TORI AMOS
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Rating (Out of 10): 9
Tracklisting: Crucify/Girl/Silent All These Years/Precious Things/Winter/Happy Phantom/China/Leather/Mother/Tear in Your Hand/Me And A Gun/Little Earthquakes
Little Earthquakes is a stunning debut album (if we forget about Y Can’t Tori Read), from the redheaded, half Cherokee half Scottish, singer songwriter. It is at once emotional, strong, delicate and powerful. It is a very lyrical album with Amos using narrative very well throughout, drawing you into the music, making each song flow eloquently into the next. Little Earthquakes saw Tori Amos firmly established as the next in a long line of strong female vocalists, and was quickly hailed as the new Kate Bush. Unfortunately, she was soon pigeon-holed in the music press as ‘quirky’ and a bit weird, something that usually happens to women in the public eye who refuse to fit neatly into traditional stereotypes of femininity. And it still seems to be this negative image of her that continues to prevent her from being taken seriously in the music industry, and from getting the sort of attention and media coverage she deserves.
All twelve songs on this album are wonderful. I would be hard pressed to name a single one that I dislike. There are songs of love, songs of self-hatred, songs of sadness, songs detailing personal experience, songs that try to make sense of personal relationships. The album opens strongly with the piano-led ‘Crucify’, a powerful song both lyrically and musically. But my favourite song on the album has got to be ‘Silent All These Years’. This is a song that makes me want to go out and learn to play the piano, just so that I could play this song. It is a song that sees Amos at her most obscure and creative lyrically. ‘I’ve got the anti-christ in the kitchen yelling at me again!’. This is a song to sing along to word for word.
Each song on this album evokes a different emotion. ‘Winter’ makes me cry as it laments the passing of time, reminding us how quickly childhood innocence disappears, and how difficult adult life really is. ‘China’ sends shivers down my spine and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it the alluring fragility of her voice, or the captivating simplicity of the song as a whole. Whatever it is, I just love this song. ‘Me And A Gun’ is a startling track. Tori sings a capella, and it literally jumps out at you. Barren and bare of everything except her voice, you are forced to stop whatever it was you were doing and listen. It demands your attention, and it deserves it. This sort of track doesn’t always work, but it definitely works here.
This album gained Tori Amos a lot of fans across the world, establishing her talent as a song writer, vocalist, and musician. Little Earthquakes remains a firm favourite among Tori fans, and despite her foray into many different musical genres, it is the strong piano ballad that Tori fans seems to love most. What can I say, it’s just an amazing album, and I absolutely love it.
Send A Comment
from Jen Bennett - 25/09/03
It's great to come across another Tori Fan. Little Earthquakes is a great debut album, and my favourite tori record. It just doens't get any better than this.
|
UNDER THE PINK (1994)
Rating (Out of 10): 9
Tracklisting: Pretty Good Year/God/Bells For Her/Past The Mission/Baker Baker/The Wrong Band/The WaitressCornflake Girl/Icicle/Cloud On My Tongue/Space Dog/Yes,Anastasia
Under The Pink is a good, strong follow up to Little Earthquakes. In many ways it is a more mature album, more musically accomplished, and definitely more vocally accomplished. It is probably, technically speaking, the better album; but there’s something lacking. It doesn’t have the instant appeal of Little Earthquakes, it is missing the simplistic beauty and raw emotion of the first album.
But, in saying that, Under The Pink, is still a great album containing lots of outstanding tracks. It is also an album that sees Tori come into her own, vocally, treating us to some amazing vocal acrobatics, and beautiful harmonies. The album starts off subtly, easing you in gently with the quietly beautiful ‘Pretty Good Year’. ‘God’ and ‘Bells For Her’ all contribute well to the beginning of the album. And then comes, ‘Past The Mission’, a definite high point. Her voice starts straight in without introduction, striking you instantly, making you listen, making you want to sing along, making you wish you could sing like THAT! This is a hard song to follow, and the subtle and beautiful Baker Baker gets lost somehow in the aftermath. There is a mixture of pace on this album which doesn’t always work, and some of the quieter tracks don’t blend in quite so well. Cornflake Girl provides another key moment of the album. It is a song that contains all of Tori’s trademarks - obscure lyrics, vocal acrobatics, strong piano, wonderful harmonies
I’d love to analyse Tori’s lyrics, go through each one, line by line suggesting what she could mean. It would be a lengthy task, and practically impossible. But her lyrics are one of the reasons I love Tori Amos so much. They’re obscure, strange, poetic, funny, thought provoking, and they sound amazing. She writes in a stream of consciousness style, which when read seem as if even SHE doesn’t know what they mean, but when sang, sounds absolutely fantastic, and makes perfect sense.
I’m not quite sure why I don’t like this album as much as Little Earthquakes. Maybe it’s because the former struck such a personal chord with me, reached me on a level that this album hasn’t managed to reach. Under The Pink is a very different to Little Earthquakes, but it’s still beautiful and appealing and fits in very well with the growth of Tori Amos as an artist.
Send A Comment
Boys For Pele (1996)
Rating (Out of 10): 7.5
Tracklisting: Beauty Queen/Horses/Blood Roses /Father Lucifer/Professional Widow/ Mr Zebra/Marianne/Caught A Lite Sneeze/Muhammad My Friend/Hey Jupiter/Way Down/Little Amsterdam /Talula/Not The Red Baron /Agent Orange/Doughnut Song/In The Springtime Of His Voodoo/Putting The Damage On /Twinkle
Tori Amos’ third album, ‘Boys For Pele’ signals quite a major departure for the singer songwriter. While the first two albums were mainly made up of piano led ballads, ‘Boys For Pele takes a different approach is much more experimental. She swaps her piano for a harpsichord on a lot of the tracks, adopts a heavily produced style, and tries out several different styles and genres all on the one album. ‘Beauty Queen’ opens the album on a very deceptive note. The fragile, delicate vocals with minimal accompaniment makes you think that you’re in for a listen to a very quite, piano album, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. It is with ‘Blood Roses’ that things really get started as this song pretty much sums up the style of the rest of the album with it’s harpsichord and raw, wild vocals. Throughout the album Amos whirls her ways through a series of contrasting songs, one minute singing a delicate ballad, the next shouting and spitting, leaving the listener not too sure what’s going on. The strangest track on the album has got to be the very weird industrial sounding ‘Professional Widow’ with it’s even weirder lyrics “Star fucker, just like my daddy”. I won’t even try to comment on that! The version of ‘Boys For Pele’ that I have also has the dance remix of ‘Professional Widow’ that was released as a single and very successfully did a tour of the club scene. It’s pretty awful though and best avoided. Whilst you are still trying to get your head around the weirdness of ‘Professional Widow’, the next track ‘Mr Zebra’ begins and confuses you even more. It’s jaunty, almost nursery rhyme style is in complete contrast to the previous track. Amidst the experimentalism there is one track that stands out for me as beautiful in its simplicity. ‘Way Down’ is one of the most fragile songs I have ever heard, a song that last barely more than a minute before disintegrating into its own fragility.
‘Boys For Pele’ takes it’s name from Hawaiian legend. Pele is a volcano and legend has it that young boys were offered up as sacrifices to stop it becoming angry and erupting. In this same way, the album is full of such stories, folklore and legends. It is Amos’ darkest and most experimental album . It’s good to see an artist changing her sound so that it doesn’t become staid but unfortunately a lot of it gets lost in translation and with 18 tracks it is a bit long and a bit overly ambitious. But it’s still Tori and she’s still beautiful.
Send A Comment
From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
Rating (Out of 10): 9
Tracklisting: Spark / Cruel / Black Dove (January) / Raspberry Swirl / Jackie's Strength / Iiiee / Liquid Diamonds / She's Your Cocaine / Northern Lad / Hotel / Playboy Mommy / Pandora's Aquarium
Dark, rich and atmospheric, ‘From The Choirgirl Hotel’ is without a doubt Tori Amos’ finest hour. She continues where she left off with ‘Boys For Pele’, but this time it works. The experimentation with style and content that came across as awkward and inaccessible in her previous album now becomes stylish, mature and innovative. Everything about this album is just right. The right number of tracks, the right, amount of production, the right combination of styles. ‘From The Choirgirl Hotel’ departs from the traditional Tori sound in that rather than it being just her and her piano she utilises a full band accompaniment resulting in a big, full sound and quite a few rock songs.
Although every track on this album is excellent, there are several which are just out of this world. ‘Black Dove’ is a mesmerising song. Tori sings in a hypnotic whisper with a melody that starts off hauntingly chilling, then explodes in a whirlwind of noise and then reverts back to a dream-like state. The lyrics are bordering on gibberish (Black Dove/You’re Not A helicopter/You’re not a cop out either honey) but there is something intensely beautiful and poetic about them when combined with the striking instrumentation and electric atmosphere. It’s one of those songs that just work, and it’s perhaps futile to try to explain why. ‘Raspberry Swirl’ is a highly energetic song and sees Tori leave the comfort zone of the piano ballad to deliver a fantastic rock song and it’s definitely one of the high points of the album. ‘Cruel’ is similar to several of the more experimental tracks on ‘Boys for Pele’, but this one succeeds where the others failed. Tori gives a brilliant vocal against a cacophony of drum noises and while there is little to no melody, it is still a very enjoyable song. ‘Jackie’s Strength’ sees Tori revert to her roots. It is a song that wouldn’t have been out of place on ‘Little Earthquakes’, yet it still manages to sit well amongst the new stylings and includes poetic lyrics and a strong vocal.
There is a dark rich beauty about this album. It is an album full of fabulous songs which display the extent of Tori’s abilities as a songwriter, but it’s more than that. There is a certain atmosphere about it, a certain fullness of sound, something a bit extra, a bit special that takes ‘From The Choirgirl Hotel’ into the realm of the extraordinary. It’s not difficult to see why this is most people’s favourite Tori Amos album.
Send A Comment
from Steph Clarke - 25/11/06
Choirgirl is Tori's best album. There's something magical about it. It's outta this world!!!
from John S - 06/12/06
Love your review of choirgirl hotel. I love this album. For me its ten out of ten. I could listen to it over and over.
|
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
Rating (Out of 10): 8.5
Tracklisting: Amber Waves / A Sorta Fairytale / Wednesday / Strange / Carbon / Crazy / Wampum Prayer / Don't Make Me Come To Vegas / Sweet Sangria / Your Cloud / Pancake / I Can't See New York / Mrs. Jesus / Taxi Ride / Another Girl's Paradise / Scarlet's Walk / Virginia / Gold Dust
‘Scarlet’s Walk’ is the first ‘proper’ album from Tori Amos since her 1998 masterpiece ‘From The Choirgirl Hotel’, and it very much heralds a return to form for the singer songwriter. Her previous two releases, a live album and a covers album, had been mediocre at best, so ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ can be seen as her first collection of new songs in four years and it is a very fine one at that. At the time of its release it was billed as a concept album. A fictitious character called Scarlet takes a walk across America post September 11th. In saying that, it was be easy to listen to this album and miss the concept entirely. The concept isn’t overbearing. It ‘s there if you want to sit down and pick out the references in the lyrics and match them up to the various maps and pictures which came with the album, but if, like myself, you’re not too hot on concept albums, then it is also possible to just sit down and listen to a really good Tori Amos album.
‘Scarlet’s walk is a very diverse album musically, encompassing many styles and genres that come together beautifully. It sees Amos return to what she does best – the piano ballad – something which she steered away from in ‘…Choirgirl’, opting for a more experimental style; but here she returns to it with gusto and she definitely hasn’t lost her touch. Throughout the album she gives a very good vocal performance exuding a soft delicate beauty. There are many wonderful tracks on this album – the opening ‘Amber Waves’, the delicate ‘Gold Dust’ and the strong title track are just a few of the songs on here that come together to make this album very special. The centerpiece of the album for me has got to be the sensational ‘Carbon’. Similar in style to ‘Black Dove’ it is a hypnotic, magical sort of song, the sort that comes from nowhere and hits all the right notes. The only criticism to be made of ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ is that at 18 tracks it is perhaps a bit long. Some of the tracks could have been omitted to make this album absolutely perfect. Still, even with a few filler songs, it still manages to be a good solid album and a very good return to form for Tori.
Send A Comment
from TJ - 09/10/06
This for me is Tori's best album. I like it better than choirgirl. It's her most mature work to date. Very highly crafted. The overall sound is great.
|
BACK TO INDEX
BACK TO MUSIC REVIEWS INDEX
TORI AMOS LYRICS
|
