March 2009: Tori Amos

Mar 01

Posted by: Sofia Zissi in 2009, Blog, Tributes

Born Myra Ellen Amos in 1963 and after studying classical piano during her early years (considered child prodigy but having her scholarship discontinued because of her interest in rock and pop music and her dislike for reading from sheet music) Tori Amos set out to become a pop songwriter. At age 21 she formed the group Y Kant Tori Read but the concept was in a few years abandoned and she concentrated in a solo career.

She got attention with her debut album Little Earthquakes (1992), and she has continued to produce successful records, her influences ranging from classical to pop and rock.

The first Tori Amos song I’ve ever heard was ”The Cornflake Girl” when I was 13. The song was in a double Various Artists album which I bought in cassette (old times!) and it made quite an impression on me for its high pitched vocals and rich orchestration. Then a nine-year period passed before I was introduced anew to Tori’s world by a friend who insisted that I should listen to the ”From the Choirgirl Hotel?” album. ”Spark” gave me the creeps and since then Tori became one of my number ones when I refer to songwriters that greatly influence me.

I have listened to all of her albums unnumbered times but the ones I particularly insisted on are the ”Little Earthquakes”, ”Under the Pink”, ”Boys for Pele”, ”Scarlet’s Walk” and ”The Beekeeper”, which I consider the most important for the development of her music style.

”Little Earthquakes” is a mature debut, containing songs that endure in time and considered always as some of her best. ”Winter”, ”Precious Things”, ”China”, ”Silent All These Years”, ”Crucify”, ”Tear in Your Hand” are trademark songs for Tori Amos. ”Little Earthquakes” was named by Q Magazine as the 4th Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.

”Under the Pink” contains some of her most delicate songs. ”Baker Baker” and ”Bells for her” stand out for their intent lyricism and descriptive structure and the piano conveys perfectly the inner world of the songwriter. The sound here is more unified and Tori is heading towards the ”concept album” idea. ”Under the Pink” is not so much a description of individual statements (like ”Little Earthquakes” is) but its dynamics are more concentrated towards a single statement which will become more specific in the albums to follow.

In ”Boys for Pele” Tori proves her originality as a concept songwriter presenting us with songs , the primary 14 of which represent the number of body parts of the Egyptian god Osiris that his wife, Isis, had to find to put his body back together (source: Wikipedia). Tori is directly dealing with issues of female independence, the female and spirituality, relationships. She also chooses to record the majority of the material in a church in county Wicklow, Ireland, thus stating that “the idea of speaking my truth, no censorship, in a place that did not honor anyone?s truth unless it was the church’s truth”. We notice daring songs like ”Father Lucifer” and abstract songs like ”Mr Zebra” while she starts mixing her influences with more electro sounds.

”Scarlet’s Walk”: In this stage of her career, Tori sounds like she has decided to change her music. The very much complicated and experimental influences are giving their place to simpler songs with a milder feeling that changes from sad to jolly (”Wednesday”, ”Virginia”, ”Scarlet?s walk”). I consider this album one of her most invigorating and arresting works of her career, a not very much groundbreaking album but with a strong meaning and unfathomable concept. Every track here is individually stunning, and ”I can’t see New York” which is the most genuine song was probably inspired by 9/11 attack.

In ”The Beekeeper” prominent is the use of electric guitars instead of the omnipresent piano, which is moved slightly in the background. The album moves in the same ways like ”Scarlet’s Walk” does, however it is more evolved. There are more Indian sounds (especially percussions) which make it unique. The songs ”Jamaica Inn”, ”Ireland” sound so different comparing to songs from the previous albums while the ”Cars and Guitars” and ”Parasol” don?t sound like typical Tori Amos. The song ”Marys of the Sea” is something original with its added French lyrics.

After a series of successful albums, Tori denies to repeat herself like most of the bands do, adding different sounds to her music, showing us that inspiration never stops. Even her latest album ”American Doll Posse”, that has been criticized as a non-Tori Amos album, shows a different approach in musical expression. Here Tori?s most basic influence is the religious people in the US. The main reasons I approve of this album is my total disagreement with religious extremism and the direct criticism towards George W. Bush in the song ”Yo George”.

Common in all of her songs is the confessional, psychologically charged lyrics that come straight from the heart, and the atmospheric, full of pleasantly surprising changes melody that matches perfectly with the lyrics. She fundamentally is a melodic songwriter.

Tori is remarkable for being able to play with her material, that is music and words; in the beginning of the song ”Hey Jupiter” (from ”Boys for Pele”) the piano starts with a telephone-like rhythmic pattern and the first lyrics are ”No one’s picking up the phone” or in ”Here in my head” the lyrics go ”running around and following me” while you have the feeling that the whole melody is running round and round as if in a gracious dance or like in ”Siren”(from ”Great Expectations” OST) where the singing starts in an almost incomprehensible, siren-like manner in order to intensify the title of the song.

The ”Here in my head” is a very special song and it should not be a b-side track. It is very descriptive and brings beautiful images to the listener. The sound of the piano together with the lyrics and the way of singing give to the song a unique relaxing feeling.

Tori is good not only in writing original songs but she also gives a different, authentic approach in cover songs. The best is the ”Total eclipse of the heart” (from B of A Pavilion, Boston, MA 8/21/05). Very famous cover songs are ”Smells like a teen spirit” (by Nirvana) and ”Love song” (by Cure) where Tori gives her original approach, making them sound like her own. In the album ”Strange Little Girls” – which is a cover album – there are versions of songs that I personally prefer to listen instead of the originals. Very characteristic is the ”Raining blood” cover song from a completely different band, Slayer.

The piano is one of the most difficult instruments to record but Tori Amos manages to produce one of the finest sounds that exist today in recorded and live music, partly due to the variety of instruments she uses (at least 8 different kinds of pianos). However, I suspect that it is not only the many instruments or the performing skills that make the sound exceptional, but the use of the recording equipment and the detailed production play an important role here. To my mind Amos?s recordings are a model one can study for an in-depth analysis of the overall production result.

Watching her live performance I would say that the sound is not at all inferior to her recorded songs. On the contrary, she maintains the quality of her live performance very high, never losing control of her voice and piano skills (she is a musical prodigy after all) and choosing carefully musicians for her band.

One would expect that a piano-based live would not be so exciting, but it is not at all like this. I have seen her twice during the American Doll Posse Tour 2007 (Fly Beeyond Music Festival, Athens, Greece and Oxegen, Ireland) and I can honestly say that a Tori Amos live is an exciting experience. She is a full of energy performer, communicating her passions to the audience and with the help of the concepts she has created for her albums she presents her artistic being symbolically and even mythologically.

The theatrical and symbolic element was prominent in the American Doll Posse Tour, as Tori appears first as one (or two) of the personas she has created for the Posse album, and she is not only dressed like the persona does, but she is this other person. Pip (the one presented in both Athens and Ireland) is rude, daring, a bit aggressive, she is the aspect of Tori that is not ashamed of anything.

Tori Amos is inventive, ultimately expressive, she is an aware individual delivering lessons to her audience, Tori Amos is one of the few musicians that still produce meaningful songs, a truly musical songwriter for truly musical listeners.

Rating: 6.0/6 (2 votes cast)