Is Boys For Pele a step TOO FAR?? | Tori Amos Reaction 

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My favorite album of all time.

Marianne was a song she improvised completely, start to finish. They couldn't even set up her vocal booth, which was built to encase just her and the piano/harpsichord keyboards, while the rest of the instrument was out in the open church sanctuary. She just had to mic up and record it because the song was coming to her and wasn't gonna wait!

BfP definitely needs a few listens to fully sink into, but it is so worth it. The album is her first sole production project and it is definitely chaotic, but once you connect to the emotional cores of the tracks that lie behind the opacity of some of the lyrics, it is an incredible work. Do give it more listens, Pele rewards!

She calls it her Punk Album ❤ My personal favorite for a lot of reasons. Saw her for the first time on this tour in '96, age 15... met her after waiting outside the backstage door for almost 2 hours ❤❤ Best memory ever

I’ve seen her live over 50 times. My favorite Tori Amos albums are From The Choir Girl Hotel, Scarlets Walk, Under The Pink, American Doll Posse and To Venus & Back. I hope you continue your Tori Amos journey. She is brilliant and she has gotten me through some very difficult times in my life. I was in a coma in 2015 and had to fight back to life. Her song Reindeer King helped me get back to myself. Please react to the song Reindeer King. React to the lyric video which is beautiful and you will see why this wonderful powerful song helped me so much to get back to me.

I think this is Tori Amos' most hermetic album. The lyrics are full of metaphors and symbolism that are difficult to understand. It seems that Tori made the songs for herself without worrying too much about whether others would understand what she was talking about. For me, listening to Tori Amos is more about the experience that music provides than understanding everything there is to it. (but there are interviews with she talking about the songs. If you search about you can understand a lot about the album and the songs in it)

Oh it's a real harpsichord. I believe she had it set up custom. You should find some live videos of Caught a Lite Sneeze, because she sets both piano and harpsichord facing each other and plays them both.

Another fun fact! The sort of slow whirring sound in Beauty Queen/Horses is the motor of a Leslie cabinet (an amplifier with a spinning bullhorn speaker inside). The piano sound is coming through that speaker and if you listen closely you can occasionally hear her hitting a switch to change the speed of the spinning speaker to create a ghostly warbly sound.

When I first listened to this album in '96, I didn't quite get it. It was so different & unique that my ear didn't know how to interpret it. Thank goodness I kept listening to it, because after several rounds, my mind & my ear expanded and dove deep with it. I surrendered to the poetry, the soundscapes, and the real, raw, super creative journey that this incredibly innovative artist was sharing. I suggest to let this album grow on you. It's like a fine wine or a multi course meal... it needs time to marinate & open circuits in your mind & body.

I reserve judgment but I must admit I am putting a lot of emotional investment into this review.

I don’t try to hard to figure out her lyrics. I just give them my own meaning. Her music is other worldly to me and I just loose myself in it.

One of the greatest albums ever made. The very fact that she can make you feel nervous, uncomfortable,or jarred is a remarkable feat. The musicality throughout is top notch. Yeah, it’s a brilliant singularity.

“Not the Red Baron” was inspired by men in her crew fighting over a woman. She compared them to fighter pilots in WW1, who were destined to crash and burn. The Red Baron was a real German fighter pilot in WW1 who was famous for the number of enemy planes he shot down. “Charlie’s dog” is in there because in the Charlie Brown comics, Snoopy would imagine battles between himself and his arch-nemesis, the Red Baron.

Thank you again for a great reaction, you got my sub! Boys for Pele is certainly one of the most challenging Tori albums if not the most, but often also regarded as her best. It needs time to sink in and I personally feel it's an album that most benefits from knowing a bit more about the themes and ideas behind it to really connect with the songs. It is a post break-up album but also about finding your own fire and power in general. There is also a connecting story and an arc to the songs going through the emotions and realizations of giving her power (fire in her words) to the men in her life and then finding her own, hence the name of the album "Boys for Pele", Pele being a Hawaiian volcano goddess. You can definitely hear she was in a very balls to the walls, don't give af state of mind when creating this one. Also a lot of moments on the record are improvised, such as Marianne and Not the Red Baron and I'm pretty sure at least some of the shorter songs also. Interesting productions and instrumentation (hello harpsichord!), raw vocals, very personal and abstract lyrics - Pele to a T. Can't wait for you to do her next one, From the Choirgirl Hotel, a total departure from Pele and my absolute favorite of hers. I have a feeling you will like it.

For me, I stopped trying to figure out Tori's lyrics very early on. A lot of 90s artists weren't afraid to be weird, obscure, abstract with their lyrics. I read up on songs I thought I understood from back then only to find out now that it was a densely layered metaphor I'd have to be best friends with the artist to sort out. The 90s was big on counter culture and "Alternative" music seemed to be about rejecting traditional pop and rock music, and stepping out into darkness and rawness. So lyrics that aren't literal and don't make sense that were sung in ways that made it hard to even understand the words was a constant and Tori is no exception. I enjoy her as an abstract artist. My favorite songs are about how she makes me feel, how these songs are almost code that only my subconscious understands.

Not the easiest album on first listen. b But definitely the most rewarding and timeless albums I have ever heard …. From the Choirgirl hotel next please 🙏

I recommend checking out UK band, Goldfrapp. They dabble in the avant-garde and electronic music scene. They’ve released 7 albums and each one is sonically and stylistically different from the last. Their debut, Felt Mountain is otherworldly. If you like Tori Amos and Bjork then you’ll love Goldfrapp. ❤️

omg it made me so happy to see you react to this album. one of my favourites of all time for sure!

BFP is her masterpiece. LE and UTP are too, but BFP is the stuff of legends... although Choirgirl is brilliant. After To Venus, everything changed. Something has been missing. Never been like it was.

This was my introduction and where I fell in love with Tori Amos. I was a senior in High School('95-6) and our school newspaper did a review of this album and it being so different just really hit for me. I love Beauty Queen/Horses, Blood Roses, Father Lucifer, Putting the Damage On, Caught a Light Sneeze, Talula, In the Springtime of his Voodoo, Hey Jupiter and Professional Widow. From this album, I discovered Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink and truly fell head over heals for the music. I actually got to win tickets to a radio station on air performance of like 20 people and got to meet her and shake hands and got to get her autograph. It was amazing.

I'm ready to see another one's inner boundaries for disgust, pain and limitless life force violated. Brings tear to my eye, totally worth it!

YES IT IS AND IM SO EXITED

The starting point to understanding the album is knowing it sprung from a breakup with a long-term partner, and it’s a concept album that tells a story from start to finish. There’s a lot of cultural references that are helpful hooks into understand, too - eg “way beyond the pale” is a idiomatic saying, “beyond the pale” means out of line, uncivilized, unacceptable; the pale was the fence the colonizing English erected around Dublin, inside the pale being the area inside that they controlled, and “beyond the pale” being the wild countryside beyond. And a shade is just another word for a ghost. So “if I’m hanging onto your shade, maybe I’m way beyond the pale” = “and if I can’t let you go, maybe I’m the one who’s out of line.”

It's my favorite album. Post breakup with Eric. (Song for Eric) he left her. She was also sexually expieremental in this place and maybe a bit bitter.

Regarding Father Lucifer, I recall her saying she had a dream that satan was a lady in white that drove an ice cream truck. If you listen the little hook does sound like a music box tune that an ice cream truck would play. She said she got high and had a conversation with the devil where she envisioned these things.

Best album she ever put out. Whenever I wonder what things mean and can't tease it out, I remap the lyrics on to my/my close ones'/the world's experiences. Hyper-specific writing is generous in that way - absolute trust of emotional intent without needing the object to be understood. I do see you missing allegorical and definitional references though. I wouldn't say this to others, but if you are a writer, I recommend reviewing mythologies, religious texts and classics. It'll make your experiences of good art richer. Plus, they're fun! (And they'll inspire deeper writing.)

You made me want to go back to old Tori Amos. Such a cool video! 🙂

This was wonderful- thank you!

It's been my favorite tori album over 20 years now.

According to Tori, Hey Jupiter is her most asked about song. And apparently it is more nonsensical than one would think. Allegedly Tori saw a ghost in a hotel, and the story of that ghost came through to her through this song. However, she has no idea what it means.

When I saw the thumbnail, and knowing that you like to analyze the lyrics my first thought was "good luck". I think there is a combination of stream of consciousness, and deliberate obstification that make this album so opaque. Like the best you can do is get the gist of the meaning. Professional Widow is rumoured to be about Courtney Love, Caught a Lite Sneeze and I strongly suspect Putting the damage on is about Trent Reznor. Marianne I believe is a reaction to the news of the death of somebody she new from childhood.

Love that you’re doing a reaction to Boys for Pele. It’s probably my favourite Tori Amos album. Can you please listen to Ys or Divers by Joannna Newsom?

You HAVE to do from the choirgirl hotel next, you are gonna love it!

This album was written like a novel, so each piece creates the whole journey. For the parts you may not understand you'll have to search those topics, she used single phrases that are a sort of short-hand where you'll need to know the meaning in order to infill all that narrative thatd normally take tomes to impart, tis quite a complex & wonderful album!

Just the best album of all time. I was 24 when this came out and deep in a Tori obsession. This album just confirmed her brilliance. The harpsichord is life! Beauty Queen could also be a Courtney Love reference.... Just started listening, hope this isn't the rubbish version of the album with the remix on! The live shows from this tour were absolutely the greatest thing I ever saw - full of fire and anger and sorrow....just beautiful

Boys for Pele is definitely an incredible album. It's 2am here in England and I'm looking at SNL sketches intermeshed with songs, many of them Tori and this video came up. I never watch videos like this one, I really don't, but as it started to play I just got engrossed. I might be in love with you now, that's cool right? 😊

My inner angsty teenager appreciates this analysis.

Those 90s were absolutely great. 😊 very emotional work, good artist, can only speak for the older albums.

Fun fact: Father Lucifer was written after she smoked peyote and had a conversation with the devil.

Just imagine what this album sounds like from a 13 year old’s bedroom, but they are singing along to it from a Walkman 😂😂😂

I have always loved the reference to the Eagles' "Take It Easy" in "In the Springtime of His Voodoo". So playful. "Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona And such a fine sight to see It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford Slowin' down to take a look at me."

If you watch 2022 live caught a lite sneeze you will see she plays to pianos at the same time

I bought this album and left it on the shelf for two years because I didn't understand it until I was ready to go back to it and it became my favorite album, by anyone.

I understand the sense of “WTF?” because I thought the same when the album was first released. I had gone from love at first listen with Little Earthquakes, followed by an equally brilliant but quirkier follow up from Under the Pink. Pele grated and was uncomfortable and unpleasant listening for the longest time it's odd. Started off beautifully with Beauty Queen / Horses and then twatted into a chaotic mess of harpsichord bashing and screeching and stuff I just didn't get. Didn't like the harpsichord other than on Caught at Lite Sneeze and to 18yr old me, what felt like the most odd, misplaced use of brass I couldn't understand either. As often happens, it grew on me and I actually started to love the tracks I'd hated and realise how beautiful the brass and piano are together. It was just a bit much for my young mind to grasp especially after the first two albums. Still not one of my favourites albums but the B-sides to it are stunning. It's sounds naff and cheesy but I think going on the journey with Tori Amos from the first album and experiencing each one as it came makes a difference. You didn't have the luxury of even the knowledge of B-sides or have a clue what albums were yet to follow (good and bad) but she surprised you with each one even the worst ones. Only discovered “Motormaids of Japan” existed a few years ago and that it was initially going to be on the album but got switched out favour of Putting the Damage On. They're both so similar it's like the same track just slightly altered and I'm still not sure which I like best. My daughter loved and learned to play piano as a kid from her music and still loves her now she's a grown ass woman. First time I saw her live was 96 and she was superb. Last time was in 2007(?) on the Posse tour and I decided then it would be the last. She's like an old friend I grew up with, have grown apart from but like to revisit now and then.

will someone PLEASE make a bumper sticker of the alternate version of the cover where she's breast feeding the pig?

Loving your reaction. Humorous. Um what, um what???!!!

Are we gonna talk about the album jacket that features Tori Amos breastfeeding a pig? A pig, yes. A pig.

Marianne is about a friend of hers that died. “And they said Marianne liked herself and I said NOT A CHANCE…not a chance”

It was definitely one of her most "unrefined" albums. Since it's an assembly of songs about her past relationships. The use of the harpiscrd is definitely a stylistic choice in that album, it definitely can be polarizing but props to Tori for taking big risks in creativity. So there's definitely not a homogeneous feel in the album but many song's did grow in on me at different points when I first heard it. I still like her first two albums the most from that early/mid 90s Tori Amos era.

Not the Red Baron is a song that was pure improv. She was getting feedback in her ears from the engineers in the other room and tells them to keep talking in Dutch. “What language? No, Dutch.” Such a beautiful song. On Horses (my fave tori song) the Leslie cabinet is the thing making the piano has vibrato. That had to be put in the church graveyard while recording

Major major breakup album for her....big life shift documentary type album.

Professional Widow is about Courtney Love & Kurt Cobain

Really enjoyed this….long time Tori fan, but learned some things from your perspective, thank you.

“Not the Red Baron” is a song about how her grandfather actually survived an attack in the air from the Red baron during WW1

Masterpiece!

Replay the “playing that organ must count for something” again in Little Amsterdam and listen to the tone. It’s obviously not the organ you are thinking about. Also the song is about the character’s mother have an interracial relationship in a racist town.

YEEESSSSSSSS

Ok, before I watch the video, just going by the title... No. Absolutely not. Boys For Pele is the absolute apex of everything Tori Amos has done. Little Earthquakes was unquestionably a thing of incredible beauty that I would always rate as my favourite album. It was my introduction to her, it bled vulnerability and I saw her give such an incredibly intimate, inclusive and beautiful performance in a grubby little club in Newcastle, UK (The Riverside) on its release.... Boys For Pele, though... That's Tori all grown up (and, sadly, somewhat cynical and more bitter. In an other way, still beautiful, though.)

Pele, The Volcano Goddess ❤

Almost every lyric in the album is an amalgamation of things in her life and classic literature mythology and liturgical themes. Father Lucifer was written while on a shamanic guided trip, so her mind was blown wide open. Marianne was about a school friend. There are a lot of heavy feminist themes butting against her childhood in a very Christian family her father is a minister. It's really hard to try and understand the lyrics on a first listen if you're not extremely well read on some very broad complex themes. That doesn't mean you have to dive deep to enjoy it from a composition standpoint. I'm classical trained orchestral music, and Tori was journey down Alice's rabbit hole of pop music. A uni friend was convinced I was missing out being constantly entrenched in the likes of Beethoven and Mahler. This was his gift to me, and I was hooked since. I still remember the intro. She went to Peabody. I promise you'll love it. And did I ever. Compositional first. Then, in theme and then after a few years, I finally got over the cult following fear and made it to a live show. Many shows, and years later, she's still my favorite alt pop accessory. Pele is not my favorite album. I'm not even sure I can claim one. When it comes to T, it depends on the day, and there's such a vast cannon to choose from. Keep listening... you will find the themes and when you can't take ut in as she intended. She rarely gives the full story of the girls. She wants you to find your own meaning in her girls.

This is my favorite Tori Amos album since when i was 15. You’d better react to this well 😈

Wait what Lana Del Rey and Tori Amos on the same channel? im amazed

My parents love tori amos’s music

Blood Roses is my nostalgia drug

blood roses is about female mutilation in certain cultures, and how she found it weird and horrific how the females of your own family bring you to the 'ritual'

Clearly you’re not ready for this album. I think you just have to stop thinking about reacting. Concentrate and re listen to this again. English is not my first language and there so much i still don’t understand but i can just feel it in the word.

hanging as in hanging on the cross

Can you give Scarlet’s Walk a listen?

You can learn so much about metaphor here..

Always felt like Marianne is a sequel to Past The Mission.

This album changed my life

My favorite album.

Professional Widow is about Courtney Love and her meddling in Tori and Trent Reznor’s secret relationship.

Horses represent a man(men). She was singing to a lady she loved named Billy and her confusion of picking a partner. It's a gorgeous album.

Hey jupiter is da bomdiggity

Professional Widow is about Courtney Love

Most of her songs are about what has happened to or around her

Blood Roses is about female mutilation, it’s a hard hitting one!

too far for whom??? kudos for a Tori post, anyway. thanks. ❤

Blood roses is about Trent Reznor.

That was excruciating to watch

Star Fer just like my daddy is about Courtney Love

this once again shows me how different people and their musical preferences can be. you prefer freaking marian the ballady lullaby to blood roses? harpichord is too much for you? i guess the music you listen must be very limited. this is why metalhead like tori you know? they come from black metal or death metal, they are very used to most edgy and hardcore shit so they find some of that in tori and they don't find it in kate bush at all.

I was all onboard for her first 2 albums, but she started to lose me on this one and it just got worst from there for me. Happy for those who continued to enjoy her albums, but for me the Tori train stopped at Under The Pink, I am sorry to say.

The backing vocals are her dude...really?

something dies very early: the miscarriage she had.

Fiona apple when? Listen to TIDAL

Hey Jupiter is a top ten song for sure. Stop saying "like" so much! Fun reaction otherwise.

She's one of my favorite singers but this isn't my favorite album; it's my least preferred album.

I also don't like her voice anymore... it's like she's trying too hard to be Liz Fraser of The Cocteau Twins. I can say with ZERO regret I miss the old Tori.

Don't look for logic in a Tori Amos song. It only makes to her. Sometimes I love her and other times I think it's pretentious shite - depends on my mood.

I understand the sense of “WTF?” because I thought the same when the album was first released. I had gone from love at first listen with Little Earthquakes, followed by an equally brilliant but quirkier follow up from Under the Pink. Pele grated and was uncomfortable and unpleasant listening for the longest time it's odd. Started off beautifully with Beauty Queen / Horses and then twatted into a chaotic mess of harpsichord bashing and screeching and stuff I just didn't get. Didn't like the harpsichord other than on Caught at Lite Sneeze and to 18yr old me, what felt like the most odd, misplaced use of brass I couldn't understand either. As often happens, it grew on me and I actually started to love the tracks I'd hated and realise how beautiful the brass and piano are together. It was just a bit much for my young mind to grasp especially after the first two albums. Still not one of my favourites albums but the B-sides to it are stunning. It's sounds naff and cheesy but I think going on the journey with Tori Amos from the first album and experiencing each one as it came makes a difference. You didn't have the luxury of even the knowledge of B-sides or have a clue what albums were yet to follow (good and bad) but she surprised you with each one even the worst ones. My daughter loved and learned to play piano as a kid from her music and still loves her now she's a grown ass woman. First time I saw her live was 96 and she was superb. No screeching, screaming die-hard fans at that point it was just Tori at the piano dressed in scruffy jeans with a messy, bunched up pony tail. Very chatty and open / at ease with the smaller audiences too but God she was good. Last time was in 2007 and I decided then it would be the last. She's like an old friend I grew up with, have grown apart from but like to revisit now and then