Little Plastic Castle (or as fans call it LPC) is something like the ultimate Ani album for some reason. I often heard older fans say that “they liked her better in LPC time” and for many people, it’s the album that drew them into Ani (with Not a Pretty Girl, I think). Personnally, I started with downloading songs (how evil, I know, but I now own a bunch of albums so that’s alright) and Gravel was clearly the one who got my attention. It’s also nice to hear, on the Madison bootleg, the happy exclamation of fans after Ani plays the first chords of the title song.

In short, what I’m trying to say is that it’s a monumental album. It’s a bit hard to criticise it really, because it’s such an important one in Ani’s career, and also because it is just so good. Each song has a good melody and great lyrics (it’s all very quotable). Pulse is also a great poem which once agains shows off Ani’s wonderful speaking voice. My favorite song from this album (which is also probably my favorite from Ani) is Swan Dive, with, oh, almost all of the others as close seconds.

If you’re interested in Ani but don’t know where to start, this is the one album you must own (well, apart from the Canon best-of I guess). Weirdly, it’s my tenth Ani album – I really should have gotten it earlier.