Spotlight On: ANI DIFRANCO

SHEROES AND QUEEROES: A PRIDE MONTH CELEBRATION

ABOUT THIS WEEK’S SHEROES AND QUEEROES IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
(radio hour featured interview and podcast)

On SHEROES we always aim to showcase the continuum of femme voices in music through the decades to build our her-story of music, celebrating progress and revealing ongoing work that needs to be done to equalize the playing field. This week, we bring Pride Month to a close with a sweet bookend to where we began a few weeks ago with Tegan and Sara, who, like countless others, credit ani difranco for helping them on their journeys of coming out, and becoming openly queer musicians. You may recall that last year I brought Tegan and Sara in conversation with their SHERO to discuss ani’s breakout1997 live album, Living In Clip for its 25th anniversary. This year, ani marks a quarter century since the follow-up studio album Little Plastic Castle was released, her eighth studio recording and largely considered to be a pinnacle moment in ani’s career, garnering her third Grammy nomination, her highest charting album on the billboard 200 (peaking at #22), and continuing the international media attention that had begun to build with the release of 1997’s Dilate. The magazine cover stories, TV appearances, and playing to bigger and bigger audiences all seemed to indicate that this was a moment to be celebrated. But success, especially in traditional capitalist terms, ain’t all it's cracked up to be, particularly for a politically outspoken queer woman who intentionally avoided music industry trappings and started her own label in 1990, righteous babe records, so that she could do her art on her terms. We talk in depth about the complexities of that time, the lessons learned, and the experience of looking back at her trailblazing career so far, as we welcome back ani difranco as our SHERO in the spotlight and celebrate 25 years of little plastic castle. 

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