Tori Amos once said that pain was something that our generation
\ncherished so much that we would hunt down and kill anyone who tried
\nto take that pain away from us. After all, pain is Tori Amos’s
\nmuse.<\/p>\n
The horror and the suffering she suffered after being raped came
\nout on
\nLittle Earthquakes<\/i>. That groundbreaking album and
\nUnder The Pink<\/i> rang with Amos’s virtuosic piano skills as
\nwell as her stark lyrics. Then…something happened – she broke up
\nwith her longtime boyfriend. The result was
\nBoys For Pele<\/i>, an ambitious album as well as a huge
\ndeparture from those two albums. As she added more musical
\nornamentation (harpsichord) her lyrics became more abstract.<\/p>\n
Bad news for those who bitched about the results of Amos’s last
\nventure. The accomplishments she made on
\nBoys For Pele<\/i> are taken to a new level for her new album,
\nfrom the choirgirl hotel<\/i>. It’s more dance-oriented, it’s
\nmore accessible than either
\nBoys For Pele<\/i> or
\nUnder The Pink<\/i> and it’s her most rockin’ album to date.<\/p>\n
This time, the pain that Amos is reeling from stems from her
\nmiscarriage that she suffered after the tour for
\nBoys For Pele<\/i> was completed. She addresses this directly in
\nthe powerful opener, “Spark”. “She’s convinced she could hold back
\na glacier\/but she couldn’t keep baby alive,” Amos sings in a voice
\nthat can still feel like someone has injected ice water in your
\nspine.<\/p>\n
The rest of the album is far more difficult in terms of figuring
\nout the meanings of the lyrics. Metaphorically, Amos is one of the
\nmost interesting artists out there today. And
\nchoirgirl hotel<\/i> is packed with metaphors. “Ice cream
\nassassains”, “lover brother bogenvilla” and Amos comparing herself
\nto “an underwater thing” are some of the noggin’ scratchers on this
\nrelease.<\/p>\n
Luckily,
\nfrom the choirgirl hotel<\/i> is musically intriguing enough to
\nkeep you hooked. Mellotone flutes, electric and acoustic guitar and
\nlavish string production are all over the album. Aside from the
\nRobert Plant-worshipping yells that Amos is so great at, she also
\ntakes some lessons from PJ Harvey (“Cruel”) and dances with
\nelectronica (“hotel” and the throbbing “She’s Your Cocaine”). All
\nof this may seem like blasphemy to old school Amos fans. And they
\nhave a right to be somewhat worried; her piano playing comes
\ndangerously close to being drowned out by the other musical forces
\non
\nchoirgirl hotel<\/i>.<\/p>\n
But her voice is still the reason to buy her albums. And she’s
\nexquisite, especially on the lovely “Liquid Diamonds”. In
\nfrom the choirgirl hotel<\/i>, Amos speeds into new territory. If
\na glimpse of
\nLittle Earthquakes<\/i> could be seen in
\nBoys For Pele<\/i>, it’s all but gone in this latest effort. Not
\nto dispute the greatness of that album. But
\nfrom the choirgirl hotel<\/i> is a listen unlike anything else
\nyou’re likely to hear this year. And that’s saying a lot given the
\nnew releases this year by Garbage, Tricky, Hole, Liz Phair and PJ
\nHarvey.<\/p>\n
Is
\nfrom the choirgirl hotel<\/i> bloated? Sometimes yes. Is it
\nself-indulgent? Oh, hell yeah. But unlike other bloated epics,
\nthere’s plenty of rewards awating you with each listen to
\nchoirgirl hotel<\/i>. It all depends on whether or not the
\nlistener is willing to stay a few nights in Tori’s
\nhotel<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":24731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5650],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-35935","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tori-amos","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35935"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35935"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}