06/01/2014
Tori, Tori, Tori, oh Tori. This album of hers is a loaded album. It isn’t quite enough to say that her newest album is loaded, complex and hard to analyze. First and foremost let me state that I love Tori Amos and have loved her ever since the very first time I heard her back in the year of our lord 1992 with Little Earthquakes.
It is hard to talk about Tori Amos without offending a large portion of die hard fans of hers. Yes she is brilliant, talented, beautiful, and an inspiration to many others. She is still human however. I would have to say “Abnormally Attracted To Sin” wasn’t my favorite album of hers but it was still quintessentially Tori (As if I know her personally or well enough to make this statement). Also her album “Night Of Hunters” was amazing and was a step in a new direction. Including her daughter on the album was pure genius, even if it seemed like her daughter needed months of vocal lessons just to be prepared for the album. I am always the first to appreciate Tori’s works and adore them. Yes, I said it, I love Tori Amos, deal with it.
This new album of hers, “Unrepentant Geraldines” is what I expect of Tori. It is quality, it shows signs of maturation and sophistication that only Tori seems to possess as she ages. Yes I am aware that there is a level of gender dynamics involved in my critique. Is she pretty enough? Is she competent still? Is she still a tour de force in her genre and field? The answer to all of these questions is, YES! Although she has had her experience with plastic surgery and with the limelight, this is not the focus of my critique. Is it worth mentioning? Yes, anytime that a person male or female succumbs to the ravenous nature of the music industry or public sphere it is worth mentioning that they are human, not superhuman or immune to peoples negativity and opinions. I love Tori and always will.
Her newest album is something like my affinity for her personality. I have always loved her and found her peaceful and beautifully enchanting. The issue is, as she ages she is changing, she isn’t any less beautiful and that has nothing to do with the plastic surgery. Her art is still something I seek out and want to consume with a hunger that is reserved for very few. There is something different about this new album though, something beautiful but hard to digest, something complex and layered.
Tori Amos – 16 Shades of Blue
I have always seen Tori Amos in the realm of the literary world. I have seen English majors love her and want to die for her, I have seen artists and lovers of poetry devour her works in ways that no other music consumer does. This is a beautiful aspect of her art. I would also have to say that her music is more poetry than any other art form, I would liken her to Sylvia Plath meets gin and tonics crossed with Walt Whitman while someone is playing the most beautiful piano solos ever heard. Yes I love Tori Amos’s new album, even though it’s not what I grew up listening to and what I would prefer it to be, it’s still essentially an art form that I truly enjoy. I will continue to listen to her beautiful voice sing me to sleep while I empty my wine glass and drift into a slumber that is filled with Tori’s voice, her poetry, her lyrics, her mythology.
Article by: Gabriel Barrio
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