Ani DiFranco

Ani Difranco's her own woman, make no mistake. Assertively bisexual, tattoo'd, pierced, and occasionally shaved, she has ploughed an audacious furrow in the punk-folk field, catering neither to mainstream models of objectification nor to lesbian chic. Like Woody Guthrie, she's done some hard travelin' . . . and these tracks trace her journey.

After you get past Ani Difranco's manic front, there's a fierce sweetness behind her work. While she maintains she's no "kitten stuck up a tree", her worldview sometimes seems kittenish, but not the way you'd think. She's fearless, truthful, inquisitive, playful, and occasionally startled by the world's seemingly arbitrary violence.

You're a card-carrying member of Ani's Army, but given her back-catalogue, which totals nearly 20 albums, even the most dedicated fan can miss something here and there, such as her excellent live rendering "78% H2O", and her astute, whispered seething at American TV news shows, "'Tis of Thee".

Folk music has always been pretty much a D.I.Y. deal; Ani DiFranco has embraced that ethic with extraordinary zeal. Founding her own Righteous Babe label out of her native Buffalo, New York, she's sold more than four million records without ever darkening a major label's expense account. At turns confessional and confrontational, she's served as a role model for a generation of performers (and fans) who identify with her daring spirit and belief in her own potential.