Tori Amos During The Holidays Is Crazy

Tori Amos During The Holidays Is Crazy

Ha. What am I saying. Tori Amos ANY TIME of the year is crazy. Bat shit insane. Don't get me wrong, as a red head I automatically have a lot of love for her. But she was never sane at all, ever

Let's talk about Tori Amos. I'm sure you've heard of her. She's the redheaded pianist/singer/songwriter and used to be truly innovative and talented musician. She release a string of great albums in the 90's and in this one bloggers opinion, was one of the most interesting and unique artist of that decade. She was always a bit eccentric, but was also a musical genius, so it was Ok.

But since around 2001, she fell into a steady decline, releasing a string of progressively shittier albums with progressively more embarrassing titles (Abnormally Attracted to Sin?!). Basically she became a parody of her former self. Now she has hit a new low with the release of "Midwinter Graces," a Christma- oh, I'm sorry, a "seasonal album." which is on the level of a Kenny G move in order to strike sales. In the case of Tori Amos it's a lot worse because she has spent a majority of her career writing songs about how much Christianity sucks.

How is it? Bad, but that seems to be a given these days. What pushed me to talk about this hopefully ignored album is the "Promotional DVD" that was released with the album. I can't really describe how bad this is, so why don't you see for yourself.





It's not pretty. Let's start with the basics, she has not aged gracefully, to put it mildly. Her more loyal fans will deny it but it does seem that she's had plastic surgery. Meanwhile her eyebows now go up at the end and she can barely move her face to sing. She has a serious case of Cat Face going on and it looks like cinematographer's in the video were instructed to make her face look as pasty, frail and clown like as possible.

It's really sad. Tori used to be one of the most natural beauties in the business and I'm not even factoring the whole red head obsession I have going. Then at some point she ran over her face with a floor buffer and she started going bald, which she covered up with ridiculous wigs.



I'm also pretty sure she's addicted to some hard drug. Her former BFF, Neil Gaiman dodges question about her and it doesn't speak well for her social life and her albums have been getting just plain horrible as she's gone from working a clever nymph gimmick to being absorbed completely by her persona.

As for the content of the interview.. it's seriously 30 minutes of her rambling like that video. Making absolutely no sense about anything. She laughs at inappropriate times and she takes long pauses to stare blankly at the floor. She is completely obsesed with her Daddy issues, but then again, that's nothing new as her whole career is based on them, I guess it didn't used to feel so creepy.

With "Midwinter Graces," Tori's transformation into a jedi master of crazy is complete. She's the crazy grandmother who grabs your wrist at family gatherings, and you think you can make some excuse and get away if only she'll stop talking for two seconds.. BUT SHE NEVER SHUTS UP!



I know a lot of artists start phoning it in at some point when they go past their peak, but there are plenty of female artists over 40 who still seem to have it together. There's Kate Bush, Kylie Minogue, Dolly Parton, Alison Goldfrapp, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Madonna.... Ok, I'll get shit for that but I'm sure she wouldn't let anything like Midwinter Graces interview hit the market. Maybe it's just that all these women have been able to reinvent themselves through the yeas and do something fresh and new. Whereas Tori seems determined to keep up the angsty-girl-with-piano-singing-about-rape bit that she's been doing forever.

Her only change seems to have been right after Y Kant Tori Read. What happened? Did she do too many drugs? Has she surrounded herself with yes-men to the point where she believes that every thought that comes into her head is genius and must be shared? Or she not care anymore and is just putting out albums left and right to make a quick buck off her equally crazy fans?



I think that the birth of her daughter in 2000 is also to blame. She's just too damn happy now! I also get the feeling that she has built this Tori Amos character, and she herself is totally different in real life now. It's like Trent and NIN keep on ranting about being completely emo and yet it seems that Trent is a happier person these days. Or if Zach De La Rocha from Rage still screaming about being poor. It eventually loses its meaning.

Her albums have progressively gotten shittier and I keep buying them like an asshole. So, basically, she's a one-woman version of Weezer. I will say that she's still pretty good live. I saw her two years ago and it was a good show. But let me dismiss any rumor that you'll be lucky to go to a Tori concert because of the women. I don't think you'd want any girl you picked up at a Tori Amos concert.



I did like Scarlet's Walk but since that album every track she's done has had the exact same instrumentation and feel to it, and that's when she really started getting predictable with the lyrics too... (Come on, there was a track called "Mrs. Jesus," that sounds like someone doing a Tori impression on SNL.) I'm being glib about it, but it actually does make me sad since I used to be a pretty big fan of hers. So this Holiday season you shouldn't buy the Christma- Midwinter Grace album and just remember what this train wreck of a once-amazing career used to sound like.

Y KANT TORI AMOS PHANS B SANE?

Y KANT TORI AMOS PHANS B SANE?

Tonight at the Greek Theater nestled in the Griffith Park hills Tori Amos is going to be playing her piano and singing songs. Though you wont be able to hear any of that because she'll be around her fans. By fans I mean crazed ass bitches who have been fucked over one time too many by people with dicks (guys) and can't take it anymore. Either that or they're lesbians and really really have been fucked over by girls who are cunts. Pardon my harsh language here, but I can say that Tori Amos fans are batshit insane. I should know, I'm one of them.

But I'm not one of those fucking screaming harpies that have ruined my last few times I've gone to see her. One of those times the girl sitting in front of me was screaming so loud through most of the set about how much she loved Tori, as if she could be heard. Then after a couple of songs she just fell down and started crying. Clearly something about Cornflake Girl hit her like a ton of two scoops of raisins.


Ah, the good ol' days.

You see the problem with Tori Amos fans is that they not only use the word "fairy" as adults, but they also spell it "Faerie." That alone makes me want them all to die in a little Earthquake. They can select an out-of-context Tori lyric to justify melodramatic overreactions to any imaginable situation.

Have you've seen the way they respond to Youtube comments? Filled with sentences like "The sexist, misogynist specimens will ALWAYS feel threatened in the presence of the invoked Goddess." Delusional fantasy-kingdom inhabitants given to histrionics and wordy, self-impressed defenses of their deified heroine: Yeah, I'm sure these are the sort of people who can take criticism well. So maybe it would be smarter for me to just end this now, right?Wrong!


Tori grinds against a fake plastic tree and wears see through clothes because
1.) She's an ageless plastic nymph or
2. She's fucking weird

I can't let this go unsaid. Though, if you've ever met someone who was a Tori Amos fan you need not be told this sort of things. You'll already realize they were bat shit insane. There's a fan site called Undented that collects hundreds of stories... Many of which similar from people who share how they embarrassed themselves trying to express thanks to Tori only to be thwarted by even more humiliation when they end up crying, hyperventilating and more than likely pissing themselves. It's like a largely female premature-ejaculation support group. In all the anecdotes, Amos seem to be a remarkably good sport, but it's little wonder why she spends so m uch time in the studio, writing needlessly long records as a way to avoid uncomfortable interactions with drooling fanaticism.

Which brings us to the newest spawn of the recording process. ABNORMALLY ATTRACTED TO SIN is Tori Amos' fourth straight over 70 minute adventure into flabbergasting overkill. Previous attempts include a concept album about beekeeping and Gnostic mysticism, and even fruitier concept album called American Doll Posse, in which Amos took on the roles of five female personae based on Greek mythology. That concert was one that I nearly almost killed the fat cunt in the row in front of me.


Even with multiple personalities, not a single one isn't crazy

I suppose that before talking about her new album, I should point out the best things about Tori Amos' career thus far. This isn't for the benefit of you fans, who moret han likely committed all this stuff to memory above knowing when their own birthday is and committ this to memory among the other strange Tori details no one besides her OBGYN should know. Besides, those fans are currently busy writing me hate mail and calling me a pig. But instead this info is for you regular folks. Who more than likely never thought of Tori as anything more than that 90's red head who sang a song about some girl who likes corn flakes.

• In 1988, Amos' first band Y Kant Tori Read released an unlistenable synth-rock album, which deservedly tanked. After Amos became popular, Tori fans paid thousands of dollars for it, and even now copies go for $30-$300 in various formats. The best part about these transactions is that everyone who pursues and purchases this record knows it's shitty. Also, they understand that buying an out-of-print album from used stores and auction sites in no way supports their beloved artist. Still, they feel compelled to own this abomination out of sheer psychotic obsessiveness.

• Tori supplied guest vocals to Tess Makes Good's "Distant Storm," a sappy tune that appears during the unassailable vigilante film China O'Brien ("she's out to stop crime -- cold," *China slams some redneck asshole's head with the freezer drawer*). Because of the aforementioned compulsiveness of Amos fans, this film has been sought and coveted by many people outside the martial-arts realm, thus raising recognition for a much cooler redhead, Cynthia Rothrock.

• Amos covered Slayer's "Raining Blood," recasting the best song ever as an ode to menstrual flow.
• In this video, Amos performs "Precious Things," a perfectly tenable ballad. However, I draw your attention to the 4:06 mark, when Amos starts grunting like the Other Sister, her tongue lolling violently as though she's receiving an unanaesthetized tonsillectomy. Then skip ahead to 6:16, when she's suddenly possessed by Rebecca De Mornay's Hand That Rocks The Cradle psycho. Normal people might perceive these spasms as bizarre blemishes in the performance, but Amos fans actually cite them as highlights, because to them freakish outbursts are synonymous with creative passion.

On to Abnormally Attracted.. It starts off with GIVE, a decent Portishead-style melody. The album ends with a quality instrumental coda after Amos has stopped singing. Maybe California does a nice job with Tori's old piano-and-flittering-butterfly-vocals formula. That leaves 14 tracksand 60 minutes of mostly filler material.


I wish I was that mic.. then on second thought.. I'm glad I'm not that mic.

On the whole, the only songs that really annoy on the album were "Not Dying Today", which was filled with spoken jive vocals "Ani DiFranco-esque," and "Police Me," all which are boring as all hell and filled with guitar sounds as if Y KANT TORI READ was making a come back. The rest of the album is pretty boring with a slight easy-listening 97.1 the wave version of electronica. The only real opinion that I have on a whole with this album is that it took up my time.

Amos enjoys a reputation for obtuseness, but she occasionally writes the most obvious shit possible. Once I watched some anonymous loser on amature night perform the lines "what if wrong was right, and right was left?" I concluded he was the worst lyricist I'd ever heard. But Amos comes close to echoing his idiocy with "I left the right man" and "I wronged the right man." She stoops to "Ophelia/I feel you" wordplay, and writes a song called "Mary Jane" about marijuana. Unlike previous "Mary Jane" songs, this one contains the phrase "Tetrahydrocannabinol Pure Isomer Dronabinol." This is not a positive development.


Tori Amos as she masturbates on stage

Tonight Tori plays the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. While I did go to her last tour in L.A. at the Nokia Theater, I'm not going tonight but hey, if you're all up for seeing Tori perform, here's hoping that she doesn't do too much of the new stuff. I heard she did some funky stuff up in Northern California. Here's hoping that she goes back to writing stark piano songs about her personal tragedies so those crazy as shit followers can glean unearned emotional depth from feeling vicariously harrowed