why the hell does everyone hate Tori Amos?

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It seems that in most threads I've read on this board, there's always a dig at Tori Amos. What's up with that?

― Catty, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

She's probably not worth hating ... but such an easy artist.

Same as with the Radiohead thread. Artists whose fans take them more seriously than they probably should ... start taking themselves more seriously than they probably should ... leaving onlookers with an inevitable desire to puncture the whole thing.

Just imagine the pot-shots Liz Phair would be getting if she'd gotten as big as Tori ...

― Nitsuh, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it's because she says she has orgasms while playing the piano. And because she called her first album 'Little Earthquakes' in reference to this. And becuase she tried to get a pig to suck her tits. Hang on - what am I thinking? She's brilliant!

― Nick, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Should have read: "[S]uch an easy artist to pick on," or something like that.

― Nitsuh, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, compared to the Strokes or Damon Albarn or Primal Scream, I really haven't noticed that much Tori Amos hate.

I don't hate her, but I think the music is terrible -- very histrionic, forced, off somehow. Sort of like Celine Dion trying to do Kate Bush styled music.

― Nicole, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Because everyone loves Tori Amos!

― Lyra, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

her voices grates me

― Jeff, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No structure to her songs..one big PMS session, drippy and uncomfortable.

― Mike Hanle y, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've yet to find another musician who fits the term "wretched harpy" quite so well.

For some reason, I always laugh when I hear that.

― Bobby D. Gray, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i like her - everything except boys for pele

― Geoff, Thursday, 26 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Never mind Tori Amos, why do people here seem to feel obliged to flaunt their hatred of anything?

― glenn mcdonald, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The only thing I've found likeable about Tori Amos is that she has some cute female fans.

Guys will put with a lot to get laid, ya know.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey...hey Mr.Tadeusz, I thought I arrested you on Zappa-related crimes? How did you escape the torture chambers underneath the Anti- Zappa station? :) You know there's a stiff penalty for impersonating Zappa on this board ;)

anyway hate, such a big word. Esp. for Tori who is harmless. I always felt hating of yr favourite band is quite easily laughed off on ILM, so it becomes harmless fun. Otherwise we would be giving out virtual flowers to each other and saying stuff like: "Yes, dear Oh The Queen is Dead is majestic." ..."Yeah really, but your Captain Beefheart boxset is quite beautiful."..."Ah too kind, have finally heard Primal Scream's XTRMNTR: lovely". See wot I mean? ;)

― Omar, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a friend of mine put his hatred for tori amos like this:

plinketty plonk la la la

― lady die, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hatred is a drug, man. Try it and it becomes more and more of a rush in bigger amounts.

― dave q, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hate? More like disappointment. When her first album came out I liked it quite a bit, but I thought the followups were much weaker, shrill, and in the case of Boys for Pele, annoying. I also tend to have a problem with her image around that same time. Previously referenced, the nursing-a-pig photo, but our record store also had big posters of her lying on a dirty mattress in the middle of a field, just on this side of a barbed wire fence with cows behind it...meanwhile she had one shoe on and one shoe off. It just reminded me of one of the girls I knew of back in high school, who used to wander around the halls saying something to the effect of "I'm sooooo weird, no one understands meeee! See how weird I am?" Meanwhile, she was one of the more normal people around. To me, Tori is that girl, 10 years down the road.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The most telling critique I've read about her, was something to the effect of her being obviously and massively talented, yet then wasting it all away because she's missing an internal editor - having a tendency to regard all the things that drop randomly out of her head as her 'genius' which she then leaves untouched and... random. Which is not nearly half as good as it could be, and it's really easy to sense this in her work - hence she IS a disspointment to many.

― Kim, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love anyone who belives in fairys and fucks her paino on stage . She is passionite and has a voice that chills me, one of the better vocalists in the last 25-30 years.

― anthony, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I love anyone who belives in fairys and fucks her piano on stage . " ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????

― Mike Hanley, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think with Tori though it's not a matter of having an internal editor, because the wackiness really is part of the package. When people talk about some of her songs being too lyrically obscure, what they really mean is that some of her songs have less tuneful melodies. All her songs are lyrically obscure, but the stronger the tune the less obvious it is. As it stands I don't think I ever tried to look for meaning when listening to Tori - it was more fun just enjoying the quasi-semiotic flow for what it is.

― Tim, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

wackiness really is part of the package Wackiness is much part of the package with her, only she chases it up with that degree of smug disregard (as if saying -'why shouldn't i writhe here during this part of the chorus in self-absorbed pathos and who are you to tell me differently?')... Who are we to tell her differently?

― Jason, Saturday, 28 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Smugness = way better than wackiness. Especially in gurrlz.

― dave q, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

um, what threads have you been reading? i haven't noticed that at all.

― sundar subramanian, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

People need to chill out. If you don't like Tori, fine. I can see very well how you'd think that way. I just hope you recognize that someone doesn't have to be 'normal' to be worth your time, and i ask that you don't judge me for loving her as dearly as I do.

However, I think a lot of Tori fans really need to stop being so obsessive. Liking Tori's music is fine, but pretending you're a faerie and thus better than the rest of humanity and flaunting the fact that you're somehow "different" from the rest of us is just annoying.

― Sara, Saturday, 15 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Clearly Sara is the coollest Tori Amos fan IN THE WORLD.

― Dan Perry, Monday, 17 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I agree! Tori is my favorite artist and I thought I was obsessed but people like the ones Sara was talking about give us a bad name. I have actually heard of Tori fans who dig through dumpsters and trash cans after her shows to get used tissues and evian bottles. One group got and evian bottle with back wash in it and when they go to tori concerts they share a pot of chili with one teaspoon of tori's backwash mixed in it. Now that is obsessed. ewe

― Jesica, Thursday, 27 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So how did they figure out that it was her backwash? Did they run a protein test on the liquid in the bottle? :-)

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I hate Tori . she is talented as a peice of dirt

― Mike Hanle y, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Celine Dion + Kate Bush = Sarah Mclachlan

― Mr Noodles, Saturday, 29 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Here's a conundrum for all those people who hate Tori Amos - BUT ALSO can't stand the pinefox.

Which do you prefer: Lloyd Cole's version of 'Rattlesnakes', or the new cover by Tori A?

See, whichever way you answer you lose out on urgent and key hatred-fulfilment somehow.

― the pinefox, Monday, 1 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four weeks pass...

i've just recently become disenchanted w/ Ms. Amos, but it's been a long time coming. after little earthquakes, i expected Ms. Amos to move thru the pain and into enlightenment, or awareness or whatever you'd like to call it. but the pain became her fame. her rage a mask to protect herself from addressing the deeper fears below them. this is what i see at least. she has become a religion unto herself and therefore cannot surrender to her demons. they feed her and her image. if she became healthy and well-adjusted she would lose all of her deeply obsessive fans, because she wouldn't need them anymore to reflect her "goddesshood" back to herself.

take that for what its worth. i wish her well.

― Kat Man, Wednesday, 31 October 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i thought she was really good in that school thing with the lass out of showgirls and screech and that

― bob snoom, Saturday, 3 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

three weeks pass...

Sadly, not *everyone* hates Tori Amos so she's still making albums that get crappier each time (as do her live shows). I've tossed her aside for Bjork.

― willow naeco, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Today i was in a decent resturant eating wings and drinking beer and Angie came on the jukebox. I thought to myself hmm ireally do perfer Toris version, then i scrolled thru my mp3s of Tori and realized that 8 of 12 were covers. She is a great interpertive artist.

― anthony, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two years pass...

Easy: she's a P O S E R.
I used to like her. In fact, I own about five of her albums. But she's insane. She seriously doesn't know when to stop. Don't tell me I'm just not into her music.
Sarah Slean rules.
Radiohead rules.
Vienna Teng rules.
Pepper rules.
But she sucks. I like her music, I just don't like her.
--Janjan.

― Janjan., Monday, 23 February 2004 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

she's a little creepy.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 23 February 2004 02:59 (twenty-two years ago)

worst. show. ever.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:01 (twenty-two years ago)

(the things we do for love, etc.)

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:01 (twenty-two years ago)

"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"

― Meatloaf (Alex in SF), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:05 (twenty-two years ago)

She still reminds me a really nutty girl I knew once.

― afraid she'll find this thread (Aaron W), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

she is every nutty girl that we all ever knew.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Hahaha scott OTM

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope you are all ashamed for driving Glenn McDonald away from ILM with your relentless negativity. I've just found this terrific Tori review on his WAR AGAINST SILENCE website:

Tori Amos: Scarlet's Walk

I said, once, that Scarlet's Walk was the best album ever, and you'll find (I hope) few more egregious examples of my chronic and deliberate failure to self-censor momentary total insanity. "Ever" can no more possess a best album than a planet can have a leftmostness. Even if you flatten it by picking somewhere to stand and closing one eye, there's no vantage point from which you can see enough of your hypothetical line to say anything sensible about its extent or its population. And yet, I have to stand someplace, and look in some direction, and if all I'm telling you is what I can see from here, and all that communicates is where I am, then so be it. There is a point from which the world looks like nobody has ever made a better record than Scarlet's Walk, and if you want to see this, too, I'll save you a spot and call "Polo"s until you find us.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I love Glenn to bits cuz he is brilliant in many ways and a fine writer, but didn't he say the same thing about Big Country? Of course, i will defend to the death his right to be a loon.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I discovered in the last Blender that Tori has huge elf ears. SHE IS NOT HUMAN.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Or maybe she's like Robert Johnson and after her failure as a hair metal star she traded her soul to the faerie folk or something.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 23 February 2004 03:26 (twenty-two years ago)

My God, that anti-Tori website is horrible.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Monday, 23 February 2004 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked Under the Pink when I was 15. In fact, it was weird - my friends and I all loved Sonic Youth, Fugazi, REM, Nirvana, etc. . . as well as that Tori Amos album. It really meant something. But I couldn't imagine wanting to listen to it now. I don't think it's horrible (which I do think of most of the later stuff I've heard - her vocals just got wankier and drippier in a way that didn't click). I just think there's much better stuff I could listen to.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 23 February 2004 05:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to really really really like tori amos, but seems over the years her kookiness has become more contrived and to put it plainly she's a fucking nutcase. Sleeping with god?! Having supper with pixies?!! Sorry, I just can't relate anymore.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Monday, 23 February 2004 05:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to really really really like the flaming lips, but seems over the years their kookiness has become more contrived and to put it plainly they're fucking nutcases. Speaking to the devil?! Having supper with pixies?!! Sorry, I just can't relate anymore.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:34 (twenty-two years ago)

she has orgasms while playing the piano. And because she called her first album 'Little Earthquakes' in reference to this. And becuase she tried to get a pig to suck her tits.

So where's the downside here?

― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Anyway--She has no internal editor. BFD. She's crazy. Extra BFD.

I loved half the covers on her cover CD, the others were intolerably lame. So?

― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:37 (twenty-two years ago)

tim nix flaming lips and replace with pixies!

also "feminists" pt II: music through the gender cracks is the one thread of mine which hasn't "caught fire" which i've been more genuinely sorry about the lack of interest in than any other.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

It just gets me when critical sorts of a certain stripe get all prickly when an artist, gasp, turns out not to be like the guy in accounting. There's one critic in particular who makes, I'm sure, a minor living reviewing artists purely on his he views their eccentricity levels. He is puny, his writing the pus of gleefully unexamined pathology.

I don't listen much to Tori Cds, but I've found her to be authentic, and a sweet kinda gal. I would be far more intrested in listening to her after she delves very deeply into her pixie interests than, say, I would Malkumus' latest whine about his latest sexual and real estate efforts.

― Ian Grey (Ian_G), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Her stuff has grown more noodly and much less visceral to me nowadays(as opposed to being a fairly big fan as a teenager), but she had her bright moments. I've never had a problem with obtuse subject matter or histrionics but some of her word choices and phrasing have always grated on me somewhat. More concise and muscular compositions would possibly be to her benefit... to my current tastes it feels very overdone and unsatisfying.

I pretty much lost interest in her after Choirgirl Hotel, half of which I couldn't stand to listen to. Haven't heard much at all since then and I don't feel the lack, as my taste has changed. But I like an old song or two now and then.

― Blood and sparkles (bloodandsparkles), Monday, 23 February 2004 09:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Good old Tori. I think she is cool cause she does what she likes. I have not bought any of her albums (no doubt Amber will want one in the fullness of time (passing resemblance ahoy)), but 'doing whatever they feel like' thesedays is a rarity.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 23 February 2004 10:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Thats good Tim but I don't like the flaming lips either.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Monday, 23 February 2004 10:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Her music is as heavy and dull as prog-rock. She would have fitted in he 70's.

― daavid (daavid), Monday, 23 February 2004 22:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Thank you so much for sharing my sentiments, Mr. Finney.

― Adm Mhel (adam michel), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 01:48 (twenty-two years ago)

What strikes me as odd about this standard response ("ew kooky!") with Tori is that so much of her music is not really very eccentric at all - the biggest problem with her most recent album was how boringly straightforward it was most of the time.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:11 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't htink her music is especially kooky either. My comments were prompted by a recent Q magazine interview with her I read.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

at the beginning of this thread Nitsuh wrote:

"Just imagine the pot-shots Liz Phair would be getting if she'd gotten as big as Tori ... "

Ha ha!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 02:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Looking at a lot of the "ew kooky" responses here it does seem that a lot of people hate her because they wouldn't want to know her (or to go out with her if you want to parse the misogyny further - why are all female musicians viewed through the prism of 'potential girlfriend'?) - she is every nutty girl that we all ever knew, ew, girls acting in a way which we as straight men deem out-of-line!

― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 11:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't hate her, i still even listen to her music occasionally. However, I've always felt the need to try to understand something of the musicians i enjoy listening too, and she just lost me somewhere along the way.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

WTF?? This is a review??? Is this supposed to be like some big post-modern joke or something?

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

"Ever" can no more possess a best album than a planet can have a leftmostness.

I see.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

In that musical vein, the one I like is Imogen heap.

Tori's made some great videos, though; I love the one where she's rolling in autumn leaves wearing only her knickers.

― All Bunged Up. (Jake Proudlock), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

Listening to the three-part round thing in "Father Lucifer" and thinking that she really is some kinda musical genius from another planet - I mean who else would do that?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 13 November 2004 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Vanessa Carlton. Er, wait.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 13 November 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

I like current music. I liked 'Love is the Law' the Seahorses on Top of the Pops. I liked a recent Wallflowers record and 'Gangsta's Paradise'. But mostly with rap [blows a rasberry] - I'm not interested. I don't see that the street culture of LA has anything to do with West Drayton. I play CDs in car. I play Tori Amos, although I always did like a girl who sings with her legs apart.
- Francis Rossi, Status Quo

(this thread is hilarious, btw)

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 24 August 2005 20:18 (twenty years ago)

http://newsletter.casinocity.com/issue38/images/carrottop%5B1%5D.jpg

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 25 August 2005 08:42 (twenty years ago)

I like Odd Tori and I like Straightforward Tori, but both are best in limited doses. I agree with whoever said that a lot of her music is actually pretty straightforward--if she were playing chords instead of constantly arpeggiating, it'd be more obvious. (And, of course, if she were playing a guitar rather than a piano.)

Under the Pink, Little Earthquakes--both good records. "Crucify" and "Past the Mission" are both good songs. Scarlet's Walk I never got very far into.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Thursday, 25 August 2005 13:29 (twenty years ago)

I love Electronic Tori, which is to say I consider From the Choirgirl Hotel (plus a couple of stray singles from that era) to be some of the best music of the '90s. I also like her covers record quite a bit (her "Rattlesnakes" and "The New Age" improve on the originals immeasurably). I could take or leave her work pre-Earthquakes, and the last two albums form a steady decline pattern on par with R.E.M.'s.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 25 August 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

http://cc.joensuu.fi/~loristi/2_01/bfp.jpg

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 25 August 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

mama mia

― Old School (sexyDancer), Thursday, 25 August 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

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