Published on Feb 11, 1997
Tori Amos is not a happy woman these days.
When she first came onto the music scene (not including her
short stint with Y Kant Tori Read) with
Little Earthquakes, her music was powerful but subtle. Songs
like “Winter,” “Crucify” and her cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like
Teen Spirit” showed how much power one could pump through an
acoustic piano.
With her following release,
Under The Pink, Amos seemed to throw away any radio-friendly
guise she had while continuing to question the image of God (or, at
least, her image). The record paled in comparison to
Earthquakes, and seemed very overblown.
Now, with her third release,
Boys For Pele, Amos has turned her subtlety into anger, and
has thrown away yet another guise – melodies.
The first single, “Caught A Lite Sneeze,” seems like it would
represent a good start to the album, and the song is good. However,
Amos seems like she wants to be the acoustic member of the “grrrl”
music movement.
See Tori label someone in an unfriendly way: “Starfucker / just
like my daddy” in “Professional Widow.” (I won’t even begin to
question what this lyric was about.) See Tori tell us a little more
about her sex life than I really wanted to know on “In The
Springtime Of His Voodoo”: “Got an angry snatch / Girls you know
what I mean.” What the hell happened to lyrics like: “When you
gonna make up your mind / When you gonna love you as much as I
do”?
Amos’s music has taken a turn – and kids, it definitely ain’t
for the better.
But wait, there’s more. While her piano playing is extraordinary
(as it always is), Amos no longer seems like she wants to sing a
melody line that blends with her own piano part. As if this weren’t
bad enough, the vocals that used to go from a whisper to a plead
like a hot knife through butter now sounds like nails on a
blackboard; at times I wasn’t sure if I was listening to Amos or
Diamanda Galas.
There are some redeeming moments that make
Boys For Pele worth checking out. Besides “Sneeze,” the
other single “Talula” captures some of Amos’s best work. Other
songs that stand out from the muck include “Horses,” “Not The Red
Baron” and “Muhammed My Friend” (a song which, from a look at the
lyric sheet, seems to suggest a, aah, different tale of the
Christmas story. Check this one out yourself.)
Amos is still a very gifted musician, and many of her
compositions have not gotten the attention they have rightfully
deserved. However,
Boys For Pele is an album that doesn’t spotlight Amos the
artist, rather Amos the experimentalist. It reminds me of a saying
I think is often attributed to Yogi Berra: “If it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it.” Amos would be wise to heed that warning.