My first entry is dedicated to the CD that I was listening
to when the idea for this blog came to me. It is not my all-time favorite, but
it is absolutely worthy of being included in what will probably be just five or
so that will be shared with you over the course of these posts.
If ever a homicidal maniac could write, sing, arrange, and
produce a CD, the result would be something that sounded a lot like “Dilate.”
By the time you have experienced the entire set of songs, you come to the
conclusion that Ani DiFranco is one seriously affected piece of work. She
plots. She suffers. She punishes. She screams. She beats the acoustic guitar
into giving up sounds as brutal as any Metallica offering. Yet she leaves doubt
about whether she is fit to stand trial or even if she couldn’t get away with
her crimes as being justifiable.
The calm, but threatening, first track acts as a foreshadowing
of a pent-up rage that is boiling just beneath the surface. It bursts forward
at the start of the very next song, and from this point onward, I am taken on a
dirt road drive-by.
Ani plays and sings with a conviction seldom heard since the
early days of the blues. Her music is often classified as “punk folk,” which is
an apt description. While this is mainly an acoustic piece, the CD demands to
be played at a high volume.
For me, the apex of this collection of confessionals is the
redemptive “Amazing Grace.” Yes, it’s the same as what you thought, but done in
a way that makes it at once almost unrecognizable and uniquely powerful. It is
her interpretation that seems to deliver her from any and all sins for which
she may be guilty of in the rest of the CD, which might have made it better as
a final track. That, however, is my only complaint.
Listening to this CD still leaves me weak, depressed,
frightened, exhilarated, and alive all at once. “Dilate” is the epitome of a
quote I recently read on a Facebook post: “Music is what feelings sound like.”
For better or for worse.
