Nine albums in and Tori Amos is working harder than ever. American Doll Posse, with its great title, 23 tracks, and five archetypal personalities (all of whom resonate with feminine gods in the Greek and Roman pantheons) is an exercise in both excess and obsession. For starters, each of these personalities has her own blog. All of them have a distinct look. There's Pip with her streetwise standoff-ishness who sings about how her "Teenage Hustling" serves her in her adult life; she is also a very clever and intense "observer" (another important word for this record) of the political and surveillance situation in the U.S.; there's Clyde, a bit of a hippie who observes people and art from a perspective that is suspect of all male interpretations of the world (smart woman) and not the moment of encounter, but who that person is under the mask of it. Isabel is the glamorous photographer. If she exists anywhere but inside Amos, she is the fulfilled fantasy construct of both post-Freudian psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the father of Deconstruction theory Jacques Derrida. She watches the watcher watching. The surface reveals whatever is beneath it, and the layer underneath that. And then there's Santa -- not Claus necessarily -- but she looks closest for some perceived beauty (hers or her observational object's is the question) that is invisible to that person. She strips the moment away and gets right down to the task of discovering it: "Wait. Let's look closer.." Then of course, the voodoo priestess Amos herself appears in the center; she is politically pissed off and motivated ("Yo George," the first track on the set is a personal send-out to the leader of the free world in 2007 -- "I'm allergic to your policies") and a proud, aware, socially conscious mother and protector who cannot be fooled. "Big Wheel," the album's most ock & roll track, is an anthem that reveals her to be free of all bondage and a self-proclaimed "...M-I-L-F don't you forget..." This outrageously long song cycle reveals these characters as individual "voices." Amos credits each of the five in her liners and plays piano and Rhodes behind them.
Musically, American Doll Posse is no less ambitious, and all the better for it. Though 23 cuts can become a Tower of Babel in song, Amos has written some of the tightest, most cohesive and diverse songs of her career here. There's Amos singing "Big Wheel"; there are the squalling heavy metal guitars in "Teenage Hustling"; the pumping 4/4 bassline throb of Clyde's "Bouncing off Clouds," with its intricate melody and shimmering piano work and layered backing vocals; the seductive lues-rock swagger in Santa's "You Can Bring Your Dog" that transfers itself into a quirky faux-agtime melody before it breaks itself wide open and splits these two soundworlds in half. It's a number that's so sick with desire it reduces its object to meat. The brief "Devils and Gods," sung by Isabel is a ballad that peels back the veil to reveal an essential truth with harmonically shimmering acoustic guitars and lithe piano. Pip and Santa reply in "Body and Soul" with its enormous sonic attack where all the instruments are turned up to ten and pack a wallop with a fuzzed-up Jon Evans' dirty bassline and staccato piano that promises salvation through ecstasy, not sermons or violence.
Some of the best songs here are near the end, in Clyde's gorgeous ballad "Roosterspur Bridge," where Amos' piano guides the singer and Mac Aladdin's guitars whisper behind until Matt Chamberlain's spare kit work gives the words an urgency despite the languid pace. "Almost Rosey" (Isabel) is one of the very best mid-tempo autobiographical ock songs Amos has ever written. Its sense of dynamic, slippery rhythms and change-ups keep a constant groove and the listener holding on for every word with the swirling piano and syncopated drum work: "I once tried to comply/with an authority that would/Subsidize my wild side/but at this altar was sacrificed..." Pip's "Velvet Revolution" is a Spanish flavored poetic piano and guitar ballad in a narrative fashion that reflects Cesar Vallejo and the manifestos of Isabel Allende and a young Vaclav Havel. "Dark Side of the Sun," sung by Isabel, is a an anti-war song with its wailing lead guitars and the singer letting the grainy side of her voice underscore the lyrics with conviction. Pip's apocalyptic "Smokey Joe" is an entire cinematic drama with atmospheric walls of electronic noise and washes of guitar that compete with the contrapuntal voices in call and response execution. The final track, "Dragon," sung by Santa, is knotty, complex and lilting in some places and aggressive in others; it feels like it belongs somewhere else, but that's where the beauty lies. It's the place where healing happens in the heart of the eternal feminine. And it rings solidly true.
In sum, these dress-up characters are, no matter Amos' ambitions, simply reflections of her often contradictory nature as both a conceptual artist and songwriter. She is playing dress-up and not copping to it. It's not so much that she doesn't pull it off, but these characters and their strange views of the world, femininity, and the ruinous masculine come down to two things: observation and perception, and neither are always what they seem. These have always been part of Amos' expressed aesthetic. Perhaps speaking these through the kaleidoscope of different personas made it easier to assemble such a vast collection of songs for one album, to exorcise the obsession or simply to give life to it through excess. Whatever the reason, American Doll Posse is exhaustive and exhausting, and contains some of the finest material Amos has offered on record. As a songwriter her reach is higher, and when she grasps the gown's tail of her Muse, her grasp is tighter, and sure. Her musical vision and production skills are almost astonishing in places. American Doll Posse is a work that has its problems due to its sprawling nature. And yet, it's perhaps because of that sprawl that it makes a real case for the overblown and indulgent in ock & roll again.
So, somehow or another Promo Squad got 'hold of clips from two songs off Tori Amos' coming-in-May album American Doll Posse, news of which was announced Feb. 20. A lot of fans were not crazy about Tori's last album, The Beekeeper; it was a little poppy and silly compared to her groundbreaking work on albums like Boys for Pele or even Little Earthquakes. But Tori has promised that, now that her ...
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"Don't get too excited". Reply "I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't"Yes, I also received the news today that Tori has a new album & tour. The album is to be released May 1st. The tour will begin in Europe. Wow, what a year for shows! I thought last year was great with Tool, NIN and Imogen. But I can see 2007 already has the Police & Tori on the line up. Gawd, do I love c...
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Tori Amos has a wealth of online goodies and is still on her American Doll Posse Tour in the US.Videos:"Bouncing Off Clouds":This is a strange video because it isn't really a video at all, but a series of photographs. These look to be photos from the same shoot as the photos that grace her American Doll Posse album cover and website. Which is why I think this video is kinda weird, because it ...
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Tori Amos has been surrounded by her Doll Posse on a European tour this summer and she is ready to bring the entourage to America where it was conceived. It's going to be a rough ride criss-crossing the US with stops in Minneapolis, Omaha, and SLC dipping into winter months with a Pandora's box of personalities. 10/9: Albany, NY, Palace Theatre10/11: New York, NY, Theatre at Madison Square Ga...
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"Programmable Cola":http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/food/programmable-soda-bottles-163016.php_Ipfini offers the ability to program your soda with up to 32 different combinations. The patent-pending bottle design has aroma, flavor and color buttons on the side. The bottle is filled with basic carbonated high-fructose water and the user hits additives to taste. For instance, press the cherry flavor bu...
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Here's a song off the new Tori Amos album, American Doll Posse.
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Tori Amos "Yo George"/"Big Wheel"
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There are a lot of artists that I like but not enough to really be a fan of. Tori Amos is one of those artists. I've liked scattered songs from her including "Crucify," "Caught A Lite Sneeze," and her absolutely chilling remake of Eminem's "'97 Bonnie And Clyde." Well, I've found another song of hers to like. I saw the video for her new single "Big Wheel" on MTV2's Subterranean last week an...
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How dare she steal Trent's thunder???? Just as I'm getting all ramped up to go on a Year Zero binge when the new NIN comes out next week...I see that Tori Amos is releasing a new album just two weeks later!What am I going to do??? I can't possibly absorb new material from my two all-time favorite artists in the same month! Jesus, I could barely do that in a year...Didn't Tori do this with Scarl...
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By Tori Amos - from the album 'American Doll Posse' (2007)
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Here is a rawky taste of what's to come on American Doll Posse! =)
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"Don't get too excited". Reply "I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't"Yes, I also received the news today that Tori has a new album & tour. The album is to be released May 1st. The tour will begin in Europe. Wow, what a year for shows! I thought last year was great with Tool, NIN and Imogen. But I can see 2007 already has the Police & Tori on the line up. Gawd, do I love c...
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It has politely been demanded of me that I start mogging before I am allowed (more like aloud) to use my cell phone. Thus I write...Perhaps this is more to the cell phone guards than the masses that might be, or perhaps I take this to the killers of children;feeling radical I listen to the fingers stroke the Bösendorfer over the rain, and the light sound has me dancing through the circus of my..
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Yo George |
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| 2 Big Wheel |
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| 3 Bouncing off Clouds |
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| 4 Teenage Hustling |
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| 5 Digital Ghost |
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| 6 You Can Bring Your Dog |
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| 7 Mr. Bad Man |
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| 8 Fat Slut |
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| 9 Girl Disappearing |
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| 10 Secret Spell |
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| 11 Devils and Gods |
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| 12 Body and Soul |
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| 13 Father's Son |
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| 14 Programmable Soda |
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| 15 Code Red |
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| 16 Roosterspur Bridge |
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| 17 Beauty of Speed |
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| 18 Almost Rosey |
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| 19 Velvet Revolution |
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| 20 Dark Side of the Sun |
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| 21 Posse Bonus |
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| 22 Smokey Joe |
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| 23 Dragon |
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Click to purchase…
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 "American Doll Posse")
