Messing with the Master: Tori Amos

It's a HOLIDAY (POSSE) BONUS! In this very special holiday episode of 'Messing With The Master', we delve into Tori Amos's holiday music across many decades, exploring her artistic evolution, personal memories of that amazing Midwinter Graces promo tour, and the significance of family in her work. We discuss the impact of Tori's upbringing and her respect for holiday traditions, while acknowledging that The Woman We Call Tori can rock the fuck out of anything, including Christmas music. Playlists: * MM [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6uM2xO2ZEnGxQLbHszQlNd?si=bFZsQ5FYSHi5AKkUUGgFsg]  * KK [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bB3hugwfWTnGc1L60nIRF?si=vV8w9NWuSRew7yfK6bBRpw] * JV [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4H4i3FtEWPvqOki37Hl0A0?si=kjtb1RGqScCo3J7rhbHq3g]

In terms of narrative, composition and sheer scope as a record, Boys for Pele is one of the most audacious “pop” records to come out of the 1990s. Make no mistake: despite its twisty narrative, mysteriously confrontational lyrics and non-traditional take on song structure, Pele was a considerable mainstream success, selling more than 2 million copies worldwide and going platinum in the United States. Part harrowing journey into darkness and fury, part coming to terms with the aftermath of a shattered psyche, Boys for Pele might actually be the anti-pop record. Ironically, Tori’s biggest-selling single off the record (her biggest-selling single of all time), was a club mix of the Southern Gothic tale of madness and revenge “Professional Widow” that focuses on the lyric “it’s gotta be big.” Those who entered into this disorienting, often sinister world expecting a four on the floor rave were instead greeted by a smoky, deeply-complex rumination on one woman’s singular version of The Blues. The album finds Tori in a fugue descending into a hallucinatory abyss of anger, despair and confusion; the cathartic kind that evokes the wrenching neurotic pain of a genteel Blanche Dubois cracking in A Streetcar Named Desire. Its roots are distinctly rooted in the deeply soulful, deeply-odd South that might have been written about by Flannery O’Connor or filmed by D.W. Griffith, which is reflected in the choices made for the album’s artwork: Tori appears as the guardian of ghostly, forgotten children much like Lillian Gish does in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter. All of these works are both branded with the red-hot iron of righteous Christianity and haunted by the foul-smelling sulfuric specter of the Devil himself. It is that unholy and unsettling bilocation and brilliant intertextuality that marks a true literary work of genius, artistic masterpiece, or any consummate objet d’art, all of which are applicable lenses through which to view an intimate, intricate, and positively harrowing work such as Boys for Pele. Categorization is futile, but the ways in which Pele can be read are staggering. Playlists: * KK [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JY76ip9HAOPE9FmMFIVek?si=c1129a8419ab412e] * MM [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UtNH8qRgPMSk0TdeqEpGE?si=66090e3025c840fa] * JV [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2hbqq5hvpxaBgGTqQrINcn?si=4a31e4a7a2484773]

“I think the thing that just astounds me about Tori is that she can take a bit of something like a melody or harmonic sequence for some of these pieces that were the inspiration and create something truly her own, showing how truly powerful her own creative stamp is. I think of Night of Hunters as a 70-minute song with 30 pieces of music held together by 13 sets of interlocking lyrics. Now that’s composing! Tori was able to keep the narrative in my head at all times, very articulated and intricate. T would make sure I totally got it, explaining every facet and background info in just amazing detail. The story became flesh and blood, for me as it was for Tori. I have to confess that it was bliss working with T on Night of Hunters. We talked for at least one hundred hours about this record. The amount emotions and deliberations and ponderings and weighing was incredible. [This is] the most complex project I think I personally have worked on, from musical/dramatic perspective for sure, but what was evenheavier was the emotional investment — the dreams, the considerations of narrative. Every few bars mood changes slightly, very little is repeated. As far as style, and that would include harmonic choices and variations, melodies and variation, Tori has used this language since we first worked together. What has changed is her intensity, the refinement of this language, centering on the narrative. This , I think, is the driving force behind all of Tori”s music, and on this record for Deutsche Grammophon, she can use all of of her creativity, unbounded and without the restraint of ‘pop’ convention to make a extended multidimensional narrative, dramatic and compelling,and this includes her vocal and piano performances.” John Philip Shenale - Night of Hunters Composer, Arranger and Collaborator to Matt Mazur, 2011. Playlists: * Joey [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3NFf6B01tvHkEVhyHaMaMP?si=702a24c8401f4d40] * Matty [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QMwin0W2KLgx85noFgjsx?si=fa1350a161cb4de4] * Kristen [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1QsulHEjy7fmRECRJvhl9v?si=ef2d3892fea4440d]

With Strange Little Girls, Tori Amos approached the covers album as concept album, offering reinterpretations of 12 diverse male-authored tracks from the perspectives of an assortment of female characters. The project was inspired originally by by the homophobic and misogynistic messages which Amos believed to be prevalent in popular song at the beginning of the 21st century. “People were talking to me about how popular music was getting more violent,” she recalled in Piece by Piece. “Male songwriters were saying these really malicious things … and I really felt … that a generalized image of the antiwoman, antigay heterosexual man had hijacked Western male heterosexuality and brought it to the mediocrity of the moment.” The innovation of Strange Little Girls is to extend this debate into the realm of rock, and to recognise mainstream music as one of the primary cultural spheres in which gender roles get played out and patriarchal ideology disseminated. Supplemented by superb Cindy Sherman-inspired photography, the album is a rewarding and subversive work that boldly challenges the listener to reassess their relationship not only to each of these songs, but also to the wider cultural attitudes that they embody and endorse. “I wanted to complement the significance and scope of what she was doing. I felt like we were really in tune together, with what we were searching for,” recalled Adrian Belew, the project’s guitarist. “It was very comfortable working with her. I was surprised at the whole of the record [when I first heard it]. The songs I was unfamiliar with, in the context of what I had played, really changed the way I saw her as a producer and what she had envisioned. I frequently sign Strange Little Girls CDs, and the evidence is there that this record is important to people and they make the association between me and Tori and my contribution to the record. And then I realize they were probably turned onto me by Tori, and that’s an extraordinary thing for a musician to know. It is reflective of the community she builds in her work.” Playlists * JV [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1s9jYXaFc8a5m3eep7VFka?si=e384d45513c34f9e] * KK [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3x2s6qpCkFMnmUlMzDns6b?si=134cb4e0f2bc4d20] * MM [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3X3jRK1F2VSsujCLN0omw6?si=5c1103457cdb4025] Songs of Tori Amos – Season 6 selections referenced in the episode * New Age [https://songsoftoriamos.com/2024/03/0601-new-age/] * KK is team FOX * JV and MM are team FUCKS. * 97 Bonnie and Clyde [https://songsoftoriamos.com/2024/04/0602-97-bonnie-clyde/]

As she turned 50 in the spotlight, Tori Amos’ 2014 album Unrepentant Geraldines dropped and was greeted with headlines trumpeting the singer-songwriter’s “return to form” and “comeback”. But here’s the kicker: she never went anywhere. Although she had written a musical for the stage (The Light Princess, 2013), and composed a 21st century song cycle (Night of Hunters, 2011), Unrepentant Geraldines was Amos’ first record of entirely original compositions in five years, since Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009). If that album found Amos floating above a palette of darkly-glowing synths and sultry beats, then Geraldines was firmly grounded in what many would deem the Amos “signature” sound: a foundation built around soulful, churchy organs, classical-complex pianoscapes, and pristinely-orchestrated vocal arrangements (exemplified on the single “Promise”, which prominently features her then-15 year old daughter Natashya). The romantic and lush album evokes and references other key moments in Amos’ catalog, while somehow possessing a distinct energy that distinguishes it as its own living, breathing experience. “Each song had to tell a story that you understood without needing to hear another song to make it make sense,” Tori told me at the time of the records release. “Although some of them are interconnected, the songs, but they needed to live on their own.” There’s no rigid adherence to any one specific style of music or instrumentation, no concept to be beholden to, and yes, while there are influences from past albums, Geraldines deploys them with fresh style and in an alchemic, organic way. The album possesses the kind of wildness of spirit that has always permeated Amos’ work, but here that oft-explosive vivacity is contained and refined on songs “16 Shades of Blue”, with it’s emotionally articulate swagger; and on the psychedelic sonic Fata Morgana of the title track. There is a noticeable confidence in the songs — in the writing, in the delivery, and in the bright verisimilitude of her compositional landscape. Also adventurous are her lyrical arrangements and vocal delivery. “I’ve told you many times: I sound like a fairy on crack. I know that! So you have to surrender to what your pipes are.” Please join Kristen, Matt and Joey as they tackle a pivotal moment in Tori’s discography and history. Messing With The Master: Unrepentant Geraldines is available wherever you check out podcasts. Playlists * JV [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1mA3NXz6s5UE8GWk4c4x6m?si=6dce10c43a384a05] * KK [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/08BhdGSbdK35QU1DT80HVD?si=753a9c774e6e4d92] * MM [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3y1ZOtZcc5FSWWLCsmQyA7?si=6ffa03bb256f4bf7]