1 Swing (Radio Set)
2 Swing (Album Version)
3 To The Teeth (Shoot-Out Remix)
4 Do Re Me
5 When I'm Gone
6 Hurricane

From Amazon.com

Better buy a new CD player

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: 'Cause you're going wear your old one out, especially the repeat button. When I'm Gone is *the best* remake of the song I have ever heard. Hurricane is another great update of the classic Dylan version, and the remix of To The Teeth is better than the origional (hard to believe suc ha thing could ever be said about a remix, huh?). A must have for any DiFranco fan.

CORRECTION !!!

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: ....I especially love the track "While I'm Here" and don't wish any one to be misled into not buying an album they could potentially love based on a false review. Thanks for reading this. Sorry about the mix-up.
- Elena

Good Mainstream-capable Ani

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: I'm sure nobody would argue that Ani is at her best live, but being in the studio she sure manages to produce some great works. This is a fantastic EP that has some songs that definitely have mainstream appeal on it. Nevertheless, a good listen/buy for a hardcore Ani fan, too. If it had a few more songs on the same level as Swing, it could have been a large mainstream success. In any case, great compared to the rest of what's out there, even if Ani has done and will do better.

A complete and utter waste of time....

 Album Rating: (1 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: One of my friends really likes Ani DiFranco and recommended I listen to her. I bought this CD thinking it would be a good introduction to her music. What a complete waste of time listening to this CD was. I feel like I just had an hour of my life sucked into a bottomless pit from which I can never retrieve it. This pitiful excuse is for an album better be the worst of Ani's music otherwise she is certainly a pitiful excuse for a musician. Truly, not since Marilyn Manson have I heard a cacophany of noise so utterly vulgar, distasteful, meaningless and musicless. It seems to me that Ani may have once been a great musician but now she is just cashing in on her name and betraying her fans. What a sellout. I'm extremely disappointed.

The Groove Comes Round

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: Serving as an excellent bridge between last year's *To The Teeth* and even newer material recently debuted at concerts, Ani DiFranco's *Swing Set* features both funk and folk and evenly mixes the two on the bookend tracks of this sharply designed EP.

The first song is a tightened radio edit version of the groove-laced "Swing," and it is followed by the album cut. Both display a new sonic vocabulary that Ani built while on tour with jazz/funk legend Maceo Parker last summer. "Swing" is totally unlike any other Ani DiFranco song published to date, but it doesn't grate against its context the way some of her other somewhat experimental tacks have. The third track is a total reinvention of "To The Teeth"; it features the same chordal structure but changes nearly everything else. Cleverly using the gunfire of what might have been an old cartoon as its percussion track and resampled horns from the original for ornamentation, "To The Teeth" provides a totally fresh look at Ani's emotional plea for gun control.

The latter half of the *Swing* EP features some superb cover recordings, something DiFranco's catalogue has severely lacked thus far. First is Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi," recorded on tour with folkers extraordinaire Greg Brown and Gillian Welch. The harmony that these performers and their side-men add to Ani's melody is welcome and warranted, while the inclusion of other experienced guitarists on a DiFranco track is a treat. Phil Och's "When I'm Gone" provides stark contrast, a slow and thoughtful acoustic construction featuring only Ani and her own acoustic guitar. As Ani herself has pointed out, 'silences have their own things to say,' and she says plenty here with the moments of calm left in the wake of sweet guitar reverb. Capping off Ani's second "single" is a growling band version of Bob Dylan's classic "Hurricane." Ani had recorded it for last year's film The Hurricane (whose subject it is about) but it was inexplicably unused. The song features no discernible acoustic guitar, instead standing by virtue of a backbone of solid bass, organ, and drums. Ani herself adds a spare electric riff and a weathered but energetic vocal. Here she is in her glory: not singing so much as storytelling. That is partially the beauty of Dylan's construction, swinging back and forth between menacing minor-key verses and shimmering major outros. Clocking in at over seven minutes, afterwards you don't know whether you should start breathing again or if you should just press the play button.

Here's some advice: Press the play button.