the POLL's in circles and circles and circles again: tori amos - 'under the pink' poll

I don't think there was a sudden left swerve with Boys For Pele actually - it seems to be roughly the size of the shift/expansion that UTP was on LE (and likewise Choirgirl vis a vis BFP). The relationship between Tori's piano playing and her actual songwriting is possibly at her loosest here, at least in part (see in particular the final five tracks), but the album's extremities are veiled somewhat by its manicured sound. I think what BFP did by comparison was make those qualities more explicit - the sound is much starker and the arrangements are mostly sparser, with most songs choosing to push a particular instrument or instrument combo (harpsichord, piano & strings, piano & horn) such that the sound appears to be more wideranging. It's like, if you used to paint with a large palette, and then you restrict yourself to just a couple of colours, then your choice of which colours to use will start to seem much more radical.

And I see Choirgirl as making different decisions again - it doesn't follow some line of logical development implied by BFP at all.

We really need a b-sides poll.

I'd be inclined to say:

Upside Down / Here In My Head / Honey >> Sister Janet / Flying Dutchman / Sugar / Alamo / Cooling >>> the others

Yeah, "Cornflake Girl"'s hook is monstrous, even when you are overfed by it.

Under the Pink was the big space in my Tori love for years-- when I was a kid, I was more immediately attracted to the record with "Silent All These Years" and then to the weird long record with "Hey Jupiter," respectively. So I've only properly encountered Under the Pink in the past few years. The first half suffers wildly from this quiet-loud-quiet sequencing which I've heard explained as "the style at the time," which makes sense, because I've always seen Tori as simultaneously in lock-step with pop trends and completely anachronistic, i.e. Choirgirl being one among many late-'90s rock and pop flirtations with "electronics" but also it is so strange and naked compared to that grouping.

The second side of Pink, when it enters its spare piano suite, is real magic. I don't think I'll ever stop retrieving new sweet things out of it.

Also, it's a tie between "Cornflake Girl" and "Yes, Anastasia," which do such entirely different things, one is like a good friend you invite over occasionally though you bristle at their sizable collection of knives, and you occasionally find one in your back pocket, or in your fridge, splitting the roast, and the other is this, at first, cold and distant thing that, when you squint, suddenly grows and envelopes you and kind of feels like home, though it is a very fragile sort of home.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Liking the idea of a Tori b-sides poll, especially the part about having to listen to a bunch of them again to make up my mind. If I had to pick without time to review, though, it's be "Sweet Dreams", with "Take to the Sky", "Upside Down", "Sugar" and "Flying Dutchman" close behind.

always loved this, i guess v close second to choirgirl as my favorite of her albums? or my favorite, sometimes. i'm certain she's said 'honey' was supposed to be on the album and got kicked off at the very last minute, and she regrets that. i would've voted for that one, i think!

anyway, 'pretty good year.'

I will say this for "The Wrong Band" - it's a great example of that sense of generosity I was describing upthread. The way at the end it subsides into the "instead of just leaving..." bit and then rises again to the (totally new) "she says it's time I opened my eyes / don't be afraid to open your eyes / maybe she's right, maybe she's right / maybe she's right, maybe she's right." Which is just this totally triumphant (but about what???) storm-the-barricades climax for a song that seems mostly joking.

b-sides/sundries...

honey = siren = here in my head > bachelorette > sister janet = purple people (christmas in space) = upside down > alamo > daisy dead petals = mountain >> the rest

("sugar" is terrific but it's the version on TVAB that i prefer)

(excluding covers - of non-SLG covers i guess i'd pick out "do it again", "landslide", "i'm on fire" and "angie")

The first half suffers wildly from this quiet-loud-quiet sequencing which I've heard explained as "the style at the time,"

i didn't know it was a trend at the time! explains a lot.

Oh yeah I forgot about "Bachelorette" and esp. "Purple People"! I don't actually have "Siren" at the mo. What is "Mountain"?

"mountain" is the song that was only available on the website you could only access with the scarlet's walk cd. i never did bother checking the site out! it's better than half the album, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oVvMLzuafU

"siren"! http://www.sendspace.com/file/mxrt8q everyone should d/l it, what an incredible song.

Lex did you ever hear her "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?

yes! i really like it, even though i have basically no time for the original.

Ha i thought so!

My favourite cover though is "A Case Of You" I think - not flashy, but she gets it so intuitively right, right down to the tiniest nuances of phrasing, like the way she sings "you said, 'I am as contant as a northern star', and I said..." ever so slightly slower than the original, such that instead of Joni's suggestion of defensiveness it comes across as some kind of declamation - and then she sings "constantly in the darkness" with this perfect wry chuckle at the back of her throat.

People tend to underestimate and/or forget to draw attention to the subtlety of vocal performance at work.

that's one i'm not sure i've ever heard!

yeah, she's a great interpretative artist - cf her conscious springsteen imitation on "i'm on fire" which highlights how the song is a pose, without losing any of its emotion. and i guess we'll cross the strange little girls bridge when we come to it...

Lex, "A Case Of You":

http://www.sendspace.com/file/s7hyx0

thx tim. i love the liberties she takes with original tracks, and how she frames them as perfectly natural - here, when she gasps "my blood - my holy wine - you taste so bitter and so sweet", revelling in the addiction where joni maintains at least a slight air of detachment.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Cornflake Girl 1

ha!

"cloud on my tongue" got jobbed but this had the correct winner.

Cornflake Girl 1

This was me.

goddamn am I bummed I missed this. i'm with anagram -- this is her strongest record top-to-bottom. can't understand at all how this could disappoint after Little Earthquakes other than maybe there's nothing as singl-y as "Silent All These Years" and "Crucify"?

I probably would have voted "Yes, Anastasia," and I'm happy to discover that everyone loves "Pretty Good Year" and "God" as much as I do, but "Past The Mission" and "Cloud On My Tongue" definitely got a raw deal here. Dunno tho... I think the only track I couldn't see myself voting for would be "Bells for Her"...

one vote for cornflake girl is pretty lol

This album is amazing, can't believe I slept on it so long. She covers a lot of ground but executes it all so well - I don't think there's a weak track here.

"The Waitress" reminds me a lot of 90s Nine Inch Nails and would have come out around the time of Downward Spiral, to the point where I thought maybe he had influenced her or vice versa. I couldn't find anything where she talked about it, but in the process discovered Reznor sang backup vocals on "Past the Mission"! Neat little coincidence