It’s hard out there for a Tori Amos fan.

Not only do you have to deal with the inevitable "She's just a poor Kate Bush for the nineties!", but you also have to defend her while at the same time acknowledging that her body of work includes The Beekeeper. She appears in public sprouting off about faeries. She indulges in tedious dress up games. She cannot edit her albums for shit. All these things are qualities that would usually turn me off an artist immediately, but because of the entirety of Little Earthquakes, Under The Pink, From The Choirgirl Hotel, Boys For Pele bits and pieces of Strange Little Girls, Scarlet's Walk, and American Doll Posse, the live disc of To Venus And Back, the odd interview in which she can be hysterically funny and a whole load of b-sides, I make a huge exception for Tori. She can release half a dozen albums that are on the same level as The Beekeeper from now on, if she so feels like it (I hope she doesn't, obvs) but because of that back catalogue, I'm an Ear With Feet for life. So, in honour of her 45th birthday, I'm making a Top Ten Tori Tunes list.

Even leaving a handful of her studio albums off the longlist, a top ten will be hard to compile especially taking into account all the b-sides and covers and live tracks available. Lady is prolific. And I'm so fickle, this list will be obselote tomorrow, when I decide that 'Winter' or 'Cooling' or her version of 'Famous Blue Raincoat' or 'Tear In My Hand' or any number of other songs deserve a placing. You get the picture. But for now, here they are:

10. Father Lucifer



An example of how her left-of-centre interviewee style sometimes works really well can be found during the VH1 Storytellers concert. This song opens that concert, and I laugh every time I hear her introduction to it: "And my dad and I...I...I really do love my dad, it took us many years to, um, I think, respect each other's spiritual beliefs. So, um, when I came home, I guess it was a Thanksgiving because I remember a bird, and forks going down at the table, when my father said to me, "Tori Ellen, I can't believe you wrote this song about me". And I said "I write everything about you, what are you surprised about?". And he said, "No, but I'm really hurt about this one." And I said, "Well, which one is it?". And he said, "Well, you call me Satan." And I said, "No! I was taking drugs with the South American shaman and I really did visit the devil, and I had a journey!" And he went, Oh praise Jesus!". The version above isn't necessarily my favourite (like I said before, I love the Storytellers version, and you can't beat the studio cut) but it's still fantastic.

09. Mr Zebra



This only negative thing I can think to say about this song is that it's way too short. At 1 minute and 6 seconds, its over before you get a chance to appreciate all its jaunty, wry offerings. My solution: play on repeat. I listened to this song on repeat every morning during Transition Year, while walking up to school. It was like my own personal theme tune. That last line! "Too bad the burial was premature, she said. And smiled."And watch the above live video, where she completely screws it up but manages to save it just at the last moment.

08. Northern Lad



Okay, ignore the stupid homemade video and just listen to the song. I could've chose a live version to put here, but the studio version makes me cry. It's the only song I can think of containing an f-bomb that can make me well up every time it comes on. I think it's the line "I guess you go too far / When pianos try to be guitars".

07. She's Your Cocaine / Raspberry Swirl



Shoot me. I couldn't choose between the two, so they can jostle for space together at number seven on my list. Both are on From The Choirgirl Hotel (at times my overall favourite), both are fast, sweaty and slightly sleazy. Love it.

06. Playboy Mommy



The saddest Tori song, bar none.

05. Talula



I surprised myself by putting this on the list. I came to Pele later than most of her other stuff, so I'm not as familiar with some of the tracks on it in the same way as, say, Little Earthquakes. Yet this song stays in the mind for a number of reasons. The harpsichord and mandolin are possibly my favourite instrumentation of every Tori Amos song, but I think it's this section:

I got big bird on the fishing line
with a bit of a shout a bit of a shout
a bit of an angry snout
he's my favourite hooker of the whole bunch
and i know about his only bride
and how the russians die on the ice
i got my rape hat on
honey but i always could accessorise
and i never cared too much for the money
but i know right now
that it's in god's hands
but i don't know who the father is.

I love the phrasing of that whole piece, it's great to sing along to. When she suddenly breaks out the falsetto on "and I never cared too much for the money", she sounds like Prince.


04. Muhammed My Friend



Every time I listen to the studio version of this, the introductory piano solo drives me insane. I can't wait to delve into the main body of the song, goddamit! And yet, I couldn't do without that piano solo. It creates a tension, an anticipation, a pause before that triumphant opening couplet. I hate David Letterman, but the above version is worth a watch.

03. Siren



Anyone remember the 1998 Great Expectations movie, directed by Alfonso Cuaron? No, me neither. Looking it up on IMDB, the castlist is crazy: Robert deNiro, Anne Bancroft, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Gwennie Paltrow. Maybe it's just me, but I had no idea any of those people were ever in a film together. Anyway, I'm thankful for it because it gave us one of Tori's best recent songs. I always think of circles when I listen to it. That chorus. It sounds elliptical
to me, or something.

02. Take To The Sky



I never actually told anybody this, but 'Take To The Sky' was the unofficial sponser of my Leaving Cert year. Anytime I felt grumpy or tired or bogged down in exam revision, I listened to this. It's defiant and quietly furious, catchy as all get out and features some bitchin' piano slaps. Exams? "Here I stand with a sword in my hand!". (Yeah, I know how lame that sounds. But it worked like a charm!)


01. Precious Things



I said that this list is exremely subject to change, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will always be numero uno. It was the first Tori Amos song I absolutely fell in love with. Let me flash back for a second, to Christmas 2003. I was heavily in the throes of my Nirvana phase, but I spotted a review of an best-of album called Tales of a Librarian in some music mag and liked what I read. After downloading 'Cornflake Girl' as a taster, I decided to buy it and so I purchased it the next time I was in town. I had liked 'Cornflake Girl' (who doesn't, right?) but when I heard this song, I was blown away. It opens the collection and is the absolute best primer a newbie could hope for. Everything essential about her is contained in this one song: beautiful piano playing, a novelistic sense of storytelling, the Catholicism, spurts of sudden rage - those jarring bursts of electric guitar still give me the shivers - humour, even the Trent Reznor friendship ("those demigods / with their nine-inch nails"). I always associate this with Margaret Atwood (I think I was reading Cat's Eye for the first time around this period). The song and the book kind of bleed into one another, both are extremely important to me. To borrow a line from another song not on this list, "They say you were something in those formative years". Yeah, I was something. Obsessed with this song. Still am. Listen!

List-less

Although something of a music nerd, I was never fully a part of the whole obsessive list-making gig promoted by Nick Hornby and his ilk. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading and debating lists of the top 100 punk albums from 1077, or the worst music videos ever, or whatever. But when it comes to compiling one of my own, I get stuck in a rut and grow bored with my subject matter. List-making is not one of my fortes, it seems inherently both too masculine and too mathematical for me to sink my teeth into. I’m currently mentally assessing the 25 or so films I’ve seen this year and wondering how many will appear on my Best of 2007 list (I hesitate to call it an end-of-year list as there’s no conceivable way I could see all the films I want by January, such a list will probably surface in February, around Oscar-time. That’s how long it’ll take me to catch up on dvds and such.) and I’m dreading the inevitable need to rank one above the other. That’s not to say I never rank things, though - I’ve just found evidence to the contrary.

Whilst going through some old files, I came across a personal list of my top ten albums of all time, circa 2004. There was no real point in compiling a list like this, but I’m glad I took the time to write it back then. It offers up some interesting thoughts. Here’s what it looks like:

1. Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat

2. David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World

3. Nirvana - Unplugged in New York

4. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes

5. Radiohead - Kid A

6. Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Armed Forces

7. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Peepshow

8. The Smiths - The Smiths

9. Velvet Underground - VU and Nico

10. PJ Harvey - Stories from the city, Stories from the Sea

Reading over it, I come to two conclusions: despite what I think, my musical taste hasn’t evolved that much in three years, and damn- I listen to an awful lot of white music. There’s not one hip-hop, jazz or soul record on that list, which would definitely change if I were making an equivalent list today. There’s nothing classical, either. At least it’s fairly evenly split between male & female and it’s not confined to just one decade, which is a plus. I’ve got to remember that back then, I had only heard a fraction of the music I’ve heard today. I was in the process of discovering new bands to obsess on and I was in my early stages of worship. The Smiths are still a band I’d swear by, but their self-titled debut isn’t their best album, their most influential one, or even my favourite one. I can barely stand listening to it nowadays, although there are a handful of classic songs, the production is so tinny and poor that it renders them almost unlistenable. I suspect that, at the time of writing, their debut was the only Smiths album I owned; but I was still able to sense that they would go on to create great things. Right now, it’d be a toss up between Meat is Murder or Strangeways for a current placing.

As I don’t distinctly remember making this list, I have no idea whether it’s meant to be in any kind of order. I severely doubt it, as that would mean I put a covers album as my number one album of all time. Famous Blue Raincoat is a great covers record though; and it certainly appealed to the my seriouser-than-thou adolescent self. Having it at number one makes a lot more sense than my number 6 placing; I don’t even own that album and I can’t remember ever liking it that much. It seems inconceivable that I’d rank it higher than Peepshow, an album which would still easily creep into my current top ten. Putting a Bowie album, let alone a fairly mediocre one, at number 2 is just plain ridiculous. David Bowie has never been an artist who I’ve gone ape-shit over - but this list begs to differ. It’s slightly disconcerting - there was once a Catherine who admired Bowie enough to place him at number two in an All-Time-Great list? Whaaa? It’s a feeling akin to meeting my long-lost twin and realising she has 20/20 vision. What a headfuck.

Okay, getting down to the business of making a similar list today, I can see three of those albums holding on (Little Earthquakes, Kid A, Peepshow). Tori Amos has probably never topped her mainstream debut (what a disheartening thought for an artist), Peepshow still gives me the shivers and Kid A is Radiohead’s triumph (stfu about OK Computer). Seven coveted spaces are left and if I wasn’t thinking about it too hard, they’d be filled with Ys, Music for 18 Musicians, Reachin‘, When the Pawn Hits…, If You’re Feeling Sinister, Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony and Rain Dogs.

Excellent. Brilliant. Completed. What's next?

But wait.

I’m still not entirely happy with that (why have I once again neglected jazz? Where is Poses?! No McGarrigles, Paul Simon or George Winston - my childhood staples? Where are Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, PJ Harvey, Bjork and The Smiths?) Even after a few minutes contemplation, even the original three seem wrong; I think Boys For Pele is a superior Tori album, I just haven’t had as much time to grow into it. I've always defended Amnesiac over Kid A. Is Peepshow really my favourite Banshees album?

I’ve never been able to fully commit to a list; my taste is ever changing and too fluid to really pin down (this could be a positive or a negative thing). Even a quick attempt at this kind of thing proves too much of a headache for a Sunday night. Even as I’ve abandoned it, disembodied voices keep bouncing off my skull, telling me I’ve forgotten them (please shut up, Buck 65). If anyone out there has a top ten list they’re perfectly happy with, feel free to share. I’ll read, comment and debate it - just don’t expect me to share mine.

Tori Amos - "American Doll Posse"

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Bouncing Off Clouds!

I can't find my digital camera right now, but if I could, I'd upload a picture of me grinning with my copy of American Doll Posse.

Yes!!! The new album is mine, as of this morning, when my darling mother decided to treat me, under the promise of housework. Sure, I'll do the hoovering if it means getting my mitts on the Limited Edition version. Which is the version I plumped for, even though I promised myself I wouldn't. I've done this with Radiohead's Hail to the Thief and Tori's Scarlett's Walk and a couple others, and the problem with Special Editions is that they never fit onto my cd shelf. Which is a minor annoyance, but I cannot resist the lure of a lush fold-out package with an extra dvd promising bonus material and postcards.

I'm glad I chose the Special Edition, in the end. The packaging is really great; numerous striking photographs of Tori dolled up in dresses and wigs, short blurbs introducing us to the 4 new concept characters (nothing straightforward about them, no "favourite colour" bullshit to let us into their personalities. although Pip's line "Alternatively, to think that some cheerleaders don't have razors in their snatch is to be foolishly unarmed" made me snort with laughter). The dvd is minor, there's no interviews or studio footage but we do get footage of them shooting the cover art and photographs, plus there's a great great great song, "My Posse Can Do" that should have been included on the album proper.

So, onto the album. At 23 tracks, it's far too long. That's not really up for debate, most anyone will agree that 10 or 12 great songs is far better than an album twice as long, but half as good. After only one full-through listen (though it was an "attentive, no reading the new issue of Empire, through headphones" kinda listen) I'm still a little hazy in some parts. There are some definite stand-outs already, single "Big Wheel", the respectfully barbed "Yo George", the jaunty "Programmable Soda". Tori starts channeling her neglected fan-favourite "Take To The Sky" on the Russian-themed "Velvet Revolution" and there's some exquisite string sections and harmonies. And I haven't even mentioned the glam-rock stomp feel she has going on at many points, which is unexpected, but kinda awesome. I might write a proper review if I can focus my thoughts a little more cohesively, but it'll take a little while for me to break this album in, due to it's sheer magnitude. Word.

Daft Punk Are Playing In My Head...In My Head.

Thank fug it's friday.

Some news to set us up for the weekend:

- "American Doll Posse" gets a good review in The Guardian today! Caroline Sullivan gives it 4/5 stars, "Some of her best work in years is here...cut to ten tracks it would have been one of her most significant records". I have no idea when I'll have the cash to buy it, but it looks set to be a good one.

- Julia Stiles ditches the Shakespeare adaptations to star in the film adaptation of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Which could go either way, really. Especially when you read what they say about it, The book has many dark overtones, but Rattray said the project will emphasize some of the more uplifting elements. "Esther Greenwood has a strong outlook on life, and we're really looking to bring out the humor in the character," she said. "We don't want to do a depressing descent into the world of suicide." It's been two years since I read The Bell Jar, but I don't recall it being a bundle of hilarity. Maybe that was just me..

-Another book-to-film adaptation I heard about last week but neglected to mention, is the fabulous The Time Traveler's Wife, which is set to star Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. The director will be the German, Robert Schwentke. Before he signed on, rumoured directors were the likes of Speilberg, Fincher and Gus Van Sant. I'm relieved it's a relative unknown instead, hopefully it'll stay true to the spirit and scope of the source novel.

- My hanky is already damp...Apparently the Magneto spin-off will not star Ian McKellen, but a younger actor. Why they'd do such a thing is beyond me...those damn fools! No-one will ever fill that ridiculous helmet as well.

- Not really "news" per se, but my family finally found a copy of the third (and final) season of Arrested Development last weekend. My parents have finished watching it, I still have half to go. I'm loath to finish, because after that I know I'll have no new epsiodes left to see. Still, I can console myself with the beloved Chicken Dance...

Y Kant Tori Make Good Videos?

I'm all excited! The last time Tori Amos had a new album coming out, it was entitled "The Beekeeper" and I bought it with money recieved after doing the Junior Cert. I was really pysched about buying it and I distinctly remember getting it, along with Bloc Party's debut "Silent Alarm" on the same day. I even got the Special Edition of Tori's album, paying just that little bit extra for fancy packaging and a dvd just because I love her music.

Unfortunatly, it was terrible. I listened to it twice through and put it back on the shelf. Since then I've listened to certain tracks again, but mostly it lies there gathering dust, unlistened to. "The Beekeeper" is a very poor album, especially from an artist with such a great back catalogue.

But I suppose Tori Amos has always been quite patchy. Out of the albums I'm familiar with, here are my rankings:

1. Under The Pink (1993)
2. Little Earthquakes (1991)
3. From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
4. Scarlett's Walk/Welcome to Sunny Florida (2002/2004)
5. Strange Little Girls (2001)
6. To Venus and Back (1999)
.
.
.
.
.
176. The Beekeeper (2005)

Obviously I'm discounting her best-of and I haven't heard Boys For Pele properly the whole way through to comment on and I doubt I'll ever want to hear "Y Kant Tori Read", but it's clear that Amos' best work is her earlier material, before marriage and motherhood dulled her tongue and knack for a tune. A journalist once commented that the only way to get a decent album from Tori nowadays would be to "kidnap her daughter" which is harsh, but probably true. I certainly thought so, until I saw the video for her latest single "Big Wheel".


Okay, the video is very student-y and shoddily made, but the song is such a refreshing change! I love the jaunty piano, the bluegrassy feel of the chorus, the sense that Tori has her spark back. I'm suddenly eager to buy its parent album, "American Doll Posse" which is landing instores on 1st May. Looking at the promo pictures and hearing this song has restored my faith! Here's hoping it's not another Beekeeper-fiasco...

Edit - Okay, well it looks like the video got pulled off YouTube. No matter, you can still hear it, along with the rest of "American Doll Posse" at Tori's Myspace. There's only so much stop-motion Tori you can take, so it's probably better just to listen to it.

I was almost reluctant to hear these songs before buying the album, but then I thought - screw it. It's not illegal if she put them up herself, and I have no idea when I'll have the money to buy the real thing. Currently on track 4 (but I won't get much further as I'm going to Stars In Yer Eyes in a few minutes. Perliminary thoughts - it's very much a rock album, which can only be a good thing after the Middle-of-the-Road cringe that was "The Beekeeper". I'm still psyched, people.