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Ani DiFranco – Red Letter Year
“Ani DiFranco’s 16th studio album is unlike all the ones that came before it. There are still the incisive metaphors, the artfully wielded acoustic guitar, the political made personal and back again. But the dominant force on “Red Letter Year” is contentment rather than restlessness. The 37-year-old singer/songwriter is a new mom in love with her daughter’s dad, and the experience has saturated every element of her work, from the warmed-up sound of her voice and guitar, to the lessons learned at the end of her familiar narratives. “I don’t mind traffic cops or the TSA/Long as I’m with you I’m having a good day,” she sings on “Smiling Underneath,” about the peace of happy couple-dom. That’s not to say that she’s gone soft: The longtime activist still takes on nuclear energy (“The Atom”), religion (“Alla This”) and all incarnations of the patriarchy. —Kerri Mason”
