Tori Amos – Strange Little Girls

Just a few words here (or more). Tori is a fearless artist, unafraid to take on any Genre/Style of music there is out there! Although as a whole, I can "only" give this release 3-3½ stars - I still highly recommend it! As another reviewer stated here, this is indeed NOT a crowd pleaser! From Tom Waits to Eminem to Slayer and back again! What more need be said? For an artist like Tori to take on a brutal (as in "heavy") Slayer tune and turn into something that is unlike anything you've ever heard - and all with just a single piano... says it all! It's slow and soft (or not) but it's still dark, "heavy" & brooding. Her interpretation definitely is unique but more importantly, in a somewhat wacky way, stays true to the original song! I'd really like to know what Tom & co. think about it! It's worth the price just for that song - at least in my humble opinion and I'm not a "die hard" Slayer fan either.

All tracks on this album are indeed good, but the one that still haunts me every time I listen to it, is "Raining Blood"!!

We all know Tori is a master of the cover-version. Arguably her most notable (and indeed most famous) cover was her version of the legendary Nirvana single "Smells like Teen Spirit" which she interpreted as an introspective piano-ballad and locked it away as a b-side on some single - still it has it's reputation! So, in a time where her own work doesn't get that much press anymore, why not release an album with cover-versions of mostly well known songs and get your name heard again?

Still, this is a Tori Amos record. If she wants to do relatively commercial and tender tunes, she will (like on 2002's Scarlet's Walk). But if she wants to go into concept-albums and records few of the most haunting tracks ever, she gives you something like Strange Little Girls. This is not a crowd-pleaser at all. Opening with Velvet Underground's New Age which shapes up in some weird noise balloon at the end ("Oh, you sick little fucks!"...yeah!), Tori aims straight on reworking Eminems '97 Bonnie and Clyde which she deconstructs as a devastating, almost spoken word performance. The title track on the other hand is pure pop (good pop, at this!). Some of the reworking she does effortless like the beautiful Enjoy the Silence, Time and Rattlesnakes, which themselves sound like they were made for this format. Then you have The Beatles' Happiness Is a Warm Gun, a strange, ten minute long, montage of Interview samples and a cover of Slayer's Raining Blood which is as slow and gothic as you can get (imagine the rain from the intro of Slayer's original track, played on half speed with bits of moll-piano sprankled over it).

So we know Strange Little Girls is uncommercial like what - but why does it have such a bad reputation? This record is awesome...and needs a vinyl release.

The unobligaTori cover-up: Tori Amos – Strange Little Girls

There generally tends to be the reek of desperation around most cover albums – you get the scratchy feeling that the artist has hit a dead slump in their creative flow, is constrained (by whatever peripheral reason) to release something, and takes therefore the quickest and simplest route to get rid of the nuisance of actually living up to the expectations of their job.

But, it’s not always the case – and rest assured it’s far from being the case here. To begin with, Tori regularly covers stuff as strikes her fancy when performing live - always much to her audience’s delight, so a cover album makes not only artistic (and commercial) sense, but an organic continuation of what she does anyway; Secondly, the choice of material here is quite eclectic (if there is a thematic consideration here, I missed it), so there can be little doubt as to her intentions – songs she liked enough, or found interesting enough – to record as one of her own. Which brings us to argument the third – Tori’s unique personal voice and musical sensibilities are virtually unavoidable, and so these performances are (in many cases) less of a cover and more of a reinterpretation – not one that makes the impression that she thought there was anything lacking in the original, but rather a personalization of the material, an accentuation of what attracted her to it.

Which is good; while I personally prefer her live covers – they tend to be more quirky, fun, spur-of-the-moment, brief love letters – the selection here (while worked out and rehearsed) is still personal, interesting, very well arranged though a mite over-produced, and flows excellently because of said personalization (another problem with cover albums: they’re usually either boring or un-cohesive, or both, or worse).

My “personal relationship” with Tori Amos, by the way, is like my wife’s (a rabid Tori fan) with my beloved Frank Zappa: I infinitely acknowledge and recognize her genius, her musicianship, her craftsmanship, her creative individuality, and her unique and inimitable style – I just rarely have the patience to actually listen to it. In other words – I appreciate her intellectually, but not so much emotionally (though this may well change as I listen to more of her stuff in a deeper way, who knows).

The track-list, which would have made an excellent compilation disc in and of itself, is varied and knowledgeable, pirouetting comfortably around fringe classics. Stand-out tracks are a suffocated, dramatic version of Eminem’s ’97 Bonnie and Clyde, a distant 10CC’s I’m Not in Love, an aggressive Beatles’ Happiness is a Warm Gun, a chilling Slayer’s Raining Blood (Gem!), and a very straight-up Joe Jackson’s Real Men. Pretty-much-what-you’d-expect-but-in-a-real-good-way tracks are Stranglers’ Strange Little Girl, Tom Waits’ Time, Lloyd Cole’s Rattlesnakes, and Boomtown Rats’ I Don’t Like Mondays. Artistic Wha-huh? merit prizes go to Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence, Velvet Underground’s New Age, and Neil Young’s Heart Of Gold.

Obviously, the selling point is by default also the main weakness: when coming from a worthwhile artist, a covers album - no matter how good - is rarely as fascinating as an original release. In Tori’s case, however, this might be a plus for the casual listener (me), because her own stuff can be a bit too much work to absorb and relate to, and this provides a comfortable gateway into her world.

Truly – there is not a bad song (or cover) in the bunch, and mostly, unlike many, too many, covers and cover albums, never is ”Why, in god’s name, did this have to be done?” asked.

In a sentence: Good selection, artistic integrity – what more could you ask of a cover album?