guitar circles as a guitar player who makes use of a plethora of unconventional alternate tunings (Answers.com).   DiFranco uses her guitar not only as an accompaniment to her singing, but her playing often acts as a second vocalist itself.  She uses her guitar to emphasize what she is singing, and in the instrumental portions of her songs, her guitar coveys almost as much emotion as her lyrics.  Except for a few singles, most of DiFranco’s music is too edgy and avant-garde to receive airtime on mainstream radio stations (Bell).

Ani DiFranco’s lyrics also set her apart from other contemporary musicians. Her songs are filled with alliteration and witty word play that keep the listener interested (Answers.com). Her music is often like a running monologue sang in a conversational tone that makes the listener feel as though they have entered into an intimate conversation with her.

Although painting pretty word pictures about love and romance is easier and sells more records, Ani DiFranco bares her soul in her lyrics and writes about real life experiences and her perceptions of the world around her (Meikle).  She is not afraid to make ugly music and she does not shrink away from making people uncomfortable or angry (Bell).  Throughout her albums, DiFranco sympathetically tackles socially charged issues such as rape, sexism, reproductive rights, homophobia and American foreign policy (Prasad).  Instead of being repelled by her often politically charged lyrics, DiFranco’s audience is drawn in with the compassion and emotional intensity that Ani uses to discuss these topics. Much of Ani DiFranco’s early popularity can be attributed to a loyal fan-base of politically-minded college students, who embraced DiFranco’s unapologetically honest lyrics and enthusiastically spread her popularity through word of mouth to college campuses all throughout the United States and Canada (Answers.com). 

One of the most surprising and inspiring aspects of Ani DiFranco’s success is that she has done it all on her own, without the support of the corporate music industry.  At the age of 20 years old, DiFranco created Righteous Babe Records, a channel through which she could produce and distribute her own music on her own terms (Gillen, Artistic Integrity). In lieu of her success, corporate giants have attempted to entice DiFranco away from her grassroots background with promises of higher record sales and more public visibility. Much to their chagrin, DiFranco has remained true to herself and to her independence (Davis). “I just don’t think you can say something meaningful within the corporate music structure,” says DiFranco, “And I know that I don’t want to be a part of that structure. I don’t want to support it, and I want to do everything I can do to actively challenge it on a daily basis (Gillen, Artistic Integrity).”

As an autonomous musician and producer, DiFranco has the opportunity to express herself not only through singing, guitar playing and producing; but also through the song writing, poetry and painting that she includes in her albums (PZ).  Being self-sustaining also means that she determines her own release dates for her albums and her own touring schedule a luxury not afforded to musicians signed under corporate agreements. 

Although the road to success was not a quick one for DiFranco, her staying power seems much more concrete than many of her early contemporaries (Gillen, Plugs In).   These contemporaries were helped along by corporate labels and exploded on to the music scene in the early 1990s with huge success; however, they have since faded into a distant memory (Gillen, Plugs In).  In contrast, Ani receives little to no attention from alternative and college radio stations, and remains largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.  Despite this, her records continue to sell and her label continues to grow.  She has even added several new fledgling artists to her label, as well as produced several albums for folk legend Utah Phillips (Righteous Babe).

In recent years DiFranco has also aligned herself with the Not in Our Name project, a group of artists and politically aware citizens who actively protest the Iraqi war. Along with other members of this project, DiFranco released her song, “Self Evident” directly to the internet, free of change, in the form of Mp3s and RealVideo, yet another slap in the face of the large record labels, who in recent years have been scrambling to tighten their hold on the rights and distribution of music in the age of digital file sharing (Scherzinger). 

In conclusion, Ani DiFranco is one of the most talented, yet underrated artists of the 21^st Century. As an independent musician she is able to produce unique, unconventional and uncensored music that remains true to her beliefs.  Although DiFranco flies under the radar of mainstream attention, she retains a loyal and devoted fan base, and is able to not only sustain, but also grow her record company Righteous Babe Records in Buffalo, New York.  In a time when many of the large corporate record companies are suffering cutbacks from a downward spiraling sales trend, DiFranco is able to support her small staff as well as stay afloat financially (Gillen, Artistic Integrity). As more and more artists follow DiFranco’s footsteps and step out into the world of musical independence, the world will begin to see a shift from the bland, homogenous corporate sponsored music that currently proliferates, to independent music that is unique in its form and socially relevant in its content.

Bibliography

1. "Ani DiFranco". Answers.com. June 1, 2006 http://www.answers.com/topic/ani-difranco.
2. "Ani DiFranco". Pavement Magazine. June 10, 2006 http://www.pavementmagazine.com/ani_difranco.html.
3. "Ani DiFranco". Wikipedia. June 3, 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani_DiFranco.
4. Bell, Carrie. "Righteous Babe's DiFranco Moves 'Up'". Billboard Nov. 29, 98:13
5. Clark, Rick. "Continental Drift". Billboard October 22, 1994
6. Davis, Alisha. "You Can't Fence Her In". Newsweek Jan. 18, 1999: 56
7. Dietz, Roger. "Female folk artists fight pigeonholing". Billboard Nov. 11, 1995: 13.
8. Gillen, Marilyn A. "Ani DiFranco: Envisioning A Future That Makes Artistic Integrity A Top Priority And Puts Black Ink on The Bottom Line". Billboard Jan. 8, 2000: 60
9. Gillen, Marilyn A. "Righteous Babe's DiFranco Plugs In". Billboard May 18, 1996:1
10. Meikle, Merry. “Fierce Beauty: The Evolution of folk genius Ani DiFranco.” Hartford Advocate. March 6, 2003. http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/Music/content.html?oid=oid:5450 (June 6, 2006).
11. Ouellete, Dan.  “What They Play.” Acoustic Guitar. Issue 149. (May 2005).  http://acousticguitar.com/issues/pastissues/toc.asp?IssueID=157
12. Prasad, Anil. "Songwriting: Ani DiFranco Knuckles Down". Guitar Player April 2005:31.
13. PZ, "Ani DiFranco". Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine May-July 1996: 130.
14. "Righteous Babe Records". Righteous Babe Records. June 10, 2006 http://www.righteousbabe.com.
15. Scherzinger, Martin. "Music, Corporate Power, and Unending War". Cultural Critique 1995: 23-67.

The next day we packed up our things and left the hotel at a relatively decent hour (meaning escaping JUST before check out time ;-) ) and headed to the train station. We boarded a train to a tiny coastal Greek town called Patras We met up with a young Canadian couple who were also touring in first class. We all decided to move to the dining car together. The train ride was absolutely spectacular with the snow capped mountains, the vineyards that we in bloom, and not to mention the surf crashing up practically over the side of the train once we neared to ocean. We swapped travel tips with the couple and had an enjoyable lunch of leftovers from the night before.

We arrived in Patras and had a few hours to kill before our boat to Italy. We walked around the town, sat in a park for a long while and watched two strange older men inspect the park benches, and then went to find some food for the train. This is quite a feat, because in Greece everything pretty much closes down at 2 o’clock, and it stays closed for the rest of the day. We were able to find an open bakery and an open convenience store (how convenient) and bought ourselves some provisions for the night. Then we headed to the boating docks. We got our tickets which were an AMAZING deal. With our Eurail tickets, a bed in a male or female dorm was only 13 Euro apiece for a 20 hour journey! The tickets would have been completely free, but due to the higher price of gas, a 13 E tax was imposed, but still not too shabby.
We had to wait for a while to board, so we sat in the embarking area and played Sudoku for about an hour (earlier we picked up a Greek version. I think so far we have Sudoku from 3 or 4 different countries).

After we’d completely numbed our brains we decided to try to board. We went to the docks, found our ship and boarded with no problem. We got our room keys, and dropped our stuff in storage lockers outside of our room and then went out on deck to watch the scenery and the sunset with a huge bowl of fresh strawberries that we bought from the cafeteria. I was really silly though and completely missed the sunset, because I went back in for my jacket, and then I locked my keys in the locker and had to get a spare from the front desk yada yadda yadda, so when I got back outside everything was grey and darkish.

This shipping experience was completely different than our first one. It seemed as though there were more people working on the ship than actual passengers. It was just us and a handful of Asian tourists, which was really nice. I ordered dinner, and John and I ate that along with the rest of the leftovers from the Greek restaurant. Then we went and spoke to the front desk people and told them that there were no other people in either of our dorm rooms, and asked if it’d be ok if we bunked together. They said that as we were in the middle of the sea, and the likelihood of other guests boarding was pretty slim, that it’d be okay if John came and stayed with me.

We got all of our stuff moved, and grabbed the laptop and found a big cozy couch and watched a couple of movies, went to the video arcade room and played some ____________ and ate tiramisu and chocolate cake from the deli. All before bedtime ;-)

The next morning John worked on his dissertation and I took a nap and played Sudoku before we arrived in the port town of Ancona. When we arrived we hopped on a crowded bus that took us to the train station and boarded a train for Bologna. We met a nice Professor on board who told us all about the Italian university system, and gave us some tips on where to stay and eat in Bologna. Once arriving in Bologna, we decided that we’d call our hostel in Florence and see if they could squeeze us in for the night, and they thankfully they could. We hopped on a train south.

While on board I got my finger wedged between a sliding glass door an the wall which hurt like nothin’ else, we played Sudoku and had a broken discussion in English/Italian/German/Hungarian with a Hungarian man who had just moved to Prague a few months before

We got to the train station and set out to find our hotel. It was dark, and an hour after the hostel owner expected us. I told her what time we were leaving and she assumed the time that we’d get there. We had a general idea of where the hostel was but it still took us a while to find it. Florence was bustling even at night time. Students and bar crawlers all out wandering the town. We found the hostel and were let in to the immense wooden door by some students from Minnesota who were also staying there. We hoofed up the 6+ flights of stairs with all of our gear on, only to find the owner wasn’t there. We waited for a few minutes before dragging our exhausted bodies and all of our gear back down the stairs to search for a pay phone.

We found the pay phone right in front of the building. It was smashed to bits. I began to get panicky and cranky, as we set off further from our destination. About a block down we were approached by a nice guy from New Jersey (they do exist!) who offered us the use of his mobile phone for no charge. He said he’d been in many similar situations, and knew the look of desperation when he saw it. We called the hostel owner and within 10 minutes we were cozy and in our bedroom, eating a stale baguette and goat cheese left over from our trip from Greece.

We arrived in Thessaloniki a little before midnight, without any where to stay. We walked out of the station to a street lined with several hotels. We passed one that had a HUGE flashing neon sign reading “Hotel Rex” and went on to a Best Western, Holiday Inn etc. All of those were well over 100 Euro, so we grudgingly went back to Hotel Rex, whose rates were 30 Euro for a shared bathroom. Now I forgot to mention earlier that Hotel Rex was sandwiched between two strip joints and had a sex shop in the adjoining building. It looked as though it probably rented rooms if not by the 20 minutes, at least by the hour.

After experiencing the “shared bathrooms” (at least the women’s was NASTY I can’t vouch for the men’s, we opted to spring for the 50 Euro ensuite. We crawled into bed, wearing shorts and tank tops, but after laying there for less than three minutes, we were both up and out of bed piling on as much clothing as possible before trying to sleep. John and I ended up sharing his twin mattress (in Europe most hotels have 2 twin mattresses shoved together to make a big bed, instead of just buying a big bed. Our bed here in Freiburg is this way, too…) as mine had not been rotated during it’s 20 years in usage, and had spring poking through and had a huge crater … no comment on as to why. The next morning I even woke up with several bruises on my arms, ribs and legs from where I had managed to sprawl out on my bed and had unfortunately hit a spring or two or three.

I got directions from the two bald, tattoo bedecked brothers at the front desk and John and I headed into the city. On the way we passed a wonderful market selling all kinds of things from whole lamb carcasses to half priced underwear. On the way out we had the best food of our trip. Spannikopita, Greek Spinach pies… fresh from the oven, dripping buttery flakey goodness. It was really amazing. My mouth waters just remembering it.

Then we took a stroll along the coast, and visited some Byzantine Era monuments and wandered around for a while. The city was beautiful, warm and sunny. We ventured back to the market and I bought a ¼ kilo of olives for 80 cents and we got Gyros, which I couldn’t eat after revisiting the lamb carcasses. It wouldn’t have been so bad had they not had their eyes and teeth still in. John tried to convince me that they were geese, as without their wool and skin it was hard to tell what they were, but the damage was done and my gyro, soaking with grease and covered with French fries went into the trash.

After our meal, we went hurried back to the train station. We had JUST missed the slower train bound for Athens and had to pay 70 Euros to take the “fast” train. We got some provisions and went and waited for the train.

When we got on the train, it was completely silent. John and I played a game of charades, where one person mimes something say “rabbit” and when the other person gets it, they have to mime the next word beginning with the last letter of the other person’s word, say “ tarantula.” The old men across from us and the young men sharing our seats were quite amused and or perplexed by us. The scenery on this trip was also fantastic. The sunset went down behind the mountains in a fiery blaze and we saw mount Olympus standing majestically snowcapped on the horizon.

After awhile we struck up a conversation with one of our seat mates. He said that he was a TV director in Athens but he was from Thessaloniki. We talked for a long while about all things, when the announcer came on and told us we were to be delayed. We continued talking to our new friend and we all moved into the dining car together. He taught us useful phrases in Greek, the usual, “Please” “thank you” and of course, curse words and shared with us a traditional greek cake. The train ended up being very late, over 3 hours late in fact. So much for our 70 Euros, and it being the fast train. Everyone was getting very frustrated and after awhile the entire train appeared dead as almost everyone (except for us) had fallen asleep.

We arrived in Athens well after midnight and scrambled with the rest of our late arriving train to find a cab. We were able flag one, and zipped along the streets to our hotel which was thankfully MUCH nicer than the hotel the previous night.

We awoke late the next morning and decided to take the hotel for another night, instead of heading on to a different city. We spoke for a while with the delightful concierge, before heading off to the Acropolis.

The Acropolis was pretty cool, except for the fact that it closed at 2 o’clock and we were herded out by loud and sort of scary official looking Greek women. We walked around, saw the fallen Zeus’s temple, the Olympic Stadium from the turn of the century and a lot of other really cool monuments. We tried calling our friend from the night before, but to no avail, so we ate lunch in a beautiful gardens by the palace. It was the nicest, freshest Greek salad, with plump green and black olives and huge hunks of goat cheese. Then we walked through the park some more and found a small zoo in the centre. It was really terrible. They had well over 150 ducks crammed into a small area. The ducks were going crazy and were beating the crap out of the smaller less healthy looking ducks. We threw bits of gravel on them to keep them from killing one of their brethren. At least 10 ducks and 2 geese were piled, pecking and scratching on this poor little guy. He came up from the pile with his neck completely bare, as the other had pulled off all of his feathers. I think I may call a PETA group on this zoo, as not only was there an over population problem, but there was also no water to speak of for the ducks to drink or swim in. It was really awful.

We left the park, and went back into to the main part of the city. We stumbled upon a free museum of Greek caricatures and spent a good deal of time in there. Afterwards, we bought some pastries, another spinach pie and a cheese pie. They weren’t nearly as good as the ones in Thessaloniki, but Greek pastries are all pretty much awesome. Then we went back to our hotel and rested for awhile. I called my friend Tracey, as I hadn’t really talked to her much since she’d had her baby, and my dad who told me all about his new kayak. Then we went to a traditional Greek restaurant, and absolutely stuffed ourselves silly and came back to the hotel with 2 boxes of leftovers. With fully bellies and sun kissed cheeks, we went to sleep.