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Educated Guess
Ani DiFranco
Retail Price (not our price): $16.98
Release Date: 2004-01-20
Manufacturer: Righteous Babe
Format: Audio CD
Discs: 1

Track List
Now here, for your listening pleasure, the tracks...

Disc 1

Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):

1) Amazon.com
In form, this is the disc DiFranco fans have wanted for years: a return to her naked roots of words and guitar, entirely played, sung, and taped to eight-track by Ani herself. But in important ways, Educated Guess suggests there is no going back. Even alone, the lessons of DiFranco's adventurous decade with a band are apparent. Taking a wide-open approach to arrangements, structure, and sound, she piles up tracks of bell-clear, percussive guitar, then does the same with her vocals, the gymnastic phrases echoing, reflecting, and doubling back on themselves. This is DiFranco undiluted, her melodies pulled by rhythmic innovation, alliterative snippets of spoken word woven between jazz-inflected folk songs, lyrics tracing tangled webs of lovers, nations, and various versions of herself. Not surprisingly, it's excessive, but her legions say that's the price of letting ragged passion just hang out. --Anders Smith Lindall

Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5

1) i really like it!!   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
First of all, i do not think this sounds like a return to ani's her and her guitar albums. But I do think this is possibly one of my favorite of her albums, especially when i am in that mood, it is kind of a low key album.i really love animal...it proves that all the songs are not about a sad part of her life. it is a different album, of course, but after a couple listens, i loved it!!

2) Beautiful solitude   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
In this album Ani does it all by herself: lyrics and music (as usual), production, mastering, mixing... and the result is undoubtedly beautiful. The melodies are sweet and flawless, the poems are strong and direct, the voice effects are enchanting. This is not the Ani you may be used to, but it's still empowering how she deeply and bravely analyzes and faces her feelings and sorrow. Stand-out tracks: Educated Guess, a mantric meditation about life and love, Swim, a bitter flash-back in a difficult love story, Origami, a powerful statement of man fragility and woman strength, Animal, a sad and sincere analysis of American society, and Raincheck, a gorgeous, jazzy song about a possible new love.Do yourself a favor and buy this wonderful album, and listen to it when you're in a meditative, introspective mood: this is still, indeed, one of Ani's 32 flavors.

3) Emotional Workshop   [Rating: 4 out of 5]
I came across Ani Difranco's music through covers by guitar slinging folk girls, woman who were quite good at what they did and honored their influences. Then I listened to Knuckle Down, just last year. I was like, oh, so this is Ani Difranco. An all-powerful Amazon warrior, not just some sniveling girl (to quote the girl herself, all irony intended). With needs. And, I think, that is what Educated Guess is about: needs, needs not met, needs that expose us, and, finally, make or break us. If you're a fan of Difranco, you should appreciate this disc. It plays like a workshop, working through themes and ideas in her Ani accents, the language, the music, etc. Educated Guess shows the artist at work on some heavy emotional stuff, personal themes that are still open-ended enough to let the listener in. I think the disc and Knuckle Down are A and B sides of a whole emotional/creative gestalt. What she voices in Educated Guess is presented much more stylistcally in Knuckle Down, the more accomplished release only because she band jams and has polished the material with a bit of emotional distance.Educated Guess is about working through, feeling your way as an artist. Origami articulates succinctly what went down in this girl's heart. A powerful, accomplished woman will surely find it difficult to be with someone. That other person has to complete you in some way, and, well, we know that story. Animal is a sweet swipe at our fatted-calf way of life. Really, you hear the Difranco politics stated clearly, quietly, beautifully. And You Each Time ends with Ani's voice looping back through like a delicate heartbeat that goes on after the music and all else dies.If there's one thing you take from this release it's Ani's voice, looping in and out in all variety of echos and choruses. She sings to herself and questions herself and answers herself. Her voice is worked through effects in that whacked way she uses perfectly in Knuckle Down. It's all here, the creative tools and stuff that she uses in Knuckle Down, her mature masterpiece.She is certainly working, experimenting here, pushing herself as an artist to not avert her glance. She's hard on the other in her lyrics, yeah, but hard on herself because, you know, when it just doesn't work out, what do you have then. Very internal, this stuff, dark and at times smothering. Discovering that you can be, and actually are, happy either way, after it all goes down, the love love thing, is problematic to most anyone. The effects of love and loss and life.Taken together Educated Guess and Knuckle down show an artist in spiritual and emotional crisis and share a sort of creative catharsis. This is definitely mature work. Educated Guess the workshop, Knuckle Down the showpiece. But any Ani Difranco fan should appreciate Educated Guess. I guess it might depend on why you listen to her. She's a smart lyricist and a sly guitarist, doing very cool, jazzy runs and picks. Don't expect the world conqueror here. This is about the human Ani in defeat, emotional wounds exposed, keeping company with herself, working through in a groovy way. Accompanied by her guitar and that ever looping voice in chorus, high and low and scatting and squeaking, singing, telling stories, calling herself out as she shape shifts into something new.

4) Raw solitude.   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Ani did this album completely alone. The fact that they're recorded on an 8 track brings a new hollow & haunting element to these songs. It doesn't sound like anything she's done before. The general mood of this album is sorrow, dread, & solitude. You can tell Ani was going through something terrible in her personal life (divorce) & the lyrics are definitely darker than they've ever been, she says on the devastating "Bodily"..."Emptiness has it's solace in that there's nothing left to take."...or on "You Each Time" which features terrifying imagery such as:"so my heart finally brokeit was so long bentand it broke in three places when it finally wentit wanted only to say what it meantso it suffered every punishmentnow it lives in a shack outside of townand only the wolves are out there listeningand in her dreams they chase her downtheir moonlit eyes are glisteningand it is you each timeit is you."This is a very dark chapter in Ani's collection, but it's definitely worth it. There's a raw power to "Educated Guess" that's comforting to me in moments of weakness & fraility in my own life.

5) Sometimes soft and sometimes fierce- but a triumph nonetheless   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I feel so confused that so many Ani fans gave this album such an unflattering review. I guess people don't take kindly to thier favorite feminist icon using an album to expose her soft underbelly and show that even a "righteous babe" can have heartache. This album is a return to everything pure that might have been lost in some previous albums. Though I gave a good review to "Evolve" as well, it often lacks the subtly, grace and raw honestly that is ever present in "Educated Guess". She is on her own on this one, in a very literal sense. This album was recorded, played, produced and mixed all by DiFranco for the first time ever. Not since 1994's "Out of Range" & "Puddle Dive" has our little folk singer gone into the studio with nothing but her guitar to play, her soul to bare and plain old moxie. This is not a big band album. There are no tricks, aside from her singing her own back-up. There are even a hand full of poems thrown in that bring us back to the days of her self-titled release and "Not So Soft". And not since 1998's "Dilate" have we been so privledged to feel so touched by and so related to her pain. The album is not entirely depressing. "Bliss Like This" is a bubbly and misleadingly upbeat number that gives a listener a mixture of longing for a happier past and hope for a happier future. "Grand Canyon" is an inspiring patriotic poem that reminds us that it is the citizens that form a country, not solely it's politicians. To simply write off this entire recording because DiFranco isn't reaching through the speakers and grabbing the American male by thier collective junk is simply ignorant and insensitive to the mood and timing of this release. We can't all be aggressive and bold at all times. The prococious modern woman is not anymore immune to heartache, remorse or deflation than she was 50 years ago. This album, though painfully reminiscent at times, is moreso a reminder of how even the mighty may fall- but the truly strong can learn to stand again everytime.Wonderfully written, with precise, often simple melodies wherein every note and nuace seems completely intentional and delicately handled. I would not go as far as to say that this album is my favorite of hers, but it is definately close to the top of the list.