tiger62x's Full Review: To Venus and Back by Tori Amos
Former child prodigy Tori Amos has put together quite a collection of some of her more well known tracks, such as Cornflake Girl, Little Earthquakes, Datura, and 1000 Oceans. Frankly she sounds best when it's just her voice and the piano. Having written her first song at 5, her unique way of phrasing along with her playing are also crafts in and of themselves.
I have to admit, her voice and style on some tracks is very reminiscent of Joni Mitchell. Particularly on the live track Cooling, this is almost an exact reworking of Mitchell's 'Down to You'. On other tracks, I felt she was channeling Madonna, that's not an insult, the post Evita Madonna, who actually learned how to sing a bit. However I really liked 'Precious Things', the piano work was really nice, mixed with the growl, the unique phrasing, then sweet timbre of Tori's voice moving from breathy to pure and back. I thought this showcased all of the unique talents of this artist ideally. Her voice on this one is her own as well. Cruel and Cornflake Girl also find the artist in her own voice. Cruel is a sort of cacophony of sound, with her altering her sound between a more nasal grit, and her own unique pure voice. Because this is a live performance, I suspect it retains some of it's grit. I don't believe I would like a studio version of this song, it's almost anthem like toward the end. Cornflake Girl, I suspect comes from an acting stint she did as a younger woman, making ends meet by acting, as a piano playing 'corn-flake'. It's kind of cute, and again, she's doing her marvelous work on the piano, which again is her strong suite.
Additional standouts on CD 2, were Mr. Zebra, a really quick diddy, Little Earthquakes, and Space Dog. Girl is another song which sounds a bit like Madonna doing 'Jesse's Girl', although it's a respectable song. The only problem is with this type of musical style too much of a good thing, can grate.
The studio CD 1, was a little less enjoyable for me. Juarez, 'Glory of the 80's' with a tribute to the Kim Carnes Betty Davis Eyes. Many of these songs utilized electronica, I think to the detriment of the songs. In most cases, you can't clearly understand the lyrics, unless reading them. If you do read them, they make no sense, until you hear them in Tori's unique phrasing. Even then, it still may be a bit debatable as to whether they actually make sense, but you may have to listen a couple of times to get it. She does capture the horror of a young girl trapped in 'Juarez', with no hope. I believe this song actually is a somewhat veiled reference to her own assault by a patron early in her career. On 'Josephine', my interpretation was that of the indifference of a woman, for whom a man would die in war for her glory (namely Napolean). Some of these studio tracks were a little heavy on the electronica, and it was difficult to hear her great keyboard work. 'Datura' is moving as a tribute to a unique garden of exotic flowers, named for the psychedelic Datura, and lamenting some parsing of this garden. Whether it is her heart, soul or an actual ecological lament, I couldn't tell, perhaps it's all. '1000 Oceans' finally allows you to hear more of just Tori singing and playing.
I would recommend this CD for the days when you want to be appropriately indignant about the condition of the world, and you want to commiserate with an understanding soul. A cup of something hot in front of the fire, a good book, maybe if it's rainy out. This is a sort of Joni Mitchell folk songstress for the Y2K. This should actually have 3 1/2 stars.
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