In this video, I react to Tori Amos's 1996 album, Boys for Pele, breaking down the album's lyrical themes and motifs. Donation link: nymag.com/stra... Subscribe for more music-related content!
Yes! From the Choirgirl Hotel is a brilliant album, very different than Boys for Pele, and far more accessible. I look forward to your interpretations of Boys for Pele...it's kind of exciting for someone who came of age in the 1990s to watch younger people discover her after all these year. :)
I think you should continue chronologically. Mainly because the next album is my personal fave, so I've very much been looking forward to your reaction to that one. 😉
A bit of Tori trivia...she recorded the album in a church in Ireland to augment the acoustics, and, the albums name came from the Hawaiian volcano and the boys represent the men in her life that she “wanted to sacrifice all these guys to the volcano goddess and roast them like marshmallows, then I decided they gave me a really wonderful gift,"
The noises you hear on Not the Red Baron were the voices of her team readying the space for recording. She tells them to go ahead and keep talking, & to continue in Dutch since that's their native language. It was just a happy accident on what was probably another improv song.
I really do enjoy your reactions and analysis. I have listened to Tori’s music for over 25 years and just find it so interesting to hear your take on these songs. Looking forward to your reaction of From The Choirgirl Hotel. Personally my favourite Tori album.
On "In the Springtime of His Voodoo" she starts off singing the first lines of "Take It Easy" by the Eagles-- "Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona..." and then she sings "...and I'm quite sure I'm in the wrong song." I love that unexpected self-referential humor out of left field.
Watching her perform the songs from this album live is really incredible-- in some songs she switches from a harpsichord on her right side to a piano on her left, or plays both at once. It's insane how musically prodigious she is.
You’re face during “Professional Widow” was priceless. That and “Hey Jupiter” are my favorite tracks from this specific album from Tori but Under The Pink still hold a special place in my heart. Definitely an amazing album all around though
Forgot to mention the musical relationship between Tori and Trent Resnor. He did guest vocals for the song “Baker Baker” and she mentions lyrics of his in a couple spots in this album. On “Caught A Light Sneeze”, she says, “Made my own ‘Pretty Hate Machine’” On “Professional Widow”, she mentions ‘Starfucker’ which Trent would make into “Starfucker, Inc”. This happened often between the two of them
@@joshuayeager3686 Trent is on Past the Mission, not Baker Baker! But you're right about the references. She's Your Cocaine is also allegedly about Trent and Courtney.
Oh one more thing you might want to listen to the “ bee sides”. The ones particularly from the first 3 albums were every bit as good (and sometimes even better) as their album counterparts. She even still plays a lot of them live. I remember there was a book of sheet music where she gathered them together. But I don’t think she ever did an official album (other than an import I think was called Forgotten Earthquakes or something). I’m curious what people’s favorite bee side is? I think mine is “ upside down” or maybe “Sugar”.
Love those both! Also love the b-sides: Honey, Here in My Head, Flying Dutchman, Take Too The Sky (Russia) and Dolphin Song. There’s so many to choose from but these are my favorite.
Loving your take on all these girls! I always thought Not The Red Baron was possibly mourning all the people lost from AIDS in the 80s and 90s. “The prettiest red ribbons” from all the red ribbons we wear in memory of those lost.
Bravo! This was album was my gateway to Tori. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday. I was up late one night watching television (more like flipping through the channels) and not looking for anything in particular. I happened upon, I think it was David Letterman. Tori was a guest that night and her image is what initially captured my attention. She was striking with her flaming red hair. She performed Caught a light Sneeze and I was immediately enraptured. It was everything that I loved about music in one song. And she was such a dynamic performer! I skipped school the next day and went to my favourite CD store and was shocked to learn that she had had 2 albums prior to Boys for Pele. How had I not heard of her before? It almost goes without saying that I bought all 3 albums that day. And my love affair with her began then and there. Ive been fortunate to have been able to see her play live several times and each and every time felt like the first time. I know many have commented that you should analyze Choirgirl and I agree. If Boys was Toris red phase, Choirgirl is her black phase. She had suffered a miscarriage and its all there. The tone of that album is just....haunting. i would also encourage you to seek out her album artwork.. I miss the days of album artwork. Her album art is such a cohesive representation the accompanying album, particularly with her earlier work.
Can’t wait for you to listen to choir girl. I’m reliving my first listen through you. Mind was bloooown, I was 16/17. Ooof! You’re adorable. Also super in tune, smart and insightful. I’ve listened to this album probably 1000+ times and some of what you interpret has me all 😱🤪
Great reaction as always!! Although I definitely would recommend that you hear The Dakota version of Hey Jupiter which is the definite version of the song in my eyes, with a completely different instrumentation and additional lyrics!! I would love to hear your thoughts on it :)
I know comparisons between Tori and Kate Bush are trite, but I view Pele and Choirgirl as parallels to Kate's The Dreaming and Hound of Love. Pele is Tori at her most experimental, audacious, and strange (like The Dreaming), whereas Choirgirl refines some of that into a more pop sensibility (like Hounds of Love).
Don't listen to the people who tell you to stop after choirgirl!!! Of course you don't *have* to listen to her entire discography (though I highly doubt you would regret it, just go in order!), but at a bare minimum you must do 2002's Scarlet's Walk, which, along with From the Choirgirl Hotel is her best work. Other important highlights are Night of Hunters and Native Invader, two of her best more recent releases which, in my opinion are just as good as anything from the 90s. Like I said though, the other albums are still well worth your time, a B+ Tori Amos album is still an A+ by any other artists standards. To Venus and Back, The Beekeper, American Doll Posse, Unrepentant Geraldines are all very good, and all of them certainly contain some of her best songs.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin as well, very underrated in my opinion, sonically diverse, with better production than Beekeeper and Posse. More personal too. Still my favourite out of the 3. I just don't listen to Maybe California. Same with Promise on Geraldines and Ribbons Undone on Beekeeper, a bit too cheesy for me. 🙃
I just think her first four albums are impeccable and MUSTS for any music lover to experience. Her catalog becomes hit and miss after this. It’s not to say the rest of her albums are poor, I just think some want to emphasize that if he’s not going to explore every album, the first four should be prioritized. I do like moments on Venus and Scarletts Walk that I enjoy. Frankly everything after Beekeepers to me is just middling sort of stuff.. but to each their own of course. ❤️🙂 She’s a great performer and artist, we can all agree on that! 💙
This is amazing. Tori hit her height in popularity when I was in college, and Pele came out not long after that time. This is great analysis and so refreshing to see it from a younger and male perspective.
I will probably come back to comment further, but I'm 14 minutes in and I want to mention, since no one else has yet, that Marianne was written on the fly. Just this year, during interviews for her book Resistance, she said that it was a direct download from the Muses. Her husband hit record and it just came out of her. Marianne was a real friend from her teen years who most likely overdosed rather than committing suicide.
It was actually recorded by accident during a warm up for another session. It just came out of her and the engineer happened to be recording to test the sound. It actually caused problems when they were mixing in the strings after, because the piano and her vocals were on the same track and couldn't be adjusted independantly, but the take was so good that they couldnt recreate it. She really is the modern Mozart.
Definitely keep going chronologically! I’m absolutely loving reliving the albums through new ears and hearing your beautifully intelligent take on them all. Can’t wait to hear Choirgirl next!
Ok, watching your face, hearing for the first time...i cried a bit by father Lucifer haha my mind was so blown too. you’re so in tune, love your interpretations. So handsome.
I think it's worth noting that Professional Widow was #1 on the billboard dance charts. I LOVE tori but didn't care for the album version on professional widow. I think her only #1 Billboard Dance hit puts Profession Widow front and center!
I’ve been waiting for this, and I just loved your thoughtful reaction/analysis! I’ve been listening to the album for such a long time, and somehow I had overlooked to completely prominent connection of the flames in “Not the Red Baron” to Pele/volcano/fire. This is my favorite Tori album, but “Blood Roses” and the layered vocals on the bridge in “Father Lucifer” are my two absolute favorite things on the album.
I love your chanel. Please react on Choirgirl Hotel or Native Invader. (I also hope one day you may consider reacting to a Prince album). Gracias desde Madrid, Spain.
Professional Widow is about Courtney Love. When Tori wrote the song Courtney was dating Trent Reznor and it damaged their friendship. Trent has even given an interview saying that Courtney interfered with his friendship with Tori and that they were no longer friends because of her.
Yes, I understand this to be true. Plus she says, as the Starfucker character (Courtney Love) "Don't blow your brains yet, we gotta be big boy, we gotta be big". Which is Courtney speaking directly to Kurt.
@@soaribb32 Well yeah, lol. After Kurt died, Courtney pretty much dated as many famous men as possible. Including Trent, Billy Corgan, and Edward Norton. So Starfucker is definitely appropriate.
Next is “from the choirgirl hotel” and it is very her last big masterpiece: a new big band sound but still being Tori. So i suggest to react to it next! She’s still an Amazing artist but her first 4 albums are still her very best. Thanks for continuing your journey with her ❤️
Choirgirl is absolutely not her last big masterpiece!!! Scarlet's Walk is at least as good if not better, not to mention Night of Hunters and Native Invader. Even the less consistent albums (Venus, Beekeeper, Posse, Geraldines, even moments on Sin) are masterpieces by any other artists standards.
@@1919viola Agree that Scarlet's Walk is considered to be another epic Masterpiece in the same vein as Pele. Chroigirl and To Venus and Back are the fun records that you can dance to.
Choirgirl is amazing. But Venus and Scarlet are also amazing, two of her finest albums. It's from the Beekeeper onward that things got messy (although I truly love most of the songs on those albums too, it's just that there's also filler and sloppy production in parts, and her voice has never been the same after Scarlet, as we know). Honestly, had she edited down those post Scarlet albums and had been a little more careful with the production, they would have been great overall. It also doesn't help that Tori set the bar so high for herself, because we constantly compare the albums. Had the less strong albums been released by other artists we'd be all over them, they're still good albums, just not to the level of the older ones. :)
I was so happy to see this today!! You didn’t disappoint in your analysis, as usual. - This album is my favorite from Tori and one of my all time favorites. A masterpiece!!
It is believed that Professional Widow is about Courtney Love and her behavior as a mother, and her need to put her and Kurt’s baby (Frances Bean Cobain) in the limelight for attention, or publicity. I’ve heard that long before there was a vast internet or any social media. It fits. I have yet to research this theory.
Sir, Eric… I just found your channel and landed on your Tori Amos album reviews episodes. Thank you.. thank you. You’re bringing me back to my teenage years when I became a fan, and have followed her since.
From 1998 - 2003 I stripped to Tori Amos' music. It changed my life. Not exclusively but I'd say 25% of the sets I used were Tori. In fact the very last set I ever did on Jan. 19, 2003, 2:00 am in Brampton Ontario was a Tori Amos set. Embodying her interpretation of sexuality and patriarchy through this medium was a privilege but even more so, a freight train of confidence in the knowledge that I wasn't fucking crazy.
What memories. I discovered Tori's Little Earthquakes in the fall of 1995, during my freshman year of high school. That January of '96, Pele dropped and I bought that before I went into Under The Pink and my 14-year-old gay mind was blown. I remember blasting this in my basement on surround sound, and since my parents didn't "get it," it became my rebellion. And Tori's music has stayed with me today. Even some of the later stuff that gets hated on, there's some gems in there for sure.
Re: Voodoo, for the longest time i thought she was singing "Got a PRIEST tied up in the backseat, honey we're recovering christians". Was disappointed when i realized the actual lyric. I still sing 'priest' :) And then I thought "65" before that lyric meant they were driving at 65 mph. I could be wrong. Great analysis
Every time I listen to BFP, I'm taken back that little trip I made to New Orleans a few years ago, and I find myself just longing to go back. To me, this album totally captures the pouring rain, the lush vegetation, the rusty iron fences, the heat, the smell of damp earth, smoke and spices... the magic! When I found out Tori had recorded part of these songs down in Louisiana, it all made sense. The inspiration is palpable.
I guess the first album is about self-discovery as a women, the second is about female comoetitivity and rivality and this one is about the male female dynamics
Boys for pele ~ the ultimate break up album brought about by the breakdown of her relationship with Eric Rosse. Oh and seek out the Dakota mix of hey Jupiter it’s even more devasting particularly the additional verse where Tori, utterly heartbroken whispers nothings gonna save us.
I think this is the most important album in her career. Sounds so confident in her song writing. Full of beautiful songs, great album title and the cover photo.
BFP is one of my favorite albums by any artist, so it's great you liked it and your comments are very interesting, as well as your general appreciation of the songs. Though I have to say it irks me how you systematically reduce masculinity to negative traits in your comments. I think it's very shortsighted generally speaking, but as it relates to Tori's work more specifically (if toxic men show up in her songs, so do toxic women, and toxic men are not toxic because they're masculine). Her desire for men's fire is what inspired the title: she had to find her own fire, claim her own power. Tori has always been a very ambitious woman and she's no pushover. This time in her life was very tumultuous (a long relationship had just ended and she was pursuing various other relationships). Incidentally, she had a friendship with Nine Inch Nails' dreamy frontman, Trent Reznor, and apparently the song Professional Widow is partially inspired by Courtney Love (who messed up the relationship between them, somehow...). By the way, the song Marianne was mostly improvised in studio, on the spot (arrangements were added).
Interesting I never knew that about Mariane. It’s my favorite song from the album. Although it didn’t start that way. But, on Tori’s albums the songs I like the best first are never the songs I like best over time.
I haven't listened to the entire album in many years. Wow. Such great memories and I love your reactions to each note. Please just continue in order. Amazing!!!!
For this album Tori Amos took on the role of sole producer, and every album since she would produce herself. I understand she recorded the album in a church in County Wicklow in Ireland. She took on the challenge of learning to play the harpsichord as a means of adding to her sonic range and thematic exploration. Pele is the goddess of fire to whom girls would be traditionally sacrificed by tossing them into a volcano. It's at this juncture that Tori's record label began having her songs remixed into dance mixes for promotion. Armand Van Heldon took on Professional Widow, a song he didn't particularly like, and butchered it. Despite my personal feelings the song did prove successful. Tori's relationship with her label was starting to sour from this point forward.
A lot of it was recorded in the church, but there were plenty of additional recordings in studios too. I don't think Tori's relationship souring with the record label was anything to do with the dance remixes, because, as you said, those were quite successful and as I understand it, Tori was happy with them too, and at one point there was even a full album of remixes planned. However, the label was not happy with the album itself which they found difficult to market due to it not having obvious singles and all that predictable crap. Going into the next albums she'd essentially fallen down the pecking order in terms of how much the label was willing to invest. In the end it's always about money.
She has said something along those lines. Or at least that it was a first take and that it had not been performed before. I would venture a guess that she had prepared some of it in her head. The string section on the album of course was arranged and recorded later.
Happy New Year, Eric! Hope you are well. So happy to see you continue your Tori journey, she is one of my musical touchstones. My faves from this are Marianne, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Talula (which was on the Twister soundtrack - seemed a bit forced in there but glad she got the placement), In the Sprintime of His Voodoo & Putting the Damage On. At the time Tori was known for her CD Singles that would have extra B-Sides and imports and I would buy them all. There are some gems among them that a personal listen would be highly recommended.
Much of this album is about her break up with Trent Reznor. Professional Widow is confirmed to be Courtney Love. Check out Nine Inch Nails’ song The Perfect Drug. It’s very much written by Trent and is about Tori Amos.
Now you have to weigh in on one of the greatest controversy of all...in Caught a Light Sneeze when Tori sings: "building tumbling down" is building a noun or a verb? 😜
I don’t know how you do it. You some how manage to play all my favorite lines when you are editing! I just started binging your Tori and Madonna reactions btw! This is by far my favorite album from Tori and also the hardest to get into initially. it really grows on you and is rewarding the more you listen to it. In my opinion her first three albums are her best and most cohesive. She has had great tracks and great moments after this of course. But the first 3 albums were just so distinctly transcendently complete. She was never able to quite get there again. She comes close (like on Scarlet’s Walk or American Doll Posse for example) albums that could have been at the same level, but they really needed editing. Actually From the Choirgirl hotel is probably the closest. God I sound like an jerk!!! Tori is amazing. And she has an incredible body of work. I’m just saying she really set the bar high at the beginning of her career. And as an aside over the years I have come to find that there are a lot of inns called “Dew Drop Inn”
Hey Jupiter's post-chorus seems to be a musical reference to Prince's "Purple Rain"-- the runs, the chord progression, and even the guitar that strikes at the top are all straight out of that song (in this video it's around 24:10). It's similar for me to think it's a coincidence. I'm not sure to what end--- maybe Prince was her "friend to run to?" Also, there's an extended version of "Way Down" that has the chorus continue for another phrase after Tori finishes. It's beautiful! OMG I'm just loving these Tori Amos breakdowns-- she is so freaking brilliant.
I'm of the opinion Beauty Queen is about obtaining heroin and Horses is taking and experiencing the drug. This album is very fascinating and probably my favourite in terms of her experimentation.
Loving the 5 o'clock shadow. My copy of Boys has a different mix of Talula (BT's Tornado Mix) which was actually a single mix of the song and was later featured in the video for the song. I prefer the Tornado mix more. Hey Jupiter also had The Dakota Mix which is slightly different and is considered the single version (I had to buy it at the time) The Dakota Mix was also used in the video as opposed to the album version. Professional Widow had a club remix that did very well on the dance charts. I think it's worth checking out if you want to be a completist.
Can not wait for Choirgirl!!! Watched and LOVED every one of your reactions to her catalogue so far. Her first 4 are the solid golds!!! You can tell from my RU-vid name that Under the Pink and Boys for Pele are life 💜
If you dig deeper into Tori's discography you will discover she has alternate lyrics to her songs. She often improvises live. I highly recommend listening to Professional Widow (Merry Widow Version) When she tours no 2 shows are the same. Her setlist changes every show.
Your face after Professional Widow. HA! Loved that just because I think everyone had that same expression after we heard that song for the first times. It's so busy, layered, difficult, joyous, harsh and fun all at the same time.
Love your Tori reactions Eric.... I wish I could experience these songs for the first time again. So many great albums still to react to. Love from Ireland
for this particular album, B-sides are very much a-must listen as they are part of the narrative. For example Fire Eater's Wife is an alternative opener before Horses and brings up Pele the goddess early on .
Tori's earliest albums were such an integral part of my musical and emotional landscape in my teens, and you've just helped me appreciate her lyrics on an even deeper level. Thank you so much x
I finally finished watching your analysis and I loved it so much! Your reactions touched my heart and it was wonderful to watch you feel those first feelings I felt when I fell in love with this album when it came out in 1996-my first album love! This was a blessing, and after so long listening to it, you gave me insights I never would have considered and I was impressed! I think my favorite reactions were on Talula and Voodoo, which so happen to be two of my favorites! I even tried Talula on karaoke once and it was super hard! lol I look forward to your other Tori album reactions, and may I recommend Native Invader. She's truly an amazing and inspiring lady. If you ever get the chance, take a look at some of her interviews. She's just fabulous...sigh... Thank you for doing this, Eric! Big time hearts!!!
New subscriber here, loved every single bit of this video. Looking forward to more Tori reactions. May I suggest Bjork, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, Fiona Apple. Perhaps even Lykke Li, Banks, Bat For Lashes & Florence. Greetings 🖖
Thank you so much! If you haven't watched them yet, so far I've made videos on Björk, Kate, Fiona, Lykke Li, and Banks. All of the artists you recommended are fantastic :)