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

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