1. Anticipate 2. Rockabye 3. She Says 4. Make Me Stay 5. On Every Corner 6. Small World 7. Not So Soft 8. Roll With It 9. Itch 10. Gratitude 11. The Whole Night 12. The Next Big Thing 13. Brief Bus Stop 14. Looking For The Holes

Ani DiFranco is a protest singer for the nineties. Vocally and instrumentally, she is a Colvin/Vega hybrid, but sounds much more pissed off than either of those notables, and is as good or even better than Tracy Chapman at venting her anger through songwriting. Her songs are full of powerful imagery and deal with the hard and ambiguous issues of life, such as the spread of homelessness ("On Every Corner") and the inherent sexism in some parts of the entertainment business ("The Next Big Thing"). Even her love songs focus on the unresolved issues that haunt most relationships ("Itch"; "Make Me Stay"). DiFranco's melodies are jazz-tinged and accompanied with stark, minimalist guitar phrases that also recall Colvin. The only instrumentation is provided by DiFranco's guitar playing, conga drumming, and dust brooming (?). Affectations that I wish that she would lose are the tendency to rush her vocal phrasing and to hyperventilate at the end of most lines; her singing is just fine without it, and her verse is so vivid that it is worth hearing (I had to refer to the enclosed lyric sheet to pick out a lot of the lines). Nonetheless, Not So Soft is a very impressive effort that bodes well for the future. Given the proper exposure, DiFranco might prove to be "The Next Big Thing" after all. Mike Parrish (St. Charles, IL)