POLLing the Damage On - ILM Artist Poll #91 - Tori Amos (voting open until 9 September 2018)

https://i.imgur.com/NYDKpOl.jpg

Songs: Rank your top 25 Tori Amos songs (minimum 5). Y Kant Tori Read songs and collaborations such as "Blue Skies" are all eligible. Alternate versions of songs will be counted together but feel free to specify particular versions.

Albums: Rank your top 5 Tori Amos albums (minimum 3). Compilations and EPs are all eligible

Remixes: Rank your top 5 Tori Amos remixes (minimum 3).

Send ballots to ilmtoriamospoll AT gmail dot com. Order ballots from highest to lowest (or specify if you're submitting an unranked ballot) and include your username.

Voting closes sometime around 12am GMT on 9 September 2018

So stoked for this

Voted

Oh my! So looking forward to this one.

I look forward to learning about which songs to keep after 1998.

Don't sleep on her many covers! For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QvTiFSmdS4

a few relative obscurities I want to highlight are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiToJk2qGO4

Siren: a From the Choirgirl Hotel era track from the Great Expectations soundtrack that would have been right at home on that album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqfnx7IjI8k

Cool on Your Island: the highlight from Y Kant Tori Read

Excited for this!

There are so many b-sides from the early years that are worthy of a good placement - “Here In My Head”, “Sister Janet”, “Honey”, “Sugar”, “Upside Down”, “Alamo”, “Cooling”.

In fact if you listened to the above songs as a set it would sound quite coherent: spare, somber, most of them intensely focused on the piano - and exhibiting Tori’s key trick (during the early years) of using the piano arrangement to create a kind of emotional chiaroscuro which complements and complicates the topline.

Exciting! But the only remix of hers I've heard is the Professional Widow one.

yeah all her b-sides from the first four albums are definitely worth checking out and the Little Earthquakes ones are especially good. my favourite B-sides you didn't mention Tim are Flying Dutchman, Mary, and Take to the Sky

I'm not sure how popular the remix poll will be but I figured that it might be an interesting side poll with how many there were for her late 90's singles and the Professional Widow one being a hit

I really like those b-sides too but they seemed to me to be more outliers in mood.

One thing I'd like to use the nomination period for is thinking/talking not just about which songs are good but also how to listen to them and what to listen for.

I wrote this post a while back which was trying to get at what I think is really distinguishing feature of many of Tori's best work:

I spent the last few days binging and - this will probably change again in future but - I mostly clicked hardest with anything that really spotlighted the interplay between Tori's voice and her piano playing.

I think that specific quality is one that doesn't get talked about much... Her piano playing is less remarkable considered in isolation than understood as this remarkable backdrop to her songs, the sense that these figure-eights she draws around the vocal melodies really accent the songs' emotional content, facial expressions you don't see but hear. It's really unusual for the pop song form, I think, the extent of chromatic density which is essentially there to closely complement the core melodic/narrative/thematic structure.

Take a song like "Doughnut Song": the way the piano rolls through the song like storm clouds, countervailing waves of light and darkness, the way she uses the lower register to really punctuate and emphasise the heavier moments ("and if I'm wasting all your time this time..." and then the left hand really digs in) and then the higher register to suggest wandering and tentativeness that leads off her questioning conclusions ("I guess I'm way beyond the pale....?") - this is one of several ways in which "Doughnut Song" is a sequel to "Honey", which has that same sense of storm clouds rolling in, and is similarly built around very delicate piano/guitar interplay.

Or on "Upside Down", the way the piano follows along with the middle-eight vocal ("I say 'the world is sick' / You say 'tell me what that makes us darlin'" etc.) but fills in all the bits in between the song's dialogues, like the notes are registering the impact, a bruise forming on the skin of the vocal lines.

Or on "Sister Janet", the way the central figure through the verses is played with increasing intensity, until she follows up "slipping the blade in easy" with "slipping the blade in the marmalade", and a sense of lightness suddenly enters with these higher notes, that leads directly into the chorus's reframing of the central riff as somehow optimistic and widescreen rather than claustrophobic and shadowed. And then she jumps up the register for the first half of the second verse to simultaneously suggest a ratcheting of intensity and an increased sense of vulnerability, a turning of the screw with ambiguous consequences.

And maybe the very specific thing about Boys for Pele which is so far out, and which maybe makes it her greatest album in the final analysis, is how it places this particular quality of her performances at the centre of almost every song. Whereas on From The Choirgirl Hotel, if she wants to do southern boogie skronk, she fucking gets the band in*, on "In The Springtime of his Voodoo" the centre is always always the piano (except when, bizarrely given the surrounding song, she switches over the harpsichord). The first minute and a half is in some ways one of the most astonishing things she ever did, the way she uses these exploratory, ruminative piano lines to trace out an idiom that is not even hers except by genetic extraction - and the pay-off when the crawling baseline and percussion come in is just massive.

* Not that this is a bad thing at all, and some days that aspect of FTCH (is part of what) makes it seem to me like her best album, but from a particular vantage point one could almost argue that simply blowing up your sonic palette is maybe the less radical gesture; the harder manoeuvre is to work out how to do anything with the one you've already got.

― Tim F, Monday, 28 November 2016 11:56 (one year ago) Permalink

It's interesting (for me at least) thinking about the above in context of Tori's later work where you get (from time to time) really strong melodic songwriting ("A Sorta Fairytale", "Taxi Ride", "Bouncing Off Clouds" etc.) and really intricate, ruminative piano lines (much of Night of Hunters) but rarely the two interacting with and reinforcing each other in the way they so frequently do on the earlier albums. So the songs don't typically feel as radically multivalent, even if they can be just as catchy or just as dense.

I did not vote for many bsides, partly because Tori has one of the most expansive bside collections around, but here are some of my favs:

After All "Strange Little Girl" single[57] – 2001 – 1996
Bachelorette "Spark" single[62] A Piano: The Collection 1998, 2006
Beulah Land "Jackie's Strength" single[63] A Piano 1998, 2006
Black Swan "Pretty Good Year" single[64] A Piano 1994, 2006
Daisy Dead Petals "Cornflake Girl" single[67] More Pink, A Piano 1994, 2006– 2006– 2007
Flying Dutchman "China" single[69] A Piano, Gold Dust 1992, 2006, 2012
Here. In My Head "Crucify" single More Pink: The B-Sides, A Piano 1992, 1994, 2006
Honey "Cornflake Girl" single[67] More Pink, A Piano 1994, 2006
If 6 was 9 "Cornflake Girl" UK single – 1994
Mary "Crucify" single Tales of a Librarian, A Piano 1992, 2003, 2006
Merman digital download No Boundaries compilation, A Piano 1998, 1999, 2006
The Pool "Winter" single A Piano: The Collection 1992, 2006
Purple People "Spark" single – 1998
Sister Janet "Cornflake Girl" single[67] More Pink: The B-Sides, A Piano 1994, 2006
Sister Named Desire "Talula" single – 1996
Smells Like Teen Spirit Crucify EP[60] – 1992
Sugar "China" single[69] More Pink, A Piano 1992, 1994, 2006
Toodles Mr. Jim "Caught a Lite Sneeze" single – 1996
Upside Down "Silent All These Years" single "Winter" single, More Pink, A Piano 1992, 1994, 2006
the way down

live covers:

kate bush - running up that hill
fleetwood mac - silver springs
neil young - philadelphia

tim f that is a great post

Yes, Tim F, I enjoyed reading it very much. You put a lot of my general feelings about her early work into words, thanks for this post!

this is probably gonna be way harder to put together than my sp ballot even, but i'm gonna try

i put on choirgirl and i think i have to vote for all of these songs, "iieee" and "liquid diamonds" in particular

here is the setlist from the show last year at paramount seattle

in comparison to the nights before it was incredibly sedate. my friend hated it, somewhat ruining the show for me. not a patch on her SLG show, but some cool selections:

i i e e e
Amber Waves
(with "America the Beautiful" intro)
Beauty of Speed
Seaside
Silent All These Years
Sister Janet
Your Cloud

Fake Muse Network

Silver Springs
(Fleetwood Mac cover)
Running to Stand Still
(U2 cover)
Apollo's Frock
Another Girl's Paradise
Forest of Glass
Wildwood

Encore:
Precious Things
Raspberry Swirl

liquid diamonds is possibly my fave tori song ever brad

Are there many fan faves which are likely to show up in the Top 10 from after the 90s era? I think the 'Librarian' comp was the point I got off the bus, and everything since is a blank. I kept meaning to dig through the late period and ILM showed the way a few times but it's all still a bit of a mystery.

Wow yeah that's an interesting setlist.. iirc she doesn't play The Big Hits much. If i had a song as good as Cornflake Girl i'd be singing it every night of my life. Woulda been cool to hear her tackle Silver Springs and Running To Stand Still.

much like peej she does not play the hits anymore (though peej played the river, to bring you my love, rid of me and 50 foot queenie in her encore last time i saw her).

she introduced silver springs with a note about how it was written by a woman we all love (otm)

compare that set to any other night on the recent tour and she played upwards of 50 covers.

here is the strange little girls setlist, much more classic

7 Bonnie & Clyde
Siren
Take To The Sky
Hey Jupiter
Spring Haze
Merman
Real Men
Space Dog
Putting The Damage On
Mother
Playboy Mommy
Rattlensnakes
Me and a Gun
Butterfly

1st Encore:
Northern Lad
Twinkle

2nd Encore:
Tear In Your Hand
Sister Janet
Over The Rainbow

i mean, she played twinkle which never fails to destroy me

Just voted. This is the first one of these in which I've cast a ballot in forever.

pisces - night of the hunter is a very good record. her best since the early ones imo

I only voted for Cool on Your Island from Y Kant Tori Read, but that album is less corny than its reputation. I could easily have included Fayth and Fire on the Side (and maybe I should've).

onto under the pink and i'm sorry but i'm gonna need to submit at least three ballots

may vote for "past the mission" for the guitar tone alone

hey ufo, if i could not specify 5 remixes is it cheating to use those votes for bsides

Are there many fan faves which are likely to show up in the Top 10 from after the 90s era? I think the 'Librarian' comp was the point I got off the bus, and everything since is a blank. I kept meaning to dig through the late period and ILM showed the way a few times but it's all still a bit of a mystery.

― piscesx, Monday, August 27, 2018 10:34 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't expect any songs after the 90s to get into the top 10 (maybe "Gold Dust" somewhere in the top 30), but I can never recommend enough the two final songs on American Doll Posse, "Smokey Joe" and "Dragon".

gold dust is a good record for sure

also in re to alfreds post 1998 comment, tvab did come out in 1999 - and that has some of her best songs, including datura, lust and suede

oh my god i finally get to venus and back

brad is doing the lords work here

i've always found it confusing and hard to get into! for some reason it makes complete sense tonight

I recently listened to TVAB outtake "Zero Point" for the first time and it makes the rest of that album seem pretty restrained.

have not heard that tim

2nd disc live is some of her best live material, perfectly recorded

also worth seeking: her charlie rose interview with her famous quotes regarding christians and the Hard Rock Live session with father lucifer

also the original non-cleared (due to label issues) version of four tet's unspoken features the tori sample in full from winter

https://www.stereogum.com/1348321/hear-the-original-tori-amos-sampling-version-of-four-tets-unspoken/mp3s/

* Not that this is a bad thing at all, and some days that aspect of FTCH (is part of what) makes it seem to me like her best album, but from a particular vantage point one could almost argue that simply blowing up your sonic palette is maybe the less radical gesture; the harder manoeuvre is to work out how to do anything with the one you've already got.

btw venus is also the latter of these, it's just her working out how to do anything with the expanded arrangements she already has

My thinking on this is reverse-influenced by some review of FTCH I remember reading at the time it was released which quoted the line in "Northern Lad", "I guess you go too far when pianos try to be guitars" and framed it as a negative critique of Boys for Pele to which FTCH was the corrective.

I think this idea is right for the wrong reasons (or, rather, wrong for the right reasons): the magic of Boys for Pele is precisely that pianos try to be guitars.

I will reserve final judgment on whether Venus achieves something equivalent until I listen to it again, but my prima facie hot take is that Tori never developed the absolute mastery of samples and loops that came to her so easily with the piano, and perversely this is what makes both Choirgirl* and Venus interesting - their residual clunkiness is itself compelling and enveloping, filled with the beginner's luck of a novice's mistakes - any canny producer would have told her that songs weren't supposed to sound like "Concertina" or "Glory of the 80s", and we'd be the poorer if they had, or if she'd listened.

*The one exception being "Liquid Diamonds", which sounds amazing, and is far and away Tori's best-sounding song outside Under the Pink, but it's not clear to me how that happened.

idk if it achieves something equivalent, she's just sort of in the same position with different instruments. for me choirgirl is v direct and venus is v exploratory (pele may be both, part of its magic). i can't say why it suddenly made sense to me last night but there's a lot more room to get lost in venus

I've never been able to get into To Venus and Back, it's where all the problems that characterise most of her 00s work started and ignores most of the strengths of her previous work. It has a real lack of dynamics and intensity and also very weak bridges or even no bridge at all in some tracks, when previously they were a highlight. The production feels both too glossy and too hazy and de-emphasises her playing which used to be a source of very strong melodic hooks. While some of Choirgirl Hotel tracks like Cruel didn't feature her piano etc. playing in the same way as usual, this wasn't a problem since she still created engaging and complex electronic textures to make up for this. The hazy production and the general lack of intensity make the album feel like it all blends together

The best thing I can say about it really is it at least feels like she was still experimenting and trying to push her sound forward, even though the results aren't very engaging. If she'd spent more time with it perhaps it could have been better, and Datura especially is quite nice but I'd imagine it'd be even better if it were recorded a year earlier. It's shocking that she could go from a career high like From the Choirgirl Hotel to it in only a year.

my current favourite post-Choirgirl Hotel album is probably Native Invader, though there's a few later albums I've yet to revisit. it's the one that most feels like a natural continuation of that incredible run of albums in the 90's rather than the overly long stylistic diversions she spent most of the 00's doing. there's still some of the Scarlet's Walk soft rock sound around with some of the rhodes-based tracks but it's only one of the moods on the album instead of the only one and this goes a long long way. Reindeer King and Bang are two of her very best post-98 tracks as well and she's experimenting with electronics again on tracks like Up the Creek, which has a successful build in intensity across the track. it's still a bit too long but at least it's only around an hour instead of over 70 minutes like all her 00s albums

also sorry Ross, the remixes poll is a separate poll so you can't submit B-sides for it. if you want to resubmit your tracks ballot with some B-sides you forgot to add though feel free to send a new one.

I also don't think Choirgirl sounds clunky at all, not even in any sort of 'naive' way, the arrangements are all incredible and feel like a natural outgrowth of the more beat-driven tracks on Under the Pink and Boys for Pele like God and Caught a Lite Sneeze.

in the same way though it's not that hard to trace a path from the very live band arrangements on Northern Lad and Playboy Mommy to Scarlet's Walk where pretty much every song had that sort of sound except rarely executed as well.

I just heard "Zero Point" for the first time and it's better and more interesting than anything that made Venus.

drawing a line at venus and scarlet makes sense to me but also doesn't, scarlet has incredible songs pushing through the cloudy production

i've had "virginia" in my head since this poll started

I like Scarlet's Walk more than Venus, it has many of the same flaws (lack of intensity, overly similar mood across the entire album, the production de-emphasises her playing) but much higher highs - Taxi Ride is probably my favourite post-98 track and I'm hoping I can squeeze it into my ballot. if you cut out a little bit of the bloat it's a very solid soft rock album, if disappointingly unambitious in sound for her after her 90s work.

i also don't think venus really exhibits the problems of most of her 00s work, she was rarely that sonically weird again

"juarez" and "suede" are v strange songs but they're not remotely hookless, etc.

"1000 oceans" does kinda signal the dawning of a simpler songwriting style but also it rules

Something I wonder if people can really understand, really, is just how incredibly difficult it is to be a musician who attempts to make music that isn't tethered to any one genre convention

Tori has never tied her practice to any single tradition-- it's not classical, it's not blues, it's not jazz, it's not pop-- she is essentially attempting at finding her own singular language, and as a result, her albums are rife with spectacular "failures", which is itself (I believe) a hallmark of a genius

And so: polls like these are fucking impossible to run for someone like Tori, or Kate Bush, or Lisa Germano, or any other artist where their low points and experimental moments are just as important as their "hits"

Like, I am drafting up my ballot and realizing that "Hungarian Wedding Song" and "The Pool" probably mean more to me and my life than "Cornflake Girl". Which is crazy

Try and pick-only-one with Boys For Pele. It's impossible. I remember trying to select which song to include on a mix CD when I was a teenager. Impossible to choose. Not because they're all equally terrific, but because they're all individually flawed. (I picked "Doughnut Song" if I'm looking for a mid-mix pick, "Twinkle" if it's a closer)

It's also very weird for me to address my own Tori fandom

There was a moment when I was 16 where I heard .3 seconds of the final decaying chord of "Icicle" at the moment when my high-school girlfriend picked up the phone while switching off the music. I correctly identified it, and she told me it was really weird and strange that even just a brief glimpse of a piano chord over a phone line could be identified, as I had done-- she thought I was an obsessed fan, and I guess I was.

I haven't listened to "To Venus And Back" more than ten times, and "Strange Little Girls" onward more than once. I've never even got through "Scarlet's Walk", or ever put on "The Beekeeper" except as research for a review of "Unrepentant Geraldines". I like moments off the recent albums but there is no emotional investment when I listen.

I wish I could understand how it is that I relate to Tori psychologically, it is so strange and kind of scares me? like on a professional level. Anyway I'm done my ballot

I remember, in a manic coffee airport-lounge moment, writing a big diatribe about how frustrated I was with Tori's post-Earthquakes lyrical bent, and that I felt it was a response to "obsessed fandom"-- she started obscuring elements of her own biography-within-her-songs as a method of self-preservation

I really believe it still, if anything, more than ever, and don't think any of her albums (or anyone else's) come close (lyrically) to what she was doing on Earthquakes

The Tori fandom that I have witnessed in others throughout her career makes me feel inadequate about even attempting to submit a ballot of my own, but Im still going to give it a shot. I haven't heard much of her post-90s work, and even among the the albums of hers that I own, I haven't listened to them much since that era.

xp to Brad the hooks are much more subtle and those tracks are mostly about settling into a groove and letting things drift in and out in the background, rather than the sort of dramatic shifts that often characterised her previous work. I find the tracks interesting enough on their own but when all put together the resulting album is underwhelming and has never properly opened up to me. the problem is partially that I don't really know how to relate to it I guess - it's Tori, but at her very weirdest and without most of the things I loved about her other 90s albums but also without the grounding in genre conventions that characterise most of her 00s work - there's nothing else that sounds like it really.

There was recently a thread about "runs of four perfect songs"

Insofar as "runs of four trash songs on otherwise perfect albums" there is no more hated run of four songs for me than Winter -> Happy Phantom -> China -> Leather

What a weird fucking Tori fan I am turning out to be

Weird, indeed! "China" was one of three songs I knew immediately HAD to be on my ballot.

Re: China, the chorus is pure YKTR schmaltz in a way that I'm relieved she never touched afterward

The "ah ah! ah-ya-ya-ya!!!" sudden minor shift on the vocalise section is like, 'I break out in hives'

Regarding "the success of FTCH's experiments", I agree with Tim that Liquid Diamonds is an outlier in how perfect and magical it is but also urge listeners not to forget "Purple People"

FTCH had the best b-sides imho

I adore Winter but the other three are certainly the weak point on Little Earthquakes. I can barely stand Happy Phantom and Leather, while China is simply 'fine' but feels redundant and contains none of her usual lyrical greatness.

Urging everyone to re-listen to "American Doll Posse" which remains my favourite post-FTCH album, so many bomb tracks

OK sorry for the thread clutter <3

multiple xposts - Mostly the songs on Scarlet's Walk aren't more simple than her previous work, it's just the sonic palette that tends to downplay their twists and turns when you're not actually listening closely (and it's an album that really rewards close listening, or perhaps rather suffers from background listening by seeming to work too well as a background listening album).

otm. “carbon” for example

Apparently "China" was written in 1987 - i.e. before YKTR was even released - which makes a lot of sense.

Stuff like "Sweet Dreams" and "Take To The Sky" also suggest a level of continuity with YKTR arguably. If you include all the b-sides from that era it really places the spare piano-focused ballads on the debut in the minority and by comparison posits the sparseness of much of Under the Pink as a bigger break than it sounds like otherwise.

Something I wonder if people can really understand, really, is just how incredibly difficult it is to be a musician who attempts to make music that isn't tethered to any one genre convention

Tori has never tied her practice to any single tradition-- it's not classical, it's not blues, it's not jazz, it's not pop-- she is essentially attempting at finding her own singular language, and as a result, her albums are rife with spectacular "failures", which is itself (I believe) a hallmark of a genius

I think this is otm and it's kind of what I was getting at when I used "clunky" to describe parts of the late nineties work. It's not that I think of these songs as "failures" (or even poorly arranged), more that for me there's a sense of being able to "see the joins", see her stretch out her style in real time, in a way that you typically don't get with someone making more "generic" (in an objective sense) music.

In a sense this makes how intuitive her best piano-based songs feel even more remarkable, though it's hard for me to determine how much that's just the extent to which I've internalised their methodology. With a piece like "Doughnut Song", for me it's like, "how could anyone be so absolutely in control??"

there is no more hated run of four songs for me than Winter -> Happy Phantom -> China -> Leather

i actually get this, it’s the stretch of the album that’s worn worst for me. “winter” still makes me cry like a baby dgmw

"Tear In Your Hand" is the key underrated track on LE (and one of my all-time favourites).

many xps to Tim it's not that the songwriting is simpler in her post-98 work (though I would certainly argue that Venus mostly abandons songwriting complexities in favour of her textural experiments), it's that, as you said, the sonic palettes she uses downplay the complexities wherever they are (even when in the case of Venus they are the most complex thing about the album) and since she uses those palettes across entire increasingly long albums, this only further downplays the complexities by making the tracks all blend together when listened to in album context.

"Tear In Your Hand" is the key underrated track on LE (and one of my all-time favourites).

― Tim F, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 7:09 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

top five all time tori song

neil says hi by the way

I love that she goes straight from that aside to "I don't believe you're leaving 'cos me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream." Such an archetypal Tori shift.

it's in contention for my #1, such an overwhelmingly generous track, it's wave after wave of gorgeous melodies rolling over each other

hi neil

I don't think "Tear In Your Hand" made my ballot and it should've, really

Purple People, Hungarian Wedding Song, Cooling and The Pool all did, insofar as b-sides are concerned

I think my entire body was turned inside out by her cover of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" at least four times, my favourite of her covers, but I didn't include covers in the poll

One thing I was reminded of when I was compiling my favourites was the existence of the Live Venus album, which I remember listening to exactly twice, and realizing the second-time through (at about the 7 minute mark of "The Waitress") that I like Tori when she's more economical and had (at that time) no use for this music

something I've been unable to unhear recently is that the start of i i e e e evokes the exact same feeling as the Ocarina of Time potion shop music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35M7xhA-oVo

oh we were talking a bit about little earthquakes and i wanted to mention i'm voting for my theme song, "girl," really high

shouts out to the drumming on "precious things" which i'm still jealous of

they're not as complicated as i thought when i was a kid but it's just the perfect pattern to play on that chorus

“Girl” is so amazing. The Strauss-reference in the intro, the hurriedly-written-in-the-studio lyrics (and yet multi-tracked with conviction) middle section (“pillow to my dots”).. and suddenly I’m remembering which artist Tori in my mind sits next to, not Kate or Lisa Germano after all but John cale

Voted very, very high for “Pretty Good Year” because that song does everything

and suddenly I’m remembering which artist Tori in my mind sits next to, not Kate or Lisa Germano after all but John cale

omg hell yeah!!!!!!!

imo you could assemble a very scary album out of the little earthquakes b-sides

Like, I am drafting up my ballot and realizing that "Hungarian Wedding Song" and "The Pool" probably mean more to me and my life than "Cornflake Girl". Which is crazy

i've never comprehensively listened to her b-sides (i will be very enthusiastically voting for "here. in my head" which was for years the only tori b-side i knew, and was also the name of my favorite tori fansite) so i've never heard "the pool" before. wtf is this, wow

Her celebrated LE/UTP-era b-sides we’re largely reallllly generic piano balladry. I think Tori fans were attracted to the straight-forward ness of them, compared to the hairy weirdness of album tracks.

Like, an album with Upside Down, Here In My Head, Honey, Black Swan and Sugar on it would be... comparatively so so generic to actual LE/UTP album cuts

I do like the occasional weirder b-side (shout outs to Daisy Dead Petals and it’s made-up-on-the-spot lyrics; Ode To The Banana King also v wtf) but largely I think they’re failure-failures— bad from any angle. YKTR-lite pop attempts (“Sweet Dreams”, “Take To The Sky”), meandering improvisations (“Thoughts”, most of the BFP b-sides); or, worst of all, the song that very nearly un-casts whatever spell she cast to cause all her defenders to forgive murmuring accusations of Kate Bush Biting, theatre kid narcissism, oversung overemoting, and a dozen other things: the shitshow that is “Flying Dutchman”

i don't think there's anything generic about "here in my head" or "sugar"

i agree that little earthquakes is basically fine as it is, there's just a harrowing quality to those solo piano tracks i hear

Her celebrated LE/UTP-era b-sides we’re largely reallllly generic piano balladry. I think Tori fans were attracted to the straight-forward ness of them, compared to the hairy weirdness of album tracks.

Like, an album with Upside Down, Here In My Head, Honey, Black Swan and Sugar on it would be... comparatively so so generic to actual LE/UTP album cuts

I think this is true up to a point - e.g. I suspect Tori replaced "Honey" with "The Wrong Band" on Under The Pink because she thought the lightness of "The Wrong Band" made sense in between the sadness of "Baker Baker" and "The Waitress" and hence contributed to the album dynamic in a way that "Honey" (much the better song, though I like TWB) did not.

But a lot of those b-sides ("Honey", "Upside Down", "Sister Janet", "Here In My Head") are brilliant not because they're straightforward but because they really zoom in on that song/piano interrelationship I was talking about upthread. They're intense in a way that their parent albums only go for sparingly ("Icicle", "Mother" - yes those two songs are also more epic versions of this style but they're also easily top ten in my charts of pain so it's hardly a damning comparison), perfectly formed little worlds unto themselves.

Oh, I forgot to say that "reallllly generic piano balladry" wasn't meant to be a value judgement, per se. If anything, it was a treat for people (myself included) to hear her approach, in those songs I mentioned, a more straightforward "song, voice, piano; no wailing or swearing or 'a piano tries to be a guitar'". Those songs are like "Pretty Good Year" without the surprise.

But her overall thesis of trying to serve us more compositionally-complicated material was a positive decision. "The Wrong Band" is bottom of my list for UTP tracks (I'd even rank several b-sides higher) but I think it was the right decision to include it to make the album more balanced.

Oh I agree with that, also because those b-sides shine more as b-sides.

Although my first Tori Amos album was Under The Pink and my copy came with a bonus disc of b-sides, so I heard a lot of these songs before I had ever heard, like, “Silent All These Years”, and it was like they were part of a standalone album anyway.

a key thing with tori i think is her conservatory kick out at a young age, where she played zeppelin - informed her contradictions that would go on throughout her career. fgti good post above about her styles btw - but like when i saw her on the recent tour, it mostly felt like a classical set tbh, which makes sense given her return to gramophone on gold dust and night of the hunters which is basically a tori classical record full hilt

also reindeer king is probably her best song in years off native invaders

also it is hard to divorce tori's urges from her christian upbringing, she was definitely a beacon of light for me as a confused christian and she helped me get out of that lifestyle for better or worse. doesn't seem like she carries much of that with her now though..my favourite moments were always where she hit the piano with a thud like on precious things live, or when she does that as a way to signal the next song. again the set i saw was mellow but previous nights showed she was literally on fire

anything related to tori amos is always weird for me because I think American Doll Posse and Abnormally Attracted to Sin contain some of her best songs; the whole blog ecosystem around the former also contains some of my favorite writing-writing by anyone, and they're both omni-genre, ambitious, expansive albums that are much better than yet another piano ballad

katherine what do you recommend from those albums? i dropped off around scarlet-beekeeper, came back for gold dust/night of hunter

"Smokey Joe" has been mentioned upthread. "Give" is a fantastic trip-song and very before its time (as in, it came well before everyone in the fucking world started reviving trip-hop songs), "Abnormally Attracted to Sin" to a lesser extent. "Body and Soul" and "Teenage Hustling" are both great rock songs; "Big Wheel" and "Fast Horse" are country-ish; "Fire to Your Plain" (her "Jolene" I guess) is not essential per se but does contain the best-worst pun she's done in years ("set the satnav to hell -- or would it be a purg-a-tory?); "Curtain Call" and "Starling" are two of her most devastating songs -- albeit for different reasons -- and would be in my top 5, probably, definitely top 10.

*trip-hop song

basically the only *bad* song on abnormally attracted to sin is "Not Dying Today" and basically everyone on fansites etc agrees it's bad

cool thanks katherine, will check those out!

interesting that tori intentionally did not play many songs from native invaders live on the tour, and also claims it was not the album she wanted to make.

Thanks katherine for the reminders!

"caught a lite sneeze" is such a journey

i love her delivery in the third verse so much

Yeah the fluttering of her voice on the reprise of "DREAMED a little dream / MADE my own pretty hate machine" always gooses the bumps

a musician who attempts to make music that isn't tethered to any one genre convention

I really loved "Cloud Riders" from the last album, anyone else would've recorded it as a full-on glam thing but she mostly avoids obvious signifiers and creates her own sound-world, as usual.

Yeah the fluttering of her voice on the reprise of "DREAMED a little dream / MADE my own pretty hate machine" always gooses the bumps

― fgti is for (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, August 29, 2018 11:11 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nearly posted this one in the lyric thread

"wrong band" was correctly assessed upthread but "instead of just leaving" is one of my favorite tori melodies ever

But the recent song I really really love is "Promise," twilit organ ballad that grows slowly less desolate, shades of (for me anyway) Catherine Wheel "Phantom of the American Mother," plus I like Tash's voice and endearing Gen Z-y way of pronouncing b as a fricative.

one of the things i really like about under the pink is that its sound feels both sparer and deeper than little earthquakes. the songs on little earthquakes are often swaddled in thick atmospheres, heavy reverb, etc., and under the pink seems to delete a lot of this in favor of having a very direct sound, which is then is complicated and deepened any time the band comes in, ex. the contrast between the verses and choruses of "past the mission"

i guess the guy playing drums on both le and utp is carlo nuccio? he totally rules

one of the things i really like about under the pink is that its sound feels both sparer and deeper than little earthquakes.

Read this as I had "Bells For Her" playing, a song that sounds like the quiet parts of a horror movie.

But the recent song I really really love is "Promise," twilit organ ballad that grows slowly less desolate, shades of (for me anyway) Catherine Wheel "Phantom of the American Mother," plus I like Tash's voice and endearing Gen Z-y way of pronouncing b as a fricative.

― geoffreyess, Wednesday, August 29, 2018 11:32 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally my favorite song on geraldines, otm

would like to suggest one of the best sequences of songs on an album ever is the last five tracks on under the pink

Ahhh that's interesting. I think "Space Dog" is a very weak song!

lol i think it kicks a ton of ass

in fact that outburst was inspired by "space dog"

live version of space dog on tvab is dope.

matt chamberlain also a great drummer on some of tori's records, as well as on fiona

for the remix poll i'd like to rep for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt-LKsyT1qc

haha, brad you reminded me i have that maxi single! i used to collect them all..

one of the things i really like about under the pink is that its sound feels both sparer and deeper than little earthquakes. the songs on little earthquakes are often swaddled in thick atmospheres, heavy reverb, etc., and under the pink seems to delete a lot of this in favor of having a very direct sound, which is then is complicated and deepened any time the band comes in, ex. the contrast between the verses and choruses of "past the mission"

― princess of hell (BradNelson)

Yeah, for sure. LE feels pretty indebted to KB to me, those low-pitched male harmonies sound like something out of army dreamers - she's still finding her footing on that record. Great record, but I do get tired of how people overrate it critically in comparison to her later work, she definitely started to spin her weird abstract poetry yarn on UTP and took it to acid alice in wonderland levels on BFP, which Tori recently said she would find hard to go back and listen to. Who could blame her, that's a break up album par excellence.

one of the things i really like about under the pink is that its sound feels both sparer and deeper than little earthquakes. the songs on little earthquakes are often swaddled in thick atmospheres, heavy reverb, etc., and under the pink seems to delete a lot of this in favor of having a very direct sound, which is then is complicated and deepened any time the band comes in, ex. the contrast between the verses and choruses of "past the mission"

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Wednesday, August 29, 2018 6:34 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's an interesting quote from September 1992 which confirms that Tori very consciously sought to highlight the sound of her piano-playing on UTP:

"For the next record, I want to work with this instrument exclusively, not synths with it, but the acoustic piano alone. It could be percussive, or it could be orchestral, maybe it could have effects. There might be solos. I'm out of the way to respect the fact that you're not the only one who's finally claiming that this is my instrument. Because I can hear what it is saying to me, I have a responsibility to listen to what it's saying to me. And now it says, "I have some really good ideas and you're a human, and you could take them down for me - if you can get your own stuff got ideas." I've really become very close to it now."

Also Brad OTM about the run of final five tracks and how good "Space Dog" is (especially the harmonising at the end, which is also a quality of most of my absolute favourite tracks on BFP).

BFP's final four tracks is a pretty amazing run as well.

yeah i just went through that particular emotional gauntlet

Listening to Venus yesterday, it struck me that the song that casts forward to her 00s work (or at least to Scarlet's Walk) is not "1,000 Oceans" (which feels pretty much its own thing to me, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" sung to the dead) but "Spring Haze", which you could easily slot onto Scarlet's Walk in place of "Carbon" or "Virginia". In the context of Venus I think it sounds amazing - but that naturalist full band sound lost some of its force with repetition.

i find it amazing that someone ever wrote a song like "in the springtime of his voodoo"

Listening to Venus yesterday, it struck me that the song that casts forward to her 00s work (or at least to Scarlet's Walk) is not "1,000 Oceans" (which feels pretty much its own thing to me, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" sung to the dead) but "Spring Haze", which you could easily slot onto Scarlet's Walk in place of "Carbon" or "Virginia". In the context of Venus I think it sounds amazing - but that naturalist full band sound lost some of its force with repetition.

― Tim F, Wednesday, August 29, 2018 5:21 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still pretty new to enjoying venus but i def had a weirdly nostalgic response to the arrangement of "spring haze" and i wonder if that wasn't some unearthed memory of listening to scarlet's walk really obsessively approximately one million years ago

i'm the most familiar with the run from LE - Scarlet's Walk, but I think you could draw a line stylistically as all transitory records - UTP definitely slots in with BFP (Yes, Anastasia has the same extended poetry) and BFP has tracks like Caught, which established the trip-hop feel of FTCGH - To Venus and Back seems to take the electronic aspects further.

It is nice that FTCGH was not just a one and done record stylistically - Strange Little Girls is some weird mash of all the former records, with stately piano ballads and somewhat of a return to the rock feel of songs like God, but with more jagged electronic elements - the paper thin electronic drums on "I'm Not in Love" and adrian belew on drill guitar.

Scarlet's Walk is where her style seemed to dovetail, it's a great record and returned her to a more commercial level but the next one beekeeper is where i started to snooze. Will need to investigate some of katherine's recommendations as well tho for later tracks.

I'm not as articulate as some of you itt, but definitely an ardent tori fan

imagine that public enemy cover of fear of a black planet tho, too bad it never saw the light

i find it amazing that someone ever wrote a song like "in the springtime of his voodoo"

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Thursday, August 30, 2018 12:26 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know right!

Like, this song would be this amazingly generous overflowing bounty of swamp-blues goodness even if you removed all of the transitions, but then you have - totally gratuitously - tori throwing in the harpsichord-led "and right there for a minute..." section, and then the totally different "every road leads back to my door..." section, and then, of course, the two sections overlaid with one another in harmony.

All before the original tune goes off in a completely different direction not once but twice with "a-and I know she's a-not that foxxxxxyyyy, boys..." followed by "YOU GOTTA OWE! SOMETHANG SOMETIMES!"

This melding together of all of these disparate ideas is more ambitious than any of yr prog-faves, but it's all so hooky and tuneful and fun that the complexity can just be taken for granted.

for real xpost

"take to the sky" rocks imo

The Beekeeper is certainly her nadir, it continues the Scarlet's Walk soft rock sound but without any of the many highs that album has, so it just feels bland, and adds weird attempts at organ-driven soul

the beekeeper isn't great -- I remember back in...2006? 2007? one of my Pandora stations would not stop recommending the same damn song from it ("Sleeps With Butterflies" I'm pretty sure) and it's a miracle I got into her since

"take to the sky" rocks imo

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Thursday, August 30, 2018 1:50 AM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah totally. I can see how it could strike people as corny or a YKTR-overhang but it's a banger and it's funny.

Love the double-meaning of "...and here I stand with this sword in my hand."

Take to the Sky will have at least one #1 vote when the voting ends.

great track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db9irldgLFg

remix ballot filling up fast

i've got a solid ballot of 25 songs that are all unbelievably important to me, and i have yet to revisit scarlet's walk or any record beyond it. this is so hard

I was really digging To Venus and Back on my walk to work last night, or at least the pre-millennium lightness 1-2 punch of "Concertina" and "Glory of the 80s." Interesting that the album was her quickest follow-up at that point -- I totally get why she had to get it out before 2000 hit.

Is "Glory of the 80s" her response to REM's "Hope"? A great track 4, at least.

her delivery on "glory" is v joni mitchell

btw

1. what's everyone's preferred version of "talula"

2. has "not the red baron" always been incredibly powerful

finally listening to scarlet's walk and i love every song on this record but this is kinda where everything changed, the absence of steve caton is p evident, the guitar kinda becomes a weightless embellishment in her music and stops pulling me in deeper to her music (ofc i could take this all back when i get to american doll posse). "carbon" is still one of her best ever songs, i love the way the arrangement seems to keep twisting away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5rwubo1NK4

also, jeez, "your cloud," completely forgot about that one

I always liked the "Twister" OST mix of "Talula", but hated the "chasing tornadoes" boardroom-requested tie-in intro.

"Talula" (and "Red Baron") are the weakest links on Boys For Pele for me. My challenge with Tori (or her challenge with me) is when her obliqueness stops being tantalizing and simply becomes unrelateable. "Not The Red Baron" is improvised and I just.. can almost get on the train of "extremely talented singer/pianist makes some shit up on the spot and calls it a song" but can never do so-- I feel the same way about Jane Siberry's "Sweet Incarnadine"-- it's impressive! but it's not compelling.

As for Talula I find nothing to relate to in the verses, I don't know who is singing and who they are singing to, I don't know who Talula is or the significance of the papoose/fig newton metaphor, I'm distracted by "Big Bird" being her "favourite hooker" and that she's got her "rape hat on" and generally I just find the song too scattered and oblique to be anything other than this weird zero. (For the record, the only songs I don't like on BFP are these two and "Professional Widow")

The vocal delivery on "I never cared.. too much for the money / but I know right now.. honey" is really great

I just read the Genius annotations on "Talula" and even Tori's explanations for what she was writing about are unconvincing. It is frustrating when I feel like she's settling for less, then subsequently trying to explain a nonsense

yeah i generally prefer the tornado mix myself and am unbothered by the chasing tornadoes i'm just waiting calmlyyyyy. chasing. her. hey

pretty much my love of that song is bc of her delivery, her arbitrary word salads, and the way the tornado mix sounds like a broken machine

and it's funny, i always thought "red baron" was the weak link on pele but last night it straight up haunted me. part of it is maybe that i've gotten so used to its structure that even though i can tell it's an improv it's... not really any more

i've only listened to it once before, around when it came out, but the beekeeper isn't so bad

a lot of the little melodic turns are extremely lovely cf. "jamaica inn." "sweet the sting" would be a decent ballad on the second side of a '90s r&b record

none of these songs are gonna make my ballot but i'm still kinda enjoying the muted one-dimensional prettiness of it

sorry scratch out "ballad" and write "slow jam" instead. it reminds me of toni braxton's secrets

also i'm really into "jamaica inn" now

I got really into Scarlet's Walk today, it's really great even though it's quite a departure for her and it doesn't really justify its length in the way that Boys for Pele does. The arrangements are kinda samey and with the length they all blend into each other but if you cut out a bit of the bloat it's just a fantastic soft rock album. Carbon and Taxi Ride are up with her very best and then there's Amber Waves, A Sorta Fairytale, Gold Dust, I Can't See New York, Virginia...

Not the Red Baron is fine but certainly one of the few minor tracks on Boys Pele imo. I still haven't made my mind up about Talula, sometimes it sounds brilliant to me and sometimes it's an impenetrable mess. The Tornado mix is definitely the better version though.

a lot of the beekeeper is less good "taxi ride" rewrites but "cars and guitars" nearly gets there in the chorus

ufo otm re: scarlet

the drums are what really kill The Beekeeper for me i think, on Scarlet's Walk they're doing a fine 70s Fleetwood Mac soft rock sound but on The Beekeeper they go for a late 90s/early 00s pop rock sound that's reminiscent of like... MMMBop, Teenage Dirtbag, etc. which doesn't fit anywhere near as well with the prettiness she's going for

"driving in my saab / on my way to ireland..."

i take it all back, this one really sucks

Driving in my Saab / I don't ever, ever want to go home

I am listening to Scarlet's Walk right now. It is pretty amazing to me how quickly I went from "reading the fan-sites every day" to, like, completely ignoring this album. Strike one was "To Venus And Back", which, production-wise, I found frustrating, and single-wise, I found annoying ("Bleeece" was and is a frustrating listen), and even if I loved two or three songs from it ("Glory Of The 80s" was amazing) I felt that the straight-ahead pathos-bait of "1000 Oceans" had no resonance for me, a straight-forward ballad like "Hey Jupiter" was a welcome centrepiece on BFP but this afterthought of "oh, some real sounds, some real feelings" just frustrated me. If "Raspberry Swirl" was the first Tori album track I thought was a full-tilt misstep, "Riot Poof" is the first Tori album-track that I actively disliked.

Strike two was the live disc, which made me think that what I liked about Tori-- small epiphanies and daring experiments-- was not what Tori liked about Tori, or many other Tori fans liked about Tori-- jam-outs and "how long is she going to hold the 'grrrrrrrl' on "Precious Things" tonight".

Strike three was "Strange Little Girls" which just didn't have any impact on me, especially by dint of the fact that I was now in my 20s and was discovering, like, kraut-rock, I guess

Strike four (?) was "A Sorta Fairytale" which as a first single was just so Sarah McLachlan, and my listen through of "Scarlet's Walk" made zero impact on me. Later hearing from other Tori-fans and former Tori-fans that they found "Scarlet's Walk" to be a highlight was a surprise to me. But I rarely revisited. Listening now, this album is lousy with great songs. I wish I was in the right headspace in 2001 for these songs to have made an emotional imprint on me, or for me to be in the right headspace now, as I'm listening appreciatively but feeling unmoved, and enjoying what I'm hearing but slightly wishing I was listening to Fiona Apple instead

the drums are what really kill The Beekeeper for me i think, on Scarlet's Walk they're doing a fine 70s Fleetwood Mac soft rock sound but on The Beekeeper they go for a late 90s/early 00s pop rock sound that's reminiscent of like... MMMBop, Teenage Dirtbag, etc. which doesn't fit anywhere near as well with the prettiness she's going for

― ufo, Friday, August 31, 2018 10:17 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure i hear this in the beekeeper but i certainly hear it in "bouncing off clouds"

which is a fucking jam imo

beekeeper gets way stronger in its final third despite the presence of "hoochie woman." the title track is sorta interposed between venus and scarlet but not in a strange little girls way, i think it's pretty remarkable especially on this record. "martha's foolish ginger" is a really lovely spiraling melody. "goodbye pisces" sounds like a miraculous chantal kreviazuk song and i'm just going with it

i didn't know if i was gonna hear anything i liked enough to possibly vote and advocate for but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwxYXdUcm0Q

^^^ this song kinda rules

uh so far american doll posse fucking rocks

like, giant shiina ringo-esque power ballad by track five, hell yeah

is this tori's glam album

not the red baron has always ruled brad iirc :)

"girl disappearing" is blowing my mind

i liked this album at the time (and obv haven't revisited it since) but it's even better than i remembered

re talula, i like the album version

weirdly the only song that took eons to grow on me was in the springtime, but i pretty much love all of BFP unequivocally

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

cool direction here

i love "secret spell" too huh. just kinda perfect gooey pop-rock tori

maybe i love this whole album more than scarlet's walk even

Yeah ADP and Scarlet's Walk are fairly evenly matched for me even though in some senses they're diametrically opposed.

"Not The Red Baron" originally struck me as a weak track but I agree that after a while you sorta internalise it and it becomes very powerful.

American Doll Posse is odd because it's such a Rock album and that seemed to be something she'd deliberately avoided doing at least so straight-forwardly in the past. It's not quite as good as Scarlet's Walk to me but still very solid if a little too long again

"raspberry swirl" made me gay

and the "jackie's strength" remixes may be making me gayer

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

also, it's happening, i'm voting for "secret spell"

"almost rosey" is also crazy good

lol i'm sorry if all these updates are annoying, i'm just enjoying myself considerably more than i thought i would this deep in her catalog

Anyone else voting for "The Waitress"? The proto-"Teclo" guitar is so good. This feels like the side of her that people like Mitski and Perfume Genius draw from, artists for whom song = the length of a thought.

~*dAtUrA*~

Haha Brad

When I heard swirl live I thought of you

She played it with bits of "Raspberry Beret," uh, swirled in when I saw her a few years ago. It... didn't work at all :(

something about abnormally attracted to sin doesn't really work for me. listening to it was a lot like going through the beekeeper again, the first half consisting of tori trying to convince me of either of dodgy ("not dying today") or boring ("welcome to england") ideas ("give" is great however, almost in a bad way, it set my expectations kinda high). but, uh, i guess like every tori record it really takes off in the last few tracks. "starling" -> "fast horse" -> "ophelia" is a wonderful sequence. i also really love "500 miles"

i listened to it a few times yesterday though and idk if i'll ever listen to it as an album again

i'm pretty bored by it too, it just feels unadventurous, like even The Beekeeper had some experimentation with new styles (though not at all successfully and The Beekeeper is still probably worse than Abnormally Attracted). i agree about the highlights and i'd add Lady in Blue to that list, but none of them reach the highs of even Scarlet's Walk and American Doll Posse

~*dAtUrA*~

― J. Sam, Saturday, September 1, 2018 6:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

holy shit @ "zero point"

~~~ we are entering the photon band ~~~
~~~ we are entering the photon band ~~~
~~~ we are now in the p h o t o n b a n d ~~~

i don't really have the room on my ballot to vote for a song just bc i'm glad it exists but

also i never got around to night of hunters before now and at the very least it sounds extremely cool

what a tremendously beautiful and rich record. i don't connect with it much emotionally but it's very impressive and i still managed to get pretty swept up in the arrangements

Datura is one of the best Tori songs

How do you like night of hunters Brad?

Jobs coffin !

i like it!

unrepentant geraldines: i think i was dubious of the "comeback" this was framed as when it came out but rn i can sorta get down with... a quietly good sequel to scarlet's walk? sure, ok!

"16 shades of blue" rules

and as usual i particularly like the last five tracks

Listening to ADP again and there really is a whole album's worth of excellent songs there. This album would be pretty fucking solid and not even short:

Big Wheel
Bouncing Off Clouds
Teenage Hustling
Secret Spell
Body And Soul
Father's Son
Code Red
Beauty Of Speed
Roosterspur Bridge
Almost Rosey
Smokey Joe
Dragon

... And that's leaving off songs I quite like such as "Girl Disappearing" and "You Can Bring Your Dog".

i made a playlist for ADP too and it's fairly similar to that, but I don't know how you could leave out Digital Ghost. Scarlet's Walk is the same in that you can reduce it down to an extremely solid single album, this is my version:

Amber Waves
A Sorta Fairytale
Wednesday
Strange
Carbon
Crazy
Your Cloud
Pancake
I Can't See New York
Taxi Ride
Virginia
Gold Dust

I've never liked "Digital Ghost" much - it always struck me as heavy-handed. Though listening today I liked it more than usual.

With Scarlet's Walk I'd say that most of the songs you've left off - "Don't Make Me Come To Vegas" (which kinda rendered The Beekeeper redundant in advance), "Sweet Sangria", the title track - are as strong as the rest of the album, it's just that one's attention starts to wander a bit as the album progresses. But yes the above would be a very solid set.

Digital Ghost is one of the highlights on ADP for me, Brad is otm upthread comparing it to Shiina Ringo

none of the Scarlet's Walk tracks I'd take off are really bad, but yeah the album's a bit long and the ones I left off don't capture my attention as much.

turnout is a little low so far so make sure to get your ballots in everyone. I do expect there'll be a lot more ballots at the last minute, as usual though

I love these polls but don't know Tori Amos well enough to vote, will be watching the results. You might want to post this link in the rolling thread as I have that bookmarked but ILM Artist Poll #91 caught my eye scrolling through the threads tonight.

convinced from the choirgirl hotel is her water album

Liquid Diamonds, Pandoras Aquarium

Hotel - BENEATH ground

anyways ive got theories that TVAB is her air album but yall laugh at me

everyone pls vote!

it was a blast/emotional torture putting my ballot together so thanks for doing this ufo

glad to see a re-appraisal of toris career - years ago she was totally DOGGED

BFP forever obvs

i relistening to american doll posse yesterday and i think the transition between "programmable soda" and "code red" is one of my favorite moments on any of her records

shit brad, gotta hear this again - you are a stoker tbf

it's one of the few times since pele that she's reminded me of pele, this cute short song expanding into her ruminative ranging across the piano xp

dude her left hand playing is too good, as a piano player - makes me melt tbh

i also love "you can bring your dog," my preferred rewrite of "she's your cocaine"

i heard shes your cocaine is about trent reznor

would not be the first time

revisiting her whole discography for this has made me realise it's really one of the greatest ever, she has that incredible run of four all time classic albums in the 90s that few can compare to, and then even albums that are second tier for her like Scarlet's Walk and American Doll Posse would be highlights in the discographies of many other artists.

right now Marianne seems like the greatest song to me at the moment - it starts out seeming like a fairly normal (though very good) Tori ballad and then the strings come in so dramatically and it shifts completely and never quite returns to where it came from. Icicle is another great one that's a constantly shifting journey, something she does so well

it seems like the only non-album track that's going to make my ballot is going to be Siren which is really underrated, vaniiiii-illaaaaaaa

You Can Bring Your Dog doesn't have the gorgeous mellotron section in the middle though which is what really makes She's Your Cocaine

You Can Bring Your Dog doesn't have the gorgeous mellotron section in the middle though which is what really makes She's Your Cocaine

― ufo, Friday, September 7, 2018 9:08 AM (nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i was waiting for someone to mention the mellotron bridge of "cocaine" which is yes totally the fucking best

and is it true
that devils end up like you

so caught UP

Ufo otm

marianne is a fucking triumph

also siren is amazing, yes!

i had to cut two songs from my ballot which totally broke my heart. "marianne" was one of them :(

youre dead 2 me

dakota mix of hey jupiter is superior - right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdT3OdKaURE

i guess now's the time to rep relentlessly for my favorite adp album track which is... p much just a pop song but i love every single melodic turn it makes

also i hope everyone is voting for "iieee" that's all

brad she opened with that on the native invaders tour solo

yes,

we scream in cathedrals

i think ftcgh is secretly her best record

also wrt the underwater theme she is underwater on the cover, unless you think that is a xerox or some shit

Revisiting some YT videos while assembling my ballot reminded me how incredible she was with her band in the late 90s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv3bqMGMpxk

i have never seen that before and it's incredibly badass wow

Yes, the whole section starting at 4:29 gives me chills!

matt chamberlain is a beast

I love “Secret Spell”, it sounds like a Gerard Way co-write.

right now Marianne seems like the greatest song to me at the moment - it starts out seeming like a fairly normal (though very good) Tori ballad and then the strings come in so dramatically and it shifts completely and never quite returns to where it came from. Icicle is another great one that's a constantly shifting journey, something she does so well

I was thinking about this song the other day, and in the context of my comments upthread about the relationship between tori's vocal lines and piano playing, how the intricate piano arrangements tends to complicate and shade the vocal line. In "Marianne" a lot of the tension is built from whether the strings are tracking the urgency of the piano (e.g. the instrumental section between "they're watching my every sound" and "the weasel squeaks") or building on Tori's vocal sustains (this is made kind of explicit with "hoolllld doooowwn, won'y you just hoollld dow-ow-ow-own...") in a way that throws the ceaselessness of the piano tinkling into sharp relief - the effect here, and I suspect this is quite deliberate, is to contrast the inevitable forward motion of time with the arresting nature of memory.

Under The Pink is more obviously symphonic, but Boys For Pele strikes me as the album where Tori thought most/hardest about what and how her piano playing can signify, and the choices of accompaniment or studio effects, typically quite spare, are usually set up as thoughtful counterpoints to that.

i relistening to american doll posse yesterday and i think the transition between "programmable soda" and "code red" is one of my favorite moments on any of her records

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Friday, 7 September 2018 3:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Programmable Soda" is my favourite of the "throwaway" short songs on the album, and its interesting to contemplate how serious or sarcastic or roleplaying the lyrics are when coupled with "Dragon", which is another Santa track (Santa's the only character without any duds to her name) and is maybe a more solemn version of the same idea, as well as picking up on some of the ideas of "God" - women cast in the role of nurturing the men who rage and make/destroy the world. "Dragon" is my favourite track on the album, but I don't know what to think about it - more to the point, I have no idea what its singer thinks about it, either.

(sadly this meant I had no room for other ADP tracks b/c I really wanted to vote for "Secret Spell" and "The Beauty of Speed" and "Smokey Joe")

my adp picks on my ballot were “dragon” and “secret spell”

“dragon” is a song i can’t fully wrap my head around either but i find every moment of it achingly beautiful

Voted! I would never claim to be a Tori Amos superfan but there are particular records I really like and as it turns out lots of good stuff elsewhere (Under the Pink has really gone up in my estimation these last couple of weeks for example).

Deadline is still tomorrow night? I just picked up a copy of American Doll Posse today!

Hotel - BENEATH ground

voting for it partly because it's the weirdest-sounding song I've ever heard

I feel obliged to vote for one of her very McCartney-ish songs, and to vote for one of the many songs where she sings "America" in a completely novel way. Luckily I can do both with "Wednesday." Love that surprise final note.

Voted! Looking forward to the results.

yes, voting is still open for now. I've sent confirmations to everyone who has voted so if you haven't received one please resend your ballot.

Just voted. I asked my sister for some last-minute suggestions, since she's shaped so much of my listening over the years, and esp. my Tori listening. Thought I'd share her response:

Some faves: Frog on My Toe (love, love, love this one); Winter; Yes, Anastasia (*Em voted for this); Hey Jupiter; Putting the Damage On (adore this one); Wild Way; Promise. Tried not to list more popular faves (like Silent All These Years, Caught a Lite Sneeze, and Spark). Me and a Gun is important. And probably Little Earthquakes. Really, I could almost list everything from Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, and Boys for Pele. They are just one continuous long song to me. Hard to separate them, you know?

have only received 12 ballots total, which is a little disappointing, but it's enough to get some pretty interesting results at least. I'll keep voting open for another day in case there's any more last minute ballots but then I'll start the rollout soon after that

please vote in this!

though i guess tori discussion on this board has always been driven by a narrow but enthusiastic group of ppl

Liquid runninnn

Voted.

I wanted to a whole deep dive into Tori's catalogue (I stopped actively following her around 1999 or so) but the whole beginning-of-semester rush kept me from devoting a whole lot of time to this. So, a small(er) ballot of old faves.

Looking forward to the rollout!

y kant more people vote

Thank you for the few more last minute ballots I've received, I'm preparing the rollout and will start with albums & remixes tomorrow

Woo!

American POLL Posse - ILM Artist Poll #91 - TORI AMOS - Results