Friday, May 30, 2008

Dishes for Pele


Artist:
Tori Amos
Album: Boys for Pele
Released in: 1996
Liner Notes: missing

Boys For Pele is the 'difficult' Tori album. The lyrics are obscure ("furry mussels marching on / she thinks she's Kaiser Wilhelm / or a civilized syllabub / to blow your mind"). The instrumentation is often stripped down to Tori and the piano, and she delivers the songs in a half-crazed wail. It is also the most disturbingly sexual album. I hope the grandmotherly woman reading on the deck next-door was not too disturbed by "gimme peeeeeace / loooooove / and a haaaaard cock" coming out of my window.

Nevertheless, I'm mostly a fan. In-between the more rough-hewn tracks are Marianne, Little Amsterdam, and The Doughnut Song, which are well worth the price of admission. And then, at the very end, we are granted Putting the Damage On and Twinkle. On Little Earthquakes, even the sadder songs have dramatic moments where the strings swell and everything gets very intense. PtDO and Twinkle show Tori no longer needs the bombast to get her point across. It's lovely to listen to.

[For the completists again, I do own Under the Pink, but only on cassette.]

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