GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE APRIL 2, 1999

MUSIC

Seven new CDs, just in time for spring

The Bottom Line

Encore Collection Janis lan

Bottom Line Record Company

Janis Ian's The Bottom Line Encore Collection will command your attention. While other albums provide good background music, or good music for the car, this out lesbian and legendary singersongwriter's latest release demands that

you stop what you are doing and let yourself be taken by its artistry.

This is Ian's first live album released in the United States. Recorded in the summer of 1980, the album captures the range of Ian's influences-folk, blues, jazz, rock, and even cabaret. From the building drama of songs like "From Me to You" and "In the Winter" to the rockinfused "Memories,” Ian is a songwriter's songwriter, not to mention an impassioned vocalist. A respectful musician, Ian also makes room for her band, allowing bassist John Crowder, guitarist Scott

Zito and drummer Arti Dixson room to solo on the torchy "Silly Habits."

Ian's landmark songs are present as well, and in fact still set a standard for the power that single songs can wield. Ian delivers a breathtaking rendition of "Jesse" while "Society's Child," performed with only an acoustic guitar, retains its taboo-challenging vibe, more than 30 years after its debut on network television amid the racial tensions of the 1960s. Finally, the disc includes two versions of "At Seventeen." One is the album's closing track, an acoustic offering, while the other, a stronger full-band performance placed earlier in the album, proves "At Seventeen" to be a timeless collusion of word and music.

Loud Boy Barnes

Loud Boy Records

Harriet L. Schwartz

Bridging the gaps between rock, hiphop, electronica, and spoken word, Austrian-born Barnes may cross another barrier, the boundary that seems to keep openly gay male artists from rising up the ranks of the harder end of pop music. Barnes, who now resides in Venice, California, brings a definitively bad boy edge to his music and that edge seems likely to grab a range of fans, gay and straight.

Barnes' debut recording is a powerful seven-song collection that hits hard and fast, leaving no question about his commitment to speaking his truth. The title track kicks off the disc thundering in like a techno-rock extravaganza. Barnes keeps the beat but slows the

tempo to tell a story in "Boy With a Secret": "The other boys like girls, I got a crush on my friend . . . we fool around on the top of his old bunk bed/he said don't tell or you can't be my friend."

"Inside Out" offers an emotional expose set to a funk beat while Barnes returns to classic rock influences in the

hurm

rock ballad "Human.” Kicking the album back into high gear, Barnes turns up the adrenaline with "If I Was the D.J." Finally, he pulls back into more soulful territory with "I Will Follow."

Barnes debut CD garnered quick attention among critics as well as fans. He received five GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian Music Awards) nominations, including Male Artist of the Year, Out Recording, Debut, Dance Music, and Rock/Alternative. Winners will be announced April 12.

To order Loud Boy, call 323-969-2530 or email Last Laugh1@aol.com

Harriet L. Schwartz

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Jewelry

Believe

Stephen Gellman Hidden Poet Music

Steven Gellman, a gifted Maryland singer-songwriter has released a four-song CD that bridges the gap between his most recent release Photobook and an upcoming album. Believe offers two songs from his last album including the hope-filled title track. Believe also contains the previously-unreleased "It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go," written by Nanci Griffith. Gellman, an openly-gay artist, sings with tenderness and passion. To order, e-mail hiddenpoet@aol.com or call 813-323-6877.

Harriet L. Schwartz

Up, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up Ani DiFranco Righteous Babe

The quintessential bi-girl and pop songstress Ani DiFranco returns to the music scene with her first post-marriage (to a man-to the chagrin of some of her devoted lesbian fans) album with great Stride. She's still mingling her bisexual/ lesbian chic sensibility into her unique blend of folk-rock-pop. Clearly moving away from her folk root in terms of structure, DiFranco focuses less on verse and chorus and song structure. The result is a more fluid, less self-indulgent release.

Teaming with a strong band, she turns her attention to developing a strong groove and moving away from the lonelesbian folk singer she has become known for being. Lyrically she has grown too,

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