| Y Kant Tori Read | review #2 | 1988 |
| Little Earthquakes | review #2 | 1991 |
| Under The Pink | 1994 |
| Boys For Pele | 1996 |
| From The Choirgirl Hotel | 1998 |
| To Venus And Back (studio/live) | 1999 |
| Strange Little Girls | 2001 |
| Scarlet's Walk | 2002 |
More than just a girl with a piano, Tori Amos is absolutely one of the oddest and most creative musicians working today. Her extremely abstract lyrics and vocal style are only one side of her talents (the very thing listeners either love or hate about her) -- she's also a somewhat accomplished player, adding a lot more musical complexity to her already challenging and thought-provoking material.
Tori actually started as a much more obviously pop artist in the late 80s on the Y Kant Tori Read project (which is generally called a disaster and is extremely hard to find now). It's very much a sought-after collectors item that she'd like you to believe doesn't exist. Her proper debut Little Earthquakes, is probably the greatest showcase of where her best talents are -- alone, writing intimate, personal and expressive songs on her piano, and crafting which is in my opinion a sure classic of the 90s.
The next album Under The Pink continues in this vein, but Boys For Pele and From The Choirgirl Hotel are somewhat more experimental than those albums (often using a full band and electronic flavorings). To Venus And Back, her newest release, is a double album divided between new studio material and live performances. Plan on seeing a review of that album, and the other one I don't own, Boys For Pele, in the future.
--Nick Karn
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(Nick Karn's review)
Alright, I admit it - I was somewhat perversely curious about how an often quite talented artist as Tori Amos could go from supposedly awful crap pop metal (or whatever people who haven't actually heard the album consider this to be) to an often brilliant album such as Little Earthquakes. There's also the fact that this album was given one of Mark Prindle's rare 1 ratings, and many people, including Tori herself, don't have a lot kind things to say about it. So why not take advantage of MP3 access and try this out for myself? That's exactly what I did, and while the album certainly isn't great (in fact, it's on the whole quite mediocre and often embarassingly dated at many, many points), it's certainly not the definition of garbage it's often made out to be. Nor is it pop metal either - it often hits the territory of keyboard-oriented dance pop, with driving guitars on maybe one or two songs, and even then, they're hardly very 'metal' at all. So much for that rumor.
Even disregarding that, though, the album still isn't very good, and there's no getting around it. It also hits quite nauseating low points in the contemporary dance tunes "Fayth" (the lazy vocal job is probably just as bad as its' contrived chorus hook and completely generic dance pop production) and the extremely silly "You Go To My Head", plus the closing epic "Etienne Trilogy" shows that she didn't quite have her epic, pretentious side worked out yet. Of course, some detractors would say that she never really had it worked out, but whatever, this particular effort doesn't impress me in the least - it's way too rambling in terms of structure, without much melody to speak of (except in the chorus where it sounds like she's singing 'A-T-M'... haha). Overall, the production is very hard to overlook as well - the opening "The Big Picture" may have a very catchy melody, though pretty much everything about the music around it, from the synth bass, drum machines, and other embellishments, exemplifies stupid.
Fortunately, there isn't much awful about this stuff as I mght have implied in the first three songs, though the only song I can say I quite enjoy all the way through is the ballad "Fire On The Side", which has a captivating, yearning melody that wouldn't sound at all out of place on Little Earthquakes, and the piano work in the intro is quite lovely. Maybe it ranks as a minor Tori classic. There are other nice moments as well, like the just plain fun chorus of the otherwise silly 'fairy tale' song "Pirates" and the almost atmospheric at times "Cool On Your Island" (at least, before that completely dumbass Caribbean part with the steel drums and chanting and such). But a few nice melodies aren't really enough to make the album good - power ballads such as "On The Boundary" simply pale in comparison to what she'd accomplish later, the poppier stuff like the marimba-driven "Floating City" comes and goes, and on 'rocking' stuff like "Heart Attack At 23", she sounds totally out of her element. Whatever. This album is merely a curiousity that's not quite as bad as you've been told, but still nothing to brag about either. Don't go out of your way to actually buy it if you're not a hardcore fan.
HIGH POINTS: Fire on the Side, On the Boundary, Etienne Trilogy. LOW POINTS: Fayth, Heart Attack at 23
Most of you know this by reputation only - Mark Prindle's notorious 1/10 rating, for example - and this reputation is bad. Tori has herself participated in the repudiation of this album, refusing to play songs from it in concert. And that's understandable. It was an early album, made without full creative control, packaged in a vulgar fashion, and hardly manifesting the virtues that has made her career since then so interesting. But this is an example of critical overreaction, making the perfect the enemy of the good. I don't make any exorbitant claims for Y Kant Tori Read, but if you look at it without trying to compare it to Under the Pink or Boys for Pele, then you'll see that it's in fact an enjoyable new wave/hard rock album with some solid playing and singing and occasionally interesting songwriting.
The general sound of the album is mid-eighties AOR, with crisp-clean-no-caffeine production and guitars that wouldn't be out of place on an REO Speedwagon record. But all the playing is competent. Tori was already a remarkably strong and evocative singer. True, many of the actual songs are mediocre: the middle sequence of "Floating City" and "Pirates," for example (what's with these titles? Is this a fantasy novel?) is particularly silly. But those songs are catchy, my friends. Even the tackiest tracks here, the pseudo-rap of "Faith" and the pseudo-metal of "Heart Attack at 23," have solid, distinct melodies and memorable choruses.
The genuine strengths of the album, though, can be found on the ballads. These display Tori's nascent lyrical gifts and her talent for capturing extreme bad moods. I defy you to listen to Tori sing "Baby it burns/To be your fire on the side" or "On the Boundary/Don't you need my love?" and not be moved. And the playing here is hard-hitting and passionate while not relying any more on power ballad clichés than is absolutely necessary.
The absolute high point comes with the final track, "Etienne Trilogy," which I think is a reference to a medieval French saint but maybe I'm wrong. In my opinion, this song is worthy of appearing on any of Tori's subsequent albums and would not be even a bit out of place on Little Earthquakes. The lyrics show that Tori already had a gift for the enigmatic phrase - "Maybe I'm a witch/Lost in Time" - and for writing songs narrated by well-developed characters. All this against a swooping chorus and powerful, sensitive piano playing. The bagpipes at the end are a little silly, especially after the free-form, syncopated outro the song fades out on, but hardly enough to nullify what came before them. Should you go out and get this album? Depends on you. If you're a signed-sealed-delivered Tori Amos fanatic, go get it, if you don't already have it. Don't start your Tori listening experience with it, though.
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(Nick Karn's review)
Tori Amos finally found her musical voice here, having the freedom to record what she had always wanted to, her first true album Little Earthquakes, and she immediately sets the tone for it with an incredible opening track in "Crucify", a lyrically and musically challenging (and also catchy) confessional piece asking the question, "why do we crucify ourselves?" The atmosphere and the lyrics here work wonders, and it's just the beginning. The highlights of this striking debut are many, and it particularly maintains a nearly unbeatable, first-rate consistency in the opening half.
One huge album highlight, "Precious Things", is very hard and scathing lyrically, and the whole piece exploding with emotion helped out by an airy production, and heavy backing drums and guitars. "Winter" is another classic, a gentle and desperate song that continues to blend sophisticated piano techniques with amazing poetry in words that are chilling, but hardly leave affected listeners cold. On the subject of lyrics, "Silent All These Years" is very loose as far as interpreting the song, and although confusing, it has a very memorable and pleasant melody. The even catchier tunes on the first half, "Happy Phantom" (another subdued lyrically angry cut) and "Girl" (with an especially affecting bridge) mix the brilliant and creative musicianship that flows effortlessly throughout.
The second half continues the magic, as "China" is a very heartfelt and excellent ballad that succeeds on the powerful intimacy of the song, and "Leather" is very youthful and even a bit disturbing, with a priceless, bouncy melody. "Tear In Your Hand", though, is probably the absolute highlight here as an astonishingly powerful, melodic, and poetic track, and the closing title track is dark, powerful, moving and triumphant, featuring a memorable chant to end the album. "Me And A Gun" is even darker, of course, as it's a terrifying and disturbing song dealing with her rape, using only her voice. The slightly long and repetitive "Mother" is the only track on Little Earthquakes that can at all be considered not very memorable, but everything else here is priceless quality, very creatively powerful, and dramatic material -- all the makings of a classic debut, which is pretty much what it is.
HIGH POINTS: Precious Things, Mother, Me and a Gun, Little Earthquakes. LOW POINTS: Leather.
Tori Amos's greatest talent as a songwriter is her gift for expressing the neurotic sensibility. Nobody wants to be a neurotic all the time, but everybody has to be a neurotic sometimes, and art is one of the places you can indulge this compulsion without too many real-world consequences. Her true forebears in this respect are the great romantic poets, like Keats and Shelley, who crafted poems wherein every tiny event is fraught with meaning and emotional consequence, and wherein daily life is full of yawning traps of heartrending despair. We are all attracted to this sensibility in works of art because, although it hurts, it also washes away any sense of boredom and ennui, and allows us to be, well, a little self-indulgent, a little selfish, about our feelings. Little Earthquakes, in some sense the first true Tori Amos album (despite my soft spot for Y Kant Tori Read, I recognize that it's an anomaly in her catalog), captures this sensibility more perfectly than just about any album I can think of. (Peter Gabriel's great works of the early 1980s are not so much about neurosis as they are about genuine insanity; Roger Waters, similarly, alternates between madness and all-too-sane rage; Syd Barrett's records are not about insanity but are, in fact, actually insane - and so forth. Any other possibilities?).
You can roughly divide this album into three parts. The first third, consisting of the first five songs, consists of songs that begin the delving, the verses and choruses forming an architecture built around palpitating cells of anguish that quiver if you touch them. "Precious Things," an ode (one of many!) to unpleasant and faithless men, is the most obvious standout of these, for its powerful alternations between the drum-and-guitar pounding of its chorus and Tori's wailing delivery, not to mention its deliberately provocative lyrics ("so you can make me come/that doesn't make you Jesus" is a particular favorite of concertgoers). "Silent All These Years" is a more intimate piano song, and one in which Tori displays a rather mordant wit ("So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts/What's so amazing about really deep thoughts/Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon/How's that thought for you?"). "Girl" is easy to neglect but effectively combines a more uptempo rhythm with a subdued feel.
The next three songs are what I like to think of as palate-cleansers. You can't go through an entire album at this emotional register unless you're a total masochist, after all. "Happy Phantom" is the closest thing to a jovial tune to be found here, with jolly little bits of nonsense for lyrics, and "China" is sort of a conventional ballad of love dying out, with puns on the title (china cups and plates on the title with cracks if you look closely, the Great Wall between us, etc.). I'm not so hip on "Leather" though I can't quite say why - the melody simply grates on me.
All of this should trick you into thinking you're getting off easy, but you're not. The remainder of the album - with the exception of "Tear in Your Hand," which in my universe comes earlier (note, incidentally, the sly reference to Neil Gaiman, author of the great comic book series Sandman) - is about as wrenching as music comes. "Mother" is a piano song of almost unbearable intimacy, rising and falling unpredictably but perfectly, with an extended outro of Tori reinterpreting the melody at the very limits of her range. Everybody knows about "Me and a Gun," an a capella song that deals directly with Tori's rape at the hands of a stranger. It would be easy for a song with this concept to degenerate into unmusical indulgence of the kind that's cathartic for the performer but not worthwhile for the listener. And as humane people, we could probably forgive Tori for that. I could, anyway. But what makes the song work as art rather than just self-therapy is that it's under control: the melody is stated cleanly and never varied, the singing remains at a restrained emotional level throughout, and the lyrics are about pain (a mild word for it, I'd think) rather than themselves pained. "I've never seen Barbados," Tori sings, "so I must get out of here," showing the kind of irrelevant thoughts that a mind in trauma will clutch at for escape.
"Little Earthquakes," the titanic album closer, is almost a prog-rock song, with wildly changing instrumentation, echoing drums, chanting, and virtuoso piano playing. It's the knockout punch to an album that seems designed to, well, beat you up emotionally. And it succeeds. Lesser talents like Alanis Morrissette have tried to work on this sort of mode, but they don't really make it because they're, well, lesser talents. None of this would work if Tori didn't have an exquisite voice capable of a diversity of effects and, of course, powerhouse chops as a pianist. Tori's later records are more abstract, and while they're all quite good, none of them ever matched this in terms of direct emotional effect. If Little Earthquakes isn't the best album of 1991, I will personally eat my hat with wasabi sauce. Buy it now.
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COMMENTS
Right on, dude. Little Earthquakes IS the best album of 1991--though wasabi sauce is pretty tasty. Pretty much every song rules melodically, the lyrics are dig-able, and the production is immaculate throughout. Some people would call it unnecessarily bombastic and calculated (*cough* most Pixies/Nirvana fans) and others would call it unnecessarily female-oriented (*cough* most men). But you and I are both men, and we still like the album, like real men should be unafraid to do. Kudos to this review. Good work.
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
A somewhat weaker version of Little Earthquakes in a sense, but although the core of this Under The Pink's sound is built on that formula, it's certainly not a total retread of it, as there are hints of experimentation not previously apparent. It is, however, a significant letdown in comparison to that amazing debut, because the material here is highly inconsistent and it's a patchy effort overall, most accurately divided between very creative and emotionally powerful songs (many of them among her absolute best) and most dull and uninspiring (exactly the opposite).
Right from the start, this collection proves disappointing - "Pretty Good Year" is a typical Little Earthquakes-esque ballad number with lyrical intrigue and all but it's nothing really that special, "God" goes for a funkier approach, which is an admirable, but failed, musical stretch, and "Bells For Her" sounds like it should have been a classic emotional and beautifully intimate song, but the whole atmosphere seems rather lifeless and cold to me (although a great many fans adore it). It isn't really until the unsettling 'hey, they found a body' bridge of "Past The Mission" (featuring Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor in the chorus) where things really start to gel, as the following two songs, "Baker, Baker" (powerfully uplifting beauty and atmosphere) and "The Wrong Band" (the most infectious song on the album which has a retro feel and a hint of experimentation in its background) are masterpieces.
The second half opener "Waitress" has that edge prominent in some of her darker songs (here it's fantasizing about killing a co-worker) with very creative background embellishments, and it's an excellent highlight. "Cornflake Girl" uses a full band to great effect and very much hints at her later work. It's also one of the most upbeat and catchy tunes. "Icicle" is another piano-led ballad with good complexity, and excellent moody atmosphere (lyrics about masturbation here too... hmmm...), although some parts are a bit too boring. "Cloud On My Tongue" is another quieter classic that, like "Bells For Her", I find rather dull and colorless, but that song is immediately made up for in the phenomenal experimentation and beautifully dark melody and imagery of "Spacedog". "Yes, Anastasia" closes this flawed release out as Tori's most ambitious epic - at 9 minutes, it's unfortunately too overlong and confusing for me to ever get into.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Boys For Pele was considered a generally unsuccessful attempt at expanding her sound, but with From The Choirgirl Hotel, Tori Amos really began sounding focused in this environment, not only writing her pleasant and emotionally breathtaking piano ballads, but also began using a full-blown backing band to give the album a tighter and more expansive sound, adding such things as drum loops for songs like "Cruel" (a bouncy, sarcastic attack on people who consider themselves perfect in every way), an industrial influence in "Hotel" (a somewhat bizarre piece filled with unpredictable sonic soundscapes) and tribal drum sounds for "iieee" (a riveting and certainly interesting highlight).
The unsettling opener "Spark" is also the first autobiographical hint that she seems unsure of herself after her miscarriage, and such topics as lost love are also present in the wonderfully moving ballad "Northern Lad" that is representative of her old style, while the powerful tribute to Jackie Onassis and the highlight of the album, "Jackie's Strength", also hints of her old self in the beginning but is also built on awesome orchestration and melody that helps it to absolutely soar. "Black Dove (January)" can also qualify as vintage Tori, helped by a mesmerizing chorus, and "Liquid Diamonds" also has its' beautiful moments, although it's a bit too overlong.
However, the experimental vibe of this release isn't always effective -- "Raspberry Swirl" is a bit too derivative of the dance-oriented Madonna songs, although it is very catchy and has an irresistible rhythm, and "She's Your Cocaine" is marred by annoying distorted vocals in the verses and near the end of the song. Also, the two closing tracks "Playboy Mommy" and "Pandora's Aquarium" are a bit too standard. The album as a whole, though, is convincingly successful.
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COMMENTS
[email protected] (Adrian Denning)
'Black Dove' is a special special song. One of my favourite Tori moments. This album doesn't sound at all like the first two records as is all the better for it. Not of course that they were bad albums! Hardly! This album deserves a lot more wider recognition outside of Tori Amos circles I feel. It's a wonderful album of shiftings moods and textures and pretty much qualifies as a classic for me. Personally. But then, I love Tori. I can't help myself :)
[email protected] (George Boone)
I have to disagree with you on your review of Tori's Raspberry Swirl. The song has a desperate sexual energy that Madonna could only wish she could get. Tori's relentless attack on the piano in this song is only the beginning. The guitar and drums increase the fervor that can almost be felt in the air when this song is played. Of course, it's my favorite song on the cd, so I'm a bit biased.
(reviewed by Jason L. Corner)
HIGH POINTS: Raining Blood, Time, Strange Little Girl. LOW POINTS: Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Heart of Gold
Between To Venus and Back and Scarlet's Walk, Tori decided, as an experiment (or, if you're feeling uncharitable, as a publicity stunt), to release an all-covers album. And all the songs on it are covers of songs by male artists, so quite naturally she called it Strange Little Girls. Get it?
This was a real disappointment if you were expecting an actual new Tori Amos album, but once you adjust your expectations, this album's not so bad. It's not so great, either. In most cases, if you know the original song and like it, you'll like and be mildly interested in Tori's version. Her cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" is a fairly typical example: the song gets a solid and vaguely mocking treatment by Tori's piano and vocals. It doesn't deviate much from the original, and there isn't much new musical interest in it, but it's a good performance and preserves what you probably like from the original: the melody and lyrics. Same with her renditions of Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats' "I Don't Like Mondays," Joe Jackson's "Real Men," and so forth. "Time," originally by Tom Waits, stands out among these - the heartfelt melody seems tailor-made for Tori, and her singing is a great improvement over the original, as how could it not be? I don't know who wrote the title track, but it's great too: its chorus is insanely catchy, and Tori makes it rock hard. Incidentally, Adrian Belew plays guitar on this album, and so there is some interesting textural stuff happening on most of the songs, though never in a particularly upfront way.
It's not completely by-the-book, natch, otherwise this album wouldn't be even as moderately interesting as it is. But where Tori decides to deviate, the results are decidedly mixed. "Raining Blood" is a palpable hit, and I hope Slayer likes it - Tori's piano treatment of it makes it sound like early twentieth-century classical, and the weird melody sounds only weirder when you can understand it. Not quite as enjoyable is Eminem's "Bonnie and Clyde '97," which is quite spooky on the first lesson for its campy string arrangement and whispered vocals with mild Southern drawl, but doesn't reward repeated listening too much. And her version of "Heart of Gold" (one of Neil Young's best songs, incidentally), with its multiple Tori vocals multitracked, her singing stretching the notes out so much the song sounds like a smear of paint, over a generic techno beat, is extremely hard on the ears.
And Tori's 'cover' of The Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" is enough of a mess to bring the album's whole rating down. It's a shame, too, because there's some really excellent piano playing and some neat textures on this song. Perhaps the problem was that, in the Beatles version, the song has more or less only one or two actual musical ideas, which is fine, because they kept it down to a couple of minutes. Tori's version clocks in at just under ten. But rather than adding new musical ideas, or improvising on top and developing melodic variations, Tori just creates a roughly similar vamp - again, as I said, interesting enough in its way - and loops through it more or less forever, repeating some of the key lines over and over. Now, that would simply make this a rather boring and failed experiment. But over the first couple of minutes, she splices in audio recordings of various people (George W. Bush, etc.) talking about the second amendment and gun control. The quotes don't add up to anything coherent; they merely float there, adding 'relevance.' I have nothing against political songwriting - rather like it, in fact - but that isn't what this is. It doesn't make a political statement. And it's not a genuinely musical idea. It's just a lazy way to jazz up an otherwise listless tune, and the connection of the interpolated material to the title (the Beatles obviously didn't have firearms legislation in mind when they wrote the original) is barely good for a laugh.
Still, that's the worst song by a real long shot, and most of the rest of the album is pleasant enough, and interesting in concept, and occasionally the sonic stuff gets interesting on repeated listens. Still, I don't know that anybody but a Toriphile (and if you are one, you have this record already) really needs it - or people who are enough of fanatics about any of the artists covered on here to want to own everything that even relates to their idol, which means there're a lot of confused Eminem fans scratching their heads now. But if it comes your way, hey, give it a spin. If nothing else, it's a fairly interesting look at pop history through Tori Amos's odd, odd lens.
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