The world needs more radicals like Ani DiFranco: wry, sexy, as committed to beauty and joy as revolution. Her 17th LP is buoyed by communal seas: fellow political activists carrying the torch (the New Orleans art-funk update of the folk-standard title track); weed smokers weighing culture hypocrisy ("J"); a homeless mom baring her heart ("Life Boat"). Channeling multiple voices and styles, DiFranco rises to the cultural moment with a grin: "If you're not getting happier as you get older," she reasons on "If Yr Not," a deliciously noisy slow grind, "then you're fuckin' up."

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.