Tori Amos "Tales of a Librarian"

Television also informs me this album is available at Tesco.

Gee, I wonder what part of her demographic that might have been tailored to. It should be her on the front of Attitude this month, not him from Phixx.

To my knowledge she chose the track listing by herself, and looks upon it as a 'sonic autobiography'.

I liked the idea of it being remastered - as great as Little Earthquakes is, its production is horrible and has dated very badly - but there was always the risk that she'd just make the songs BORING, like a lot of Scarlet's Walk, and that appears to have happened.

There was a strange advert for this in the Guardian yesterday - a tiny corner of the paper which on first glance looked like a small story, with the sweary bits of Professional Widow's lyrics typed out. Given that the original of Professional Widow is not here... that's stupid.

On the other hand I like the Dewey decimal system thing, and I hold out hope that the two new tracks will be awesome.

"Way Down" may be my least favourite Tori Amos track. That is the most cack-handed use of a gospel choir ever, for someone who comes from a Southern Baptist background you'd have thought they'd have some hold of it. Instead, it just sounds like Paul Simon.

The remastering... everything has become a lot flatter. Admittedly, yes, as great as LE as a whole, it does have an early 90s tinge to it. Here, though, it seems that it'd have been a better idea to leave well alone. Moving "Me And A Gun"'s vocals into the centre of the mix (well, centre of the speakers, whatever) is the only thing that works here ("Do you know Carolina?" actually sent shivers down my spine).

If she did choose her own tracklisting... why is "Professional Widow (remix)" on here (in the inlay booklet, the lyrics for the original version are included)? It feels awfully out of place, it's not as good as the original version, and it just reeks of record company pressure (I mean, there's none of the other tracks from the wave of Tori remixes from circa 1998, BT and all that lot, if she's so keen to showcase that side of her).

I always hated Way Down because on Boys For Pele it completely destroyed the mood which Hey Jupiter set up... but I'm not entirely averse to the Widow remix. I mean, nothing about the track listing/choice makes any sense, so by the time I realised that was there I just didn't care any more. (And I like it, anyway, though Blue Skies and Raspberry Swirl are the best dance tracks she's done.)

Could've been really well done too... I'd've been up for a (properly) remastered LE with the two bonus tracks (Tori's production post-LE is generally great anyway).

Fuck! I've just realised Me And A Gun is slapped in the middle of the album! wtf, that's traditionally ALWAYS been the penultimate song of an album/gig, ALWAYS! Because it disturbs the fuck out of you, but then the flowing absolution follows with Little Earthquakes/Time/Pretty Good Year... wtf, she's gone mad.

But then with the sheer amount of classic songs she has no retrospective would ever have been perfect... and home-made compilations were always going to be the answer.

The more I think about this, the more of a wasted opportunity it is. I mean, pretty much the only people who'll buy this are the rabid obsessives, right? Because Tori hasn't had any significant press for six years. And she has all these unreleased rarities, all those live recordings (covers of Live To Tell, Purple Rain, River, Philadelphia - all gorgeous), all those live reworkings (Professional Widow done jazz band-stylee, Horses given the full band treatment)... if she'd done some really out-there version of a retrospective, it'd probably have sold the same number of copies.

A box set is probably our best hope now, and when I say box set, I mean everything. Except "Y Kant Tori Reed", obviously.

Tori's either Botoxed or those herbal drinks she goes on and on and endlessly on about nowadays really do work.