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Folk Is the New Black | 
| Artist: Janis Ian
Label: Cooking Vinyl
Category: Music
Buy New: $17.98
Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 86200
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 764
UPC: 711297476422
EAN: 0711297476422
ASIN: B000BYVJRI
Release Date: February 21, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Promotion: Save $5.00 when you spend $25.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Danger Danger | | • | The Great Divide | | • | Life Is Never Wrong | | • | Jackie Skates | | • | All Those Promises | | • | Standing In The Shadows Of Love | | • | The Drowning Man | | • | Crocodile Song | | • | The Last Train | | • | My Autobiography | | • | Home Is The Heart | | • | Shadows On The Wind | | • | Haven't I Got Eyes | | • | Joy | | • | Folk Is The New Black |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Now in her fifth decade of recording, Janis Ian might be expected to slack off a bit--record a collection of covers, for example--but she still maintains the highest standards for herself in writing original and well-crafted songs based on snapshots from the human and political experience. Coming on the heels of 2004's extraordinary Billie's Bones, with its predominant jazz-blues shapings, Folk Is the New Black may seem a bit too much like a throwback, a slighter effort, particularly as the bookending songs, "Danger, Danger" and the title track evoke the classic '60s hootenanny protest forms without adding anything new or evoking much militant ire. But this beautifully conjured and executed album resonates with soul-shivering truth, and even mundane observations often glisten on the page as poetry. As each song spotlights a haunting moment in a lover's life ("All Those Promises"); tells the story of sad, ephemeral presence in this harsh ol' world ("Jackie Skates"); or uses Woody Guthrie-ish wit to illuminate an event in the artist's personal journey ("My Autobiography"), Ian proves time and again how she has continued to stand tall in the pantheon of America's finest singer-songwriters. --Alanna Nash
Album Description
Who are the great songwriters in America today? Not the most popular. Not the richest. Simply the greats. Ask any student of the form, and Janis Ian will be counted among them. The writer of Jesse, a song recorded by so many others that few remember Ian wrote it; Stars, possibly the best song ever written about the life of a performer, recorded by artists as diverse as Mel Torme and Cher; and the seminal At Seventeen, a song that brought her five Grammy nominations (the most any solo female artist had ever garnered) in 1975, which is now reaching its third generation of listeners. The glowing reviews come as no surprise to Ian's loyal fan base, who give her website a stunning quarter million hits per year - even though she hasn't had a top twenty record here in three decades. Ian has had great success as a co-writer, with cuts by Bette Midler, Kathy Mattea, John Mellencamp and a host of others. But Folk Is the New Black is the first album since 1981's "Restless Eyes" that sees Ian writing 100% of everything. 2006 sees the release of 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Music for people who love music January 25, 2008
Noel P. Defino (Woodstock, NY USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you have a collection that includes more than 3 albums by any artist, then i have an album that is not to be missed by ANYONE. The album "Folk Is The New Black" the artist Janis Ian. Ms. Ian has been around the music block for the last 40 + years and has used every one of those years to perfect her craft...as a Fan, i say here craft was perfect 40 years ago...as someone looking at this album as something new and fresh i say, it will catch you off guard, tapping your foot, going back and listening again to that guitar part you were sure you could believe. Janis Ian has always been an artist who makes people think and feel deeply, on this album she includes making you laugh...but most of all, she makes you want more.
 Nice January 18, 2008
Niyo
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Not the best CD of Janis Ian but it's nice to hear something good and new from her.
Great to deal with July 21, 2007
David York (Southern Oregon)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Wonderful product, well packaged, as described and delivered as it should be. What can I say? That is the way it is supposed to work. Great job. Great CD.
Good Album July 11, 2006
D. Casto (St. Petersburg, FL USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Janis never disappoints. Although this might not be her best effort, it is very pleasing. Her songwriting has always been her strength and this remains true with this record. Longtime fans will not be disappointed.
All of the above June 28, 2006
Mark R. Loft (Memphis, TN)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Have to agree with all the positive reviews about this one... All Those Promises is my favorite track, and the one that reminds me most of Janis' early work... At Seventeen was the song I always hoped would come on my bike radio in the 9th grade when riding through Hein Park with my girlfriend, Kathy McKinley... it did, it was magic, and I've been a fan ever since. Go on and buy this one... you'll love it.
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