To Dishes and Back, Part 2

Artist: Tori Amos
Album: Still Orbiting (Disc 2 of To Venus and Back)
Released in: 1999

Still Orbiting is a live album, recorded in 1998, and it represents the best of Tori: visceral emotion, musical virtuosity, quirky charm. The song selection is excellent, featuring classics from all her records to date (stand-outs: opener Precious Things, Hello Mr. Zebra, Cloud on My Tongue) as well as some lovely rarities (Cooling and Sugar). It makes me wish I could have seen Tori live, to be part of the crowd cheering and screaming when they recognize each song from the first few bars.

And thus ends our Torifest, on a welcome note of appreciation and enjoyment.

To Dishes and Back, Part 1

Artist: Tori Amos
Album: Venus Orbiting (Disc 1 of To Venus and Back) and the Concertina single
Released in: 1999 and 2000
Liner Notes: present, for once

Venus Orbiting is, dare I say it, the bland album. It sounds ostensibly like a Tori Amos record, but something is missing. There's still the fuller-band/electronica sound from Choirgirl, but there are no more freak-outs like Hotel and it all just sounds so..... accessible. I am a big fan of the song Lust (probably because it sounds like older Tori), but that's it. Don't even get me started on Datura and 1,000 Oceans, though -- the former is a trip through pointless free association meander-land, and the latter has such cliched lyrics and chord changes it makes me want to scream (These tears I've cried / I've cried 1000 oceans... and I would cry 1000 more / if that's what it takes/ to sail you home).

Concertina is one of the most accessible songs on Venus Orbiting, with a sweetly jingly chorus and a hummable melody. The single doesn't have much on it, though: the album version of Concertina, a live cover of a Leonard Cohen song, and a live version of Twinkle. Nothing too memorable -- I probably bought it just for Twinkle (one of my favorite Tori songs).

The last Tori post is coming up!

From the Dishgirl Hotel

Artist: Tori Amos
Album: From the Choirgirl Hotel
Released in: 1998
Liner Notes: missing - what happened to all my Tori liner notes?

My tolerance for Tori is plummeting, and this album was never my fave.

Track-by-track breakdown:

1. Spark - the big single. blah.
2. Cruel - I put this track on the A side of a mix tape for a good male friend (who I should have dated) in high school. The B side was one of the best mixes I've ever made (if I do say so myself): we talked on the phone often and it represented a phone call between us complete with songs representing me, him, our love interests, his mom (who would tell us to go to bed), typical topics of conversation and even a sampled telephone ring and greetings. Maybe one day it will show up at this site.
3. Black-Dove (January) - black duuuuuuuhve. black duuhhhhhhhhve.
4. Raspberry Swirl - Scene: girl's bathroom in a high school. Me: washing hands. School's bad girl enters singing 'If you want inside her, well, boy you better make her raspberry swirl.' Me: I know that song! Bad girl glares, leaves.
5. Jackie's Strength - the one decent old-school Tori song on the album.
6. Iiiieeeee - forgettable
7. Liquid Diamonds - One of my high school yearbook quotes is from this song. I was just that angsty.
   
8. She's Your Cocaine - ugh.
9. Northern Lad - memorable for the great break-up line: "Girl you've got to know when it's time to turn the page."
10. Hotel - Tori one-night-stand freak-out!
11. Playboy Mommy - pitiable because of the circumstances (Tori had a miscarriage) but otherwise boring.
    
12. Pandora's Box - Paaaaaaaaaaaaaandoraaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhgghh

Thankfully, the end is near with Tori albums. Choirgirl was one of the last ones I bought.

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.]

Little Dishes

Artist: Tori Amos
Album: Little Earthquakes
Released in: my goodness, 1992
Provenance: ?

The piano intro to Winter.

The climax in Little Earthquakes.

The chorus of Silent All These Years.

The last minute of Mother.

The scream in Precious Things.

It was the soundtrack of years 13-19, and it's still pretty darn good. Even after hearing these songs hundreds and hundreds of times over my life, I was still moved by the moments above (and couldn't even listen to Me and a Gun because it was too upsetting). The best album on the Dishes Project so far.

Logistical note: I own a lot of Tori Amos. To keep from overdosing on the angst, I'll be alternating Tori-other CD-Tori-other CD for a little while.