Seeing Janis Ian on The Tonight Show recently, sitting next to a blond hunk who was forcibly titillating the audience and an African-American hunk who was simultaneously degrading and promoting his new game show, I thought: How rare is a truly bare heart. Singing first her 1976 hit "At Seventeen" – one of the most brutal songs ever written – and then a lyrical cut from her new album...

Janis Ian's first album in several years is notable chiefly for the seven-minute title cut. Far superior to its acoustic sources, "Stars" deals autobiographically with the confusing experience of becoming a celebrity. In Ian's case, it was brief, the result of her hit, "Society's Child," which she recorded in 1966 at the age of 15 and which led Leonard Bernstein to tout her as a musical-intellectu...

Janis Ian's second Columbia album is elegiac in mood, its 11 tunes composing a romantically introspective self-portrait. Ian has forged an appealing melodic style based on the folk simplicity of Don McLean and early Bob Dylan and added to it some of the sweetness of MOR pop. Some of her tunes could be covered by Roberta Flack or even Frank Sinatra. Vocally, Ian sounds more confident and relaxed...

Before Ellen came out and anyone who wasn't a Bible scholar knew who Lilith was – before Jewel, even – there was Janis Ian. Gay, earnest and a superb singer, songwriter and guitarist, Ian kept the folk-pop faith through the long years during which her sound was out of fashion. Now the times again have come around to her, and, as Hunger eloquently demonstrates, lan is still there,...