Tori Amos

Agree with Lex.

into this.

Best thing she's released in years. Cautiously optimistic for the album.

i like this song a lot.

i'm having a really sympathetic re-listen of The Beekeeper right now. probably tori at her happiest and most candid, and even though the sonic palette she's chosen is not one i'm super-into, SHE is super-into it, and i'm loving how happy she sounds as she plays with it! she is having a blast on "witness" in particular. i started my listen trying to pull songs for the late-era POX i've been meaning to do, but i've discovered that even the songs i don't particularly like have something that redeems them: a hook, a turn of phrase, an unexpected sentiment.

the track on here that most resembles early tori is "the beekeeper," and it's my favorite track on the album. she wrote it about a point when her mother was very ill, and it starts off abstracted in that tori way and then becomes surprisingly concrete and plaintive. there are a couple songs on here that are very concrete for tori ("ribbons undone" is straight-up "you guys i love my daughter so much"), but this is where it works the best: she builds up this edifice of myth and metaphor and then drops it for the reality of her mother in a hospital bed. the chorus is eerie:

don't be afraid
i promise that she will awake tomorrow
somewhere

my second favorite track is "barons of suburbia" just for the way the music builds and builds to that triumphant "she is risen" at the end.

THIS IS GOOD.

lyrics have been posted thnx :P
what next?

akhiyan nu khuaab vakha gaii an sanu choothay laray laa gaii an
ishq da rola paa k tu saday dil nu q thukra gaii an
ki dasiay tainu asii hal-e-dil asii sooli utay tngay an na din langda na chain hnda asi dar dar rulday firday an
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
muk gaii muhabbat muk gaiyan aasan pr nai mukdi ay jind mar janii
pau phar k asi tainu rok lainday jy chalda sada koii zor hnda
asii tery pichay q ruldy jy teray jya koii hor hnda
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
try ish ny jogi kita ay tery ishq ny rogi kita ay chaihay da ni kuj dunia to teray ishq abhogii kita ay
ahy duniya walay pagal ny jiray aashiq nu samjhaundy ny jirii aag na bujhdii samandran to onu fookan maar bujha gy ny
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni
aashiqan dy seenay ich jira dard ni jany o hi aashiq ya fir janay rab ni

Man, she really needs to do something about her art direction tho.

um this album is actually good!!! i was not expecting it or daring to hope for it

good on a kinda scarlet's walk level rather than PEAK TORI (obvvv) but most impressively, good in the sense that i'm properly enjoying it and she seems to have consciously purged herself of a LOT of the things that have made the past decade so trying

I woke up with "America" in my head this morning, man, what a great song. There are others too. At least six and maybe eight of these songs are imo the best of her Scarlet's-onward era

the chorus of the title track gives me actual "crucify" feelings

also TWO barbed songs about her husband?

Ooh! You like that chorus! Interesting, I don't at all. Most of the "I have a band" moments on this record remind me too much of St. Vincent, all squareness and no emotion. The only dud imo is "The Giant's Rolling Pin", what is the name for that kind of cute songwriting? It drives me nuts

It's tough with the domestica "fractured postcards from a life of contentment" songs to separate "Tori-as-artist" from "Tori-as-person". Esp. that duet with Tash <3 <3 omg

oh that one is horribly side-eye worthy but even on this album's worst moment she seems to have...idk, a bit of levity? it's not awful because it's self-serious and overthought (but still dull), it's just overly zany

there are actually a ton of nice production details on this as well, just little things about how the arrangements pop

the "unrepentant geraldines" chorus feels like the most effectively direct songwriting tori's done in...two decades. it's almost like a back-to-basics declaration

Huh! I will give the title track a few more plays. "Zany" is the word I was looking for, yeah

i actually can't believe that the duet with tash is so lovely. i love that a) you can't tell whether they're interrupting each other or finishing each other's sentences, b) unlike whatever happened on night of hunters, they actually have mother-daughter chemistry rather than piano teacher-pupil non-chemistry

the coda of the title track about the vicar's wife is what needed to be chopped really

Struggling to think of a better parent-child duet tbh, it really flies high

I adore "Trouble's Lament."

AHHH more Tash on this album?? she was my favorite thing about Night of Hunters!

her best album since Scarlet's Walk

Better imo.

dunno, I really like Scarlet's Walk. But it's up there.

not sure how i feel about the rest of this (feel like either her melodic sense has gotten somewhat obscure or i haven't lived with the songs long enough yet) but holy shit "promise"

i'm constantly getting bits of these songs coming into my head, i feel it's her most consistently straightforwardly melodic album...maybe ever? maybe even the first that succeeds on very direct pop terms. i mean i barely remember a single melody she's done recently, this is a retreat from laboured obscurity imo

i'm now past the point of being shocked this isn't terrible into properly liking it and being excited about her as an artist again - a different artist to peak '90s tori perhaps but still an exciting one. i'm still listening to this all the time!

appaz she's been covering taylor swift and miley cyrus live; can't help but wonder whether having a teenage daughter has resulted in her having an actual knowledge of wider pop culture rather than a hermetically sealed inner circle with husband and his classic rock records.

also can't get over how great her VOICE sounds - neither the weird glassy tone of some of her recent stuff nor audibly struggling with everything except the lowest and highest notes. some of the self-harmonies on this are ridiculously pretty

 rather than a hermetically sealed inner circle with husband and his classic rock records.

she wrote a blog about her husband's 'stupid record collection' iirc
;)

even the video is good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=285Lospdgb0

she also looks better these days than she did a few years ago; cut down on the botox or something.

I wish i loved this, but in truth I think I just like it a lot. Some bits are amazing, but if this is her prettiest, best sounding and least problematic album since Scarlet's Walk, I'd say it's also not as powerful as the great album lurking in American Doll Posse once you cut out the unnecessary bits (I have a pretty great proposed track list if people need it).

Some additional thoughts:

1. Her vocals are definitely approved. Not nearly as many jarring ai and ay sounds.

2. Kind of ironic that, now people have finally gotten over comparing her to Kate Bush, she finally records an album where she sounds like Kate Bush at some point in basically every song (albeit at times very different parts of KB's career - I'm most reminded of Never For Ever and A Sea of Honey).

3. I definitely want a whole album of Natashya. What a voice. Like someone boiled down the best bits of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan into a single vocalist.

Her vocals are definitely improved, that is.

tim-approved vocals

I finally gave "gold dust" a listen and I really like it, as a compilation, it's more interesting than putting those songs together without the orchestration. obv some of these songs had orchestration before (anastasia for one) and were done better, but some of these are quite nice versions. super important or vital? absolutely not but it's more listenable than peter gabriel's orchestration re-recordings, to me (and I'm a huge gabriel fan)

"Flicker" sounds like a classic Little Earthquakes style track.

"girl"off of Little Earthquakes is so good.

i don't really know any of her other albums. back in high school a friend put little earthquakes on one side of a cassette, under the pink on the other, and i just rewound the little earthquakes side every time i reached the end.

The b-sides from the first two albums are key.

^ OTM. "Honey" is so good.

Yes. Also don't get me started on "Sister Janet" or "Here In My Head".

Take to the Sky still gives me a little chill 25 years later.

"Sugar" and "Black Swan" too. Tori must be one of the most rewarding b-sides artist out there, and as a plus for fans she would show reverence to these songs live.

the great album lurking in American Doll Posse once you cut out the unnecessary bits (I have a pretty great proposed track list if people need it).

tim i am curious about this! especially bc i agree there is a great album lurking in that record

"Honey", "Sister Janet" and "Here. In My Head" are probably the b-sides I'd single out first as well!

Also "Bachelorette", "Alamo", "Purple People", and "Siren" even if it wasn't an actual b-side...

my ADP edit would probably be

Big Wheel
Bouncing Off Clouds
Teenage Hustling
Body And Soul
Father's Son
Code Red
Beauty Of Speed
Smokey Joe
Dragon

I think I did have a tracklist but I'd have to reproduce it now.

Lex's choices are all excellent and would be on my list but I'd definitely add "Secret Spell". You could probably throw in "Roosterspur Bridge" and "Almost Rosey" as well.

There's often a lot not wrong with the rest, other than that it's slight (e.g. "Programmable Soda") or just lesser or doesn't hit what it's aiming for ("Digital Ghost", "Girl Disappearing", "Dark Side of the Sun") or adds to an existing sense of bloat (most of the interludes, which with some exceptions are unobjectionable or even quite good).

But the core of the album is effectively the great "return to relatively straightforward songwriting and performing" album that Unrepentant Geraldines is billed as being (not that there's anything wrong with the latter album, but arguably it's actually less direct, probably on par with Scarlet's Walk). The irony is that this is obscured by the heavy ~concept~ of ADP, which in truth seems more like Tori's post-facto attempt to retrofit a narrative where none exists, but nonetheless hangs more heavily over the album than her other attempts do (possible or even probable exception of Night of Hunters which I never got around to).

There's a live version of "Here. In My Head" that was on More Pink (second disc of b-sides that came with Under The Pink in Australia for a while) which was the first version of it I heard and which totally demolishes me, but if it's on youtube it's impossible to find under all the other live versions. Key is that she doesn't totally brock out at the end (the "here, hey, do you know what this is doing to me?" bit), instead it's like all of her rage is suppressed and poisons her bloodstream.

I kinda jumped off the Tori bandwagon after "The Beekeeper" but did hear "Gold Dust" and enjoyed "Night of Hunters". Aside from ADP, am I missing much?

i see this year's deluxe reissue of Pele is on Spotify.