Description:
2006 sees the release of Janis Ian`s twentieth major-label album, and to this writer`s mind, her logical follow-up to the critically acclaimed Between The Lines. Titled Folk Is The New Black, the album takes no prisoners; from the wry self-deprecating humor of its title song ("Folk is the new black/cheaper than crack/and you don`t have to cook") to the political ("While politicians lie and cheat to get to higher ground/we follow them like sheep, and salute them as we drown"), to what is possibly the best love-`em-and-leave-`em song written in decades ("All those promises that you made me from the start/were filled with emptiness from the desert of your heart"), Folk Is The New Black is a songwriter`s tour de force. Never mind that it took decades for her to come full circle; Ian is right back where she started, in the bosom of folk music at its best - older, wiser, her talent honed and sharpened until it cuts so fine, we barely feel the blade slicing through us. (Cooking Vinyl)
