boy you better make her raspberry POLL: Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel poll

for me this is

pandora's aquarium vs. iieee vs. liquid diamonds.

I'll go with Pandora's Aquarium tbh.

Side note: I love this album (favorite Tori), was a huge fan in high school (1999-2003) but sold all my Tori stuff due to very poor associations with a certain someone I dated. Actually haven't bought any of it back, but I think now may be the time. I'm longing to hear this album again, in particular.

xp, yeah, lex, i wasn't trying to say that i prefer God as a song, just that there are certain production values about it that i like

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

Pretty happy with these results. I ended up going for "Playboy Mommy", it was gonna be that or "Liquid Diamonds" I think.

so... yeah
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/aug/12/tori-amos-from-choirgirl-hotel

only just saw this revive. it really is remarkable, the relative lack of interest in her. as i think i've said before, i think she is the only artist for whom the tim finney seal of approval has failed to work on ilm.

But that's only because she herself has made it taboo to like her, once glamazombie Shirley MacLaine took over.

Good write-up, Lex.

^ yes good piece lex!

one of my favorite albums ever ever ever

she really has fallen off though i think.

lex i'd be curious to hear yr thoughts on anything from The Beekeeper forward... last one i liked a good bit was Scarlet

Between this and the Teedra Moses piece lex is smashing it at the moment.

http://bit.ly/nVc16d Love this part of Pandora's Aquarium - one of her only songs not ruined by production.

lol wrong link http://bit.ly/rjeZuD

Also, I had forgotten how much I adore the synth sound on Purple People. Is that synth sax?

lol there are 17 people on ILX who voted in a Tori Amos poll. #lossofrespect

It's a Mellotron!

Makes sense. You need to cover that song.

I always thought it was a tenor put through some filtering, hahaha.

lex i'd be curious to hear yr thoughts on anything from The Beekeeper forward... last one i liked a good bit was Scarlet

my thoughts on her 00s output:

strange little girls - i like this! some really interesting ideas, the fact that it was a concept album AND a covers album kinda balanced out the potential negatives of each - i loved how she turned all the originals inside out, a lot of the time it was using the cover version as an aggressive tactic to challenge the original song. her eminem cover is one of the most incredible things, also love "rattlesnakes"

scarlet's walk - this was my first active disappointment when i heard it cuz it seemed so conservative and unexperimental, a regression from the path she'd seemed to be going down. but it really does sound very, very lovely at its best - stuff like the last minute of "virginia" is next-level prettiness. i love a good two-thirds of this album, only complaint is length! some good b-sides scattered around the various EPs and web-only shiz that accompanied it - "seaside", "mountain" etc

the beekeeper - dreadful, i prefer not to think about it. iirc there was one song i'd salvage but i haven't got the faintest idea which one it was

american doll posse - this is actually good! overlong and you can lop off a good quarter of it but less than you'd assume. some absolutely gorgeous, light, drifting songs - "bouncing off clouds", "beauty of speed" - and some really awesome dark, brooding ones - "code red", "smokey joe". "teenage hustling" is pretty fierce and "big wheel" as about as great a POP SONG as she's ever written. "i am a M-I-L-F, don't you forget" lol

abnormally attracted to sin - not as bad as the beekeeper but i can't really remember much about it and can't fully cosign an album with that title :/

the xmas album - yeah, no

completely cosign lex's opinion of post-venus tori

fwiw the keepers off scarlets' walk for me:

a sorta fairytale/wednesday/strange/carbon/pancake/taxi ride/another girl's paradise/scarlet's walk/virginia/gold dust/mountain/tombigbee/seaside

that's, you know, a good-sized album in there. and the best of it is no fall-off at all.

I've decided I pretty much like all of Scarlet's Walk.

Unfamiliar with most of Amos' work but looking for an excuse to sample the post-'93 stuff, I loved lex's essay. Will download the album today. Thanks!

Oh man just thinking about "Playboy Mommy"...

i'm heading out now but was planning to uh email a few people about that later today alfred

lex T-Swift sang "A Sorta Fairytale" at some show recently

listened to part of this this weekend (first time in a good 10 years prob) and was struck that "Cruel" sounds like it could've been on Is This Desire?

lex T-Swift sang "A Sorta Fairytale" at some show recently

whooooaomg

i've always thought of FTCGH and ITD? together - both my fav albums by the artist, both the "experimental excursion into electronica" but in such a weird and singular way, neither recognised for their innovation at all

great writeup, lex! 'hotel' still gives me shivers

lol there are 17 people on ILX who voted in a Tori Amos poll. #lossofrespect

#thendontposthere

Spotify is awfully kind to serious Tori fans.

played this last night after reading lex's article. only recently realized that "northern lad" is quietly one of the best songs on here. i think its contrast to the darker, percussive vibe of the rest of the album heightens its impact. like it's kind of disarming in a way that it might not be amidst a less eclectic collection of songs. and such gorgeous vocals obv.

all right, songs that are insurmountable obstacles toward this being my favorite tori record: "black-dove"

yeah i definitely agree with lou that the straightforwardness - in sound and structure - of "spark", "jackie's strength" and "northern lad", and their sequencing scattered amongst the dense weirdness elsewhere, makes them stand out and seem very "classic".

i love "black-dove", i love the weird tangled rhythm when it finally kicks in and her southern accent is at its fiercest. "my blue dreeeeess"! also, amazing piano breakdown.

i love the tangled rhythm too but when it expands to the full band ("but i have to get to texas") it's the weakest moment melodically on the record for me.

which, this is a record of tremendous melodies forever, so i'm not even really slighting it. the accent bugs me, too.

anyway instead of talking about that we could talk about the piano breakdown in "hotel" and how i can't believe that it's played in any earthly time signature

which, is it 5/4? it's just played so well that you get lost in it

10/8?

Has anyone noticed how the swirly denseness of "Hotel" resembles Ray of Light-era Madonna (which happened to coincide with the release of this album)? She even sounds a bit like Maddie.

"Hotel" was first IIRC but yeah generally speaking OTM.

Musically (but not vocally) Kylie's "Too Far" was even closer. It seemed in the late 90s every female artist was doing these dark electronic numbers.

Amos' appearance on Austin City Limits (at least I think it was ACL) just after this album was released is phenomonially great - the full band is with her and most of the songs come from this album. Was surprised at just how great this album is and just how transcendental she can let herself get.

I guess I'm an underwater thing so I guess I can't take it personally

how do i forget the "and is it true / that devils end up like you" part of "she's your cocaine" every time

knocks me flat

anyway instead of talking about that we could talk about the piano breakdown in "hotel" and how i can't believe that it's played in any earthly time signature

that breakdown is so good. cascades of piano coming at you over and over again.

i love how deep her drawl gets on "raspberry swirl", when her voice actually sounds like paper ripping on the final "everybody knows i'm her friend, everybody knows i'm her maaaaaaaayyyyyyyn"

On first blush new single "Carry" is pretty forgettable. Or, rather, hard to remember while it's playing. Vaguely classical piano and strings background music, no tune.

Video is kinda o_0 in the sense of having absolutely no style whatsoever. Really like if yr mother was given $100,000 to make a video clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gzKwOcCOYA&feature=player_embedded

Part of me likes it when she sings in that unaffected style

the clear singing is probably the best thing about it. the "classical" aspect of the new record wildly overblown on this evidence, it seems really slight and simple, esp compared to something like "yes anastasia" or "muhammed my friend". i hear a tune! not a great one but she's meandered far more aimlessly than here. the lyrics i picked up were TERRIBLE and the video is an embarrassment.

...I don't mind it. The strongest Tori records seem to have been borne out of a period of intense personal drama. When I see Tori looking like Michelle Fairley, playing bland music on piano, singing in this calm style like she doesn't have any angst or hunger in her life, I can't really get too upset about it. Won't buy it, but it's like "I'm happy that girl is momming it up in a castle in Ireland somewhere."

You know what I mean? I'm sure she'll make an awesome "I hate my daughter's new boyfriend" album in 2016.

The strongest Tori records seem to have been borne out of a period of intense personal drama

idk about that - it's the accepted wisdom but y'know i loved to venus and back which was written and recorded after she moved to cornwall in marital bliss etc. i think her more disappointing choices have been down to getting old and surrounding herself by the same small team who don't push her out of her comfort zone.

this new song, however, is more like it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t2WjbZKpkI

and folks.....................that's why i'm trans

i think i wrote a really bad essay ten years ago about how i had a sexual awakening to "raspberry swirl"

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson),

using Hollinghurst's prose as a model

I still really like "Black-Dove" and agree the piano in it is amazing, I mostly just find the transitions between the spooky bits and the loud bits a bit clunky - compare with the sense of sheer inevitability of the build-up on tunes like "Mother" and "Icicle", or the way that the disparate sections of "Father Lucifer" or "Professional Widow" really play off each other productively.

I realise the slightly jarring nature of the transitions in "Black-Dove" is the probably the whole point, but I feel like "Hotel" manages that kind of structure better, by really leaning into the disjointed, alien feel, opening up this mutating swamp of pure need. "Hotel" feels like it's trying to move beyond Tori's typical songwriting approach entirely, whereas "Black-Dove" feels a bit like a halfway house - it still wants to resemble a more "traditional" piano tune telling some kind of coherent story.

(probably doesn't help that "you're not a helicopter / you're not a cop out either" has always bugged me, even though I get what she's trying to say)

So of course (inspired by this thread) I listened again this morning and "black-dove" didn't seem nearly as clunky as it does in my head. It's really only the first "but I have to get to texas" section that feels forced to me. Sympathetically, it feels like an attempt to fuse together a lot of disparate ideas she had previously explored.

OTOH:

anyway instead of talking about that we could talk about the piano breakdown in "hotel" and how i can't believe that it's played in any earthly time signature

― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Monday, 15 August 2011 21:58 (ten years ago) link

which, is it 5/4? it's just played so well that you get lost in it

― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Monday, 15 August 2011 22:05 (ten years ago) link

10/8?

― clams cassingle (donna rouge), Monday, 15 August 2011 22:10 (ten years ago) link

This bit is so fucked up in the best way.

Counting it out in my head, it feels like the bars for the first cycle of "where are the velvets" bridge go 10/8, 12/8, 10/8 and then 13/8, then for the second run-through it switches to 10/8 throughout, and then immediately switches to 4/4 for the "you were wild, where are you now?" section - but none of this ever feels remotely jarring!

went looking to see if anyone transcribed it and this has it as basically what tim describes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFMQtRm2R_A

whole channel is filled with tori covers & transcriptions, really glad to have found it

So of course (inspired by this thread) I listened again this morning and "black-dove" didn't seem nearly as clunky as it does in my head.

I did the same (for the first time in MANY years) and those transitions read to me as something like another iteration of what she'd already done with the bridge of "Pretty Good Year". Not in a lazy sense at all, more in the sense of "reaching into one's bag". (An aside: not sure if anyone was better at writing bridges than Tori circa '92-'98.) "Black-Dove" also a much better song overall than I'd remembered it being, though the me of 1998 would've voted "Jackie's Strength" (which seems heavy-handed now, but then, I was an actual teenager in 1998) and the me of 2021 is all in on "Spark" (speaking of killer bridges).

Yeah bridges - or if not always technically bridges then a profusion of new melodic sections and overlays appearing in the second halves of songs - was her secret weapon. You can hear Taylor Swift leaning into this style on recent tunes like "August" and "Ivy", but the other parallel I think of sometimes is Xenomania. If Tori had ever moonlighted as a pop songwriter she might have ended up producing tunes a bit like Sugababes' "Ace Reject".

it's a bit of a shame to me that "hotel", which is my favourite on the album, ultimately ended up being an extreme of her sound, having pushed her songwriting as far as she could, & not a branching off point for all sorts of new ideas. she did keep playing around with electronics on to venus and back but none of the songs on that come close to "hotel".

imo: "datura"

but yeah it is a shame that there are not more tori songs like it, and that she retreated from this sound pretty much entirely

the thing about "spark"'s bridge that makes it even better somehow is that it feeds right into that stretched out version of the chorus, where every line just builds on the already overwhelming emotion of the previous: "you thought that you were the bomb yes well so did i / say you don't want it / say you don't want it / again and again / but you DON'T / DON'T really mean it." and then i love the way it deflates after that, exhausted, and retreats back into the first verse. ugh. "spark." it's the greatest song of all time

If Tori had ever moonlighted as a pop songwriter

Ha, while I was thinking about bridges earlier today, I briefly considered an alternate reality in which instead of going solo after Y Kant Tori Read, Tori became an industry writer who was brought in on other peoples' sessions as a specialist in fixing the problem of "this song has two parts, but should have three", had a solid 8-10 year run of cowriting credits, then got forced into retirement by Swedish Math.

xp Exactly this. "Spark" is so, so good.

"Datura" goes further on paper, but in reality it feels more in the tradition of "cruel" / "iieee" / "juarez" / "riot poof" but with a long spoken-word section. That's not a criticism, as all of those songs are great, but there's a sense of them using obliqueness as a strategy, as if one of the aspects of trip hop that really fired Tori up was how the apparent diffusion of the songwriting impulse into production (like aspirin dropped into a glass of water) resulted in moodscapes where tension is creeping and cumulative, where the song weaves around the listeners rather than confronting them head-on.

"Hotel" can't be described in those terms IMO. At a vibe level it's more like techno than trip-hop, a direct attack with the filters pushed into the red throughout. I wonder if Tori ever got into the big singles from Beaucoup Fish?

i would probably bargain with satan to have more music that sounds like "hotel," maybe it's good that we only have one. keeps us humble

yeah as soon as i mentioned "datura" i should've been like disclaimer: "datura" is not a funhouse ride through progtronica

there's a sound effect on "hotel" that reminds me directly of a song on the passengers album but that is probably a coincidence

Ha, while I was thinking about bridges earlier today, I briefly considered an alternate reality in which instead of going solo after Y Kant Tori Read, Tori became an industry writer who was brought in on other peoples' sessions as a specialist in fixing the problem of "this song has two parts, but should have three", had a solid 8-10 year run of cowriting credits, then got forced into retirement by Swedish Math.

― New York Review of Wooks (swim), Friday, 8 October 2021 03:11 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah! "Tear In Your Hand" is always the go-to example for me, the way it appears to start as a fairly conventional post-Elton John pop song and gradually, almost imperceptibly becomes more ambitious and complicated: the way the melodic shifts are so intimately locked into the shifts in the lyrics (e.g. "maybe it's time to wave goodbye now" or "I know, I know you well - well, better than I used to...") as well as into each other. Until you realise that she's also picking up (consciously or otherwise) on the compositional ambition of Rickie Lee Jones' "Living It Up" and "Pirates (So Long Lonely Avenue)" but replacing the vertigo of those tunes with a kind of sweep-of-inevitability, more convertible sports car speeding through the Alps than rollercoaster.

I never even noticed the uneven beats in the bridge of "Hotel"! The rhythmic displacement in this song that I always loved was her phrasing of "I guess that what I'm seeking, guess that what I'm seeking...isn't here."

a profusion of new melodic sections and overlays

"Almost Rosey" on American Doll Posse is the song of hers I always think of this way. Each new section introduces rhythmic, harmonic and melodic ideas to the song to increase its intensity; it's like a series of bets being laid down, and she wins each one.

well i know we're dying
and there's no sign of a parachute