"from the choirgirl hotel"
Tori has always been one to cause a stir. Up until now, however, it has been because of her skewed and unique world view. This time, it's because she chooses a different musical path, utilizing a full band and electronic sounds. Her controversial, stream-of-consciousness lyrics also seem somewhat toned-down. Some of her hard-core fans protested very hard to this, saying she was shedding her seasoned "girl at the piano" image. Maybe so. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and Tori defends it by saying that everyone needs to grow musically, and this is just her next step. And what a step it is.
Many of the songs on this album deal with Tori's recent miscarriage, and the aftershocks she's had to deal with. As always, she has an unconventional view on this situation, as evidenced in "Playboy Mommy" ("Don't judge me so harsh little girl/ so you got a playboy mommy/ but when you tell them my name/ you wanna cross that bridge all on your own") She seems to take most of the blame for the miscarriage, thinking maybe the baby was unborn only because she would make an unsuitable mother, and maybe the baby would have been born if she had just been ready.
Musically, there are some real nice tracks here, such as "Jackie's Strength," which has already settled into comfortable rotation on the airwaves in the US. Much of the strength of the song, other than the great harmonic structure, comes from the excellent orchestration. As is tradition with Tori, piano dominates the piece, but there is a wonderful string arrangement, alternately bowing and plucking, But the biggest surprise is the understated guitar part that adds lots of depth, sounding very much like it was pulled straight from U2. I wouldn't immediately think of that guitar part when writing a slow melodic piece for strings and piano, but it works very well, because it never crosses the line to being obtrusive. Some other standouts include "iiieee," which has a smooth "ethnic" drum loop, a killer bass line, and mysteriously breaks out into a riotous bridge (a la "Pretty Good Year"); "Cruel," another track with a cool loop, and a distorted bass sound, but it occasionally sounds a little too much like "iiieee;" and the aforementioned "Playboy Mommy" is also very good, if you can get past the terribly bad synthetic-saxophone sounds. "Hotel" out-does all the others in the versatility department. The whole song is soaked in electronic sounds. It begins a bit unstably, with different synth lines tripping over the drum rhythms and each other. The verses are relatively soft, consisting mostly of bleeps and other various synths and samples. These sounds continue through the chorus, but with the addition of very distorted guitar and bass. It then settles back into the soft verse, and back into the loud chorus. After that, though, is when it gets the most interesting. She chooses once again to drop the "patented Tori Amos loud bridge" bomb on us again. It's very effective here, as we strangely haven't heard any piano in this tune yet. The bridge mainly features piano, and it's a wonderful-written part, brimming with so much soul and passion, contrasting harshly with the electronic rigidness of the beginning. Unfortunately, she chooses to end the song with an absolutely hideous synthesized "trombone" sound (that's quite a stretch). And that leads straight into the aforementioned offensive sax sound in "Playboy Mommy." This is the section that I simply refer to as the "Bad Production Decisions" portion of the album. If anything, these parts remind you what a fast-forward button was made for. I will forever remain unclear as to why anyone would want to use them. But they only comprise about one minute of the CD, total. So I'll get over it. I eventually got used to the sounds, and the songs themselves are still very good.
Unfortunately, there are some songs on this album that I can't say that about. "Raspberry Swirl" irritates me to no end, it just comes off as obnoxious. "She's Your Cocaine," seems like Tori's just trying too hard to be controversial, and many of the lyrics just seem clumsy ("She's your cocaine/ your Exodus laughing/ and she knows what you are / so shimmy once and do it again/ bring your sister bring your sister /if you can't handle it.").
All things considered, Tori makes the big step to a full band fairly well, but there's more low points on this album than any of her others. There are still more than enough good things about the album to warrant a listen, though. "from the choirgirl hotel" seems personal, but it lacks the depth of her older songs. Tori Amos is an amazingly talented artist, and I hope she can eventually get as comfortable with these new sounds as she has been at the piano. This album is certainly not awful, but it's the farthest thing Tori's ever been from perfect.
@@@ (Three at's)
-1998 Michael Schmid-