From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V3 #179 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Tuesday, May 12 1998 Volume 03 : Number 179 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Boys and Girls? Pele and Hotel? [PoetGrrl14 ] I've checked into the Hotel and plan on staying for a while.... [Kenneth ] thoughts on choirgirls [Beth Coulter ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:20:38 EDT From: PoetGrrl14 Subject: Boys and Girls? Pele and Hotel? Hiya peoples, I noticed this, while reading the MuchMusic ( Spotlight: Tori Amos ) bit on Tori and her albums. The last one, Boys for Pele, was music for Pele, the goddess in the volcano that they sacrificed boys to in ancient Hawaii. Were her songs "boys" back then? Now, the new album, from the choirgirl hotel, she is referring to the songs as "girls". They're from the hotel. Did she refer to her songs back then as "boys"? Or has she just started referring to them using gender? It seems that way to me. Maybe, she referred to them that way in her head, just never said so to the press. Has she changed her songs so much, they have changed in her head too? Or is it just an evolution of character for her? Or music? I think this could be an interesting discussion, if we can get it started. Peace, Manda C. PoetGrrl14@AOL.com "We scream in cathedrals, why can't it be beautiful"-Tori Amos ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 17:38:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Kenneth Peterson Subject: I've checked into the Hotel and plan on staying for a while.... This is my little diddy about ftcgh... in short, I love it. I think this has got to be my new favorite tori album. I bought it a week ago, and havent stopped listening to it since. Each of the girls staying here at the hotel are so alive, so...so...beautiful in their own right. I think Tori made some these songs seem so alive because she wanted to may be ( IMOHO **no flames plz** ) reincarnate her little girl in these songs, so she makes them very much alive. The beat, it only adds to Tori. And her voice.. It has gotten so much more emotional.. I was listening to "Hotel" today, and when she gets to the "more" part, it gives me chills... The whole album gives me chills. So far my favorite songs are "Cruel" and "Hotel", but I love everything on the album. It is different, and I think it was time for tori to grow.... as she said, she had done the "girl and a piano" thing long enough, and she was getting lonely. I look forward to listening to this album until I burn a hole into the CD, and I cant wait for the concert.... Sending to my fellow "hotel-guests" Thes. === "Friends, companions, lovers are those who treat us in terms of our unlimited worth to ourselves. The are closest to us who best understand what life means to us, who feel for us as we feel for ourselves, who are bound to us in triumph and disaster, who break the spell of our loneliness." - ------Henry Meyers *********************************************** "...I've forgotten how to dream my own dream.." - ----Tori Amos _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 23:01:51 -0400 From: Beth Coulter Subject: thoughts on choirgirls I've never really done this, try to put into words what my initial impressions of Toris' work are. But by reading others impressions, I am finding interesting insights. So here I go, trying to put into words what I am hearing. First, let me confess that I am one of those horrible people who had a promo copy tape of the album a few weeks before it was released. I listened to it constantly and memorized every word and didn't fret too much when CDNow didn't ship until the release date (so I recieved it Friday). Boy, was I wrong! I should have been screaming for the CD. I had no idea the many layers that I was missing on my tape. The arrangements of music are classic and will be classics years after we are all gone. Tori is showing her great, enormous skill as a musician with this. I sat in front of the stereo, each speaker at either ear, and absorbed the music. I don't dislike Raspberry Swirl, tho' it is my least favorite girl. But these are all very individual girls. I found the sounds surrounding Jackie's Strength to be very powerful. The strings surround Toris' voice and the piano like a cocoon then departs and leaves Tori and the keys standing alone in center stage, before coming back to envelope her again. The lyrics are as multi-layered as the music and I know that I will be learning much more about this song the more I truly listen. My favorite, even from the first time I heard it is iieee. The tribal beat and trancy strings, the back vocals of "iieee" sends me into a zone that is not familer to me. Then her soaring voice during the chorus of "I know we are dying...why can't it be beautiful" drags me out of my trance, and I am feeling "so crazy, so naked" until the final breath. Then the drums hypnotize me again as "Liquid Diamonds" comes poaring down on my ears, making me feel as if I'm in a smoky blues club, then waking to "I guess I'm an Underwater Thing", my heart beginning to beat faster as the vocals go to a climax on "liquid dia-monds". This song changes 3 different ways (as most of these girls do) and my mind races to catch up to the changes. The "trilogy" of LE, Pink and Boys made my mind race to capture the lyrics many meanings. choirgirl hotel is the first time my ears have fought to capture the smallest nuance of each bar of music and the different dances performed by the indivdual instruments. Northern Lad is one of those songs that wraps itself around my brain, out of touch until the song begins playing, then crashing to the forefront with all the different connections I have with it, especially "when you're only wet because of the rain". Since it has been raining a lot in my life lately, I truly relate. Playboy Mommy is probably the most accessable of all these girls, most clear in the vocals and on the surface, a simplistic melody. But then again, hearing it with a speaker at each ear I could hear the complexities of this also. But trying to focus on the music alone I am finding almost impossible because of the pain of her voice. Pandora's Aquarium is the song that even on tape I could tell was highly complex, a composition worthy of inclusion with the masters like Bach and Rochmaninoff(sp?). The lyrics seem more like filler than a necessity for this piece, that it would stand well on it's own as an instrumental. Yet, I know that I have not yet mined the depths of the words, just taking notice of the Tori-ized word play (ie, "Stare but I can taste you're still alive below the waste). I have hours to go on this album because each girl is so different that they require individual attention. I have named the ones that called the hardest to me, and those are the girls I have studied so far. I guess to sum it up, from the choirgirl hotel is the greatest example to date of Tori's artistic way of putting her music on canvas, each song a piece of art, each breath changing the form, color and meaning. I will never tire of Tori Amos for this reason, her voice paints the most incredible pictures I have ever heard and she forces me to use every single part of my brain to understand what she is doing. Fairy Blessings, Bethey I'm OK when everything's not OK cause it's the Fairies Revenge they say and I have always been a Fairy *************************************************************** I gave my life to become the person I am. Was it worth it? - -richard bach- ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V3 #179 *************************************