Armed with a nose ring and jazzy phrasing, Ani DiFranco assaulted the image of the dainty female troubadour. She was, an early song warned, “Not a Pretty Girl.” Neither was the music: The Buffalo, New York–bred anti-folkie traded sweet harmonies and gentle strumming for scat-influenced vocals, percussively fingerpicked guitar and arrangements that remained stark even as she added drums and minimalist accents (like the canny horn riff in “Marrow”). Now, after 18 albums in 17 years — all for her own label — DiFranco pauses for a recap. The two-disc, 36-song Canon is solid, yet too extensive for beginners — while offering no new songs to devotees. “Cradle & All” is a headlong ode to “the city that never shuts up,” and the chorus to “Untouchable Face” is “fuck you,” but she’s excluded her most appealingly cranky early rants, including “Not a Pretty Girl.”

Download: “Cradle & All,” “Marrow”