Educated Guess
- Ani DiFranco
- Band Name: Ani DiFranco
- Record Label: Righteous Babe
- Release Date: Jan 20, 2004
- Critic Score
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Educated Guess is an absolutely stunning creation, although it did take a few listens for me to begin to fully appreciate what I was hearing.
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80While Educated Guess may not be her best album to date (a near impossible-to-achieve expectation for an artist 21 albums in), it marks yet another transformation of her talents.
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Here she returns to the stark, acoustic feel of earlier recordings, and the sense of isolation in such numbers as "Swim" is reinforced by her creative approach. [18 Jan 2004]
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75An album sanded with sad humor and a return to old loves. [Mar 2004, p.96]
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74She dives into a murkier, less-definable world that is part acoustic neo-soul, part spoken word and dreamier than you might imagine. [#9, p.102]
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70Paradoxically, its spare, solo-voice-and-guitar format... comes closer to matching DiFranco's charismatic live performances than prior band-driven efforts. [Mar 2004, p.87]
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70These are among the most rivetingly unconventional vocal performances she's ever offered. [Mar 2004, p.116]
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70Characterized by production rawness--for better (the immediacy of the performance) and worse (traces of off-key harmonies).
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70Educated Guess explores new musical territory that is challenging enough to engage even the most folk-averse listeners while it maintains a unity of tone which yields a highly listenable work.
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The album benefits from DiFranco's emphasis on spare shimmer, though it also perpetuates her recent tendency to let her songs languidly drift along, for better and for worse.
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It's worth putting up with a few overbearing moments to hear someone so willing to take chances.
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A decent but not spectacular album that, not for the first time, finds DiFranco on her way to somewhere else.
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60THe jazzy stylings are a mixed blessing... [but] her fans will not be disappointed. [Mar 2003, p.101]
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On Educated Guess, which DiFranco wrote, produced, recorded and mixed entirely on her own, this awkward, improbable tendency goes unchecked, as does DiFranco's penchant for jarring arrangements.
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40The New York protest singer has returned to folky pontificating, in which her inherent decency is overshadowed by the dullness of the enterprise.
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25It's just so staccato and nonlinear, a sort of free-jazz version of rock with just too much going on and little worth hearing.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 19
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Mixed: 1 out of 19
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Negative: 5 out of 19
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MichelleC7
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TonyW9Loved it.