This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
There are solo albums and then there are solo albums.
On her latest disc Educated Guess, Ani DiFranco takes the DIY concept to the limit — she wrote, played, sang, recorded, produced and mixed every note herself. Depending on how you feel about Ani, this is either a very good thing or a very bad thing. If you’ve been missing the Ani of days gone by, with her percussive acoustic guitar and personal lyrics, then the stripped-down, loose approach of Educated Guess will likely strike you as a welcome return to the sound and style of her earlier, more self-sufficient work (albeit with a touch more sonic flair in the spatial arrangements and production). If, however, you really dug the jazzy, funky trails she blazed on her past few band albums, you may feel these warm, loosely homespun tracks are a little to laissez-faire for your liking, even though some of these grooves do betray the influence of those discs. If you’re like me, though, you might see Educated Guess as a nice balance between Ani’s past and future — and an unpretentious, quietly satisfying little disc to boot.
