Monday, August 20, 2007
well, i've g...
well, i've given this album a good month to redeem itself, but my opinion of it hasn't improved much.i'd like to know what the rest of you think; my final decision is that i'm not buying any more tori albums from now on. i'm just going to listen to my old tapes until they turn to dust.firstly, tori is discussing women and the bible; old, hackneyed, hackneyed old theme. she throws around concepts of nature as mother, woman as wronged, mother and daughter/child as the source of life. if you want to choose such cliched topics, you have to work hard at making your ideas sound new, and tori's blandness in the dvd interview just bores me.secondly, why backing vocals on so many of the songs? what happened to just tori and a piano; it's like she has no confidence in herself anymore.parasols - i suppose i should like this song; tame, repetitive little song. how cute. so it's about betrayal? um, like cornflake girl & the waitress? no, alas.sweet the sting - "shake me sane"? "shock me sane"?and "scor-beyown's tail" - is not how it's pronounced.the power of orange knickers - orange knickers under a petticoat don't have power, so we'll ignore tori trying to show that she's still eccentric, when she's forgotten what that was. and why is it knickers now, doesn't she still call them panties? & "terrorist" - that little buzz-word (pun pun) ruins it all. pity, if it was the old tori alone with her piano, maybe she could have pulled it off. am i alone in this?jamaica inn - cute. the lyrics seem to try very hard to fit a perfectly monotone song. trust isn't sexy though, and there's no need to keep repeating "in the jamaica inn" in a high pitched voice.barons of suburbia - starts out like "caught a lite sneeze", and ends like "professional widow". full of boring (half)rhymes, "carnivorous vegetarian" = pointless oxymoron. "Whether you're looking at certain governments or certain relationships, we go back to the personal and the political always." ... yes, very Foucauldian, tori, but it ain't in the song.sleeps with butterflies - sickeningly cutesy. i actually like the "Airplanes / take you away again" because it's true, that's what airplanes do. "butterfly" is better, if one must sing about butterflies.mother revolution - nice. i really like the phrase, "all along the watchtower".general joy - "I have to feel the pulse of what is current." oooh, tori. no you don't have to jump on the bandwagon and write a song dissing the war. "now “they” have Liberty gagged" - could you be ever so slightly more cliche, 'cos it would help us understand?ribbons undone - no. too slow, too cliche with "it is your time" and just the idea of a little girl running with ribbons in her hair, yeah we've seen it, done it, etc etc. and weird "music" too.cars and guitars - hmm. i don't really like the drawling way she sings it.witness - fun. i quite like it.original sinsuality - awful. i mean really truly god awful. "you are not alone" wail wail, you will not pull this off tori.ireland - WTF?the beekeeper - "- wrap yourself aroundthe Tree of Lifeand the Dance of the Infinityof the Hive -"ooo, tori does Metaphysical Poetics.(i wonder whether she knows about bees & death, or whether the beekeeper is just a random choice?)martha's foolish ginger - i love! ironic that it was a song she started 8 years ago.hoochie woman - i like the lower piano notes.goodbye pisces - the japanese-y theme is quite cute. i like the lines: "We’ve done this before / as Mars sauntered through his door". yeah, it's ok actually.marys of the sea - "in all of Gaul / is there safety?" love love love. tori's french accent, not so cool, but still, smashing song. i like the way it slows down and speeds up.toast - hmm. i like that it's unhurried, and i love the first line and last stanza, but all the bit about the toasting? well it's a little boring actually.garlands - yes, i do like it. it's a bit like "gold dust" in scarlet's walk - a gentle saving grace. & so what if it's a list of paintings? "datura" is mostly a list of plants and we love it.
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9 comments:
i am really not a fan, although parasol gets stuck in my head. the power of orange knickers is particularly dreadful.i actually thought barons of suburbia sounded like carbon at the start. sleeps with butterflies and ribbons undone are particularly annoying and cheesey. "all along the watchtower" is a song by someone, not sure who, maybe bob dylan?it's just a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT really. which is such a shame. i adore all of little earthquakes, except for me and a gun which i can't listen to. i don't often listen to under the pink but it has a few corkers like bells for her and cornflake girl. pele is about two thirds great (not such a fan of professional widow, not the red baron or twinkle and some others) and i adore all of choirgirl and almost all of scarlet's walk. i'd rather forget about strange little girls. i just feel so let down; i heard about the beekeeper quite late on, being out of the tori loop as it were, and got all excited, and the packaging is so pretty, but... she sounds tired. when i put it on, t. said "hmm, it sounds like she's run out of ideas," and i had to agree. humph. xxx
p.s. what is/are bees & death? have been wondering that since i saw it in your old interests list.
yeah, I heard it sucks, which is kind of too bad, because you expect artists to grow, always. I still don't like Strange Little Girls, so maybe this will be another album I'll put in that category. What happened? :( :( :(
i've only heard the album once, at a friend's house and i must say the highpitched voice and the squealing got on my nerves after a while. haven't listened to it properly...but i remember hearing Under The Pink for the very first time and just being blown away by it's beauty and emotion.
sleeps with butterflies keeps getting stuck in my head and driving me nuts. grrr!i think everything since venus has been extremely anticlimactic. i never bothered with strange little girls and tales of a librarian, and although i bought scarlet's walk, i was very much unimpressed. the only pre-slg song of hers that i can think of that i dislike is 'china'. 'lust' is probably my favourite, yummm.& yeah, 'all along the watchtower' is a song by bob dylan. i love the phrase, i don't know why.:)xx
oh, yes, the bees & death thing, is an old rural tradition.from Gone to Earth by Mary Webb, where I first read it:"Whenever an order for a coffin came, Hazel went to tell the bees who was dead. Her father thought this unnecessary. It was only for folks that died in the house, he said. But he had himself told the bees when his wife died. He had gone out on that vivid June morning to his hives, and had stood watching the lines of bees fetching water, their shadows going and coming on the clean white boards. Then he had stooped and said with a curious confidential indifference, 'Maray's jead.' He had put his ear to the hive and listened to the deep, solemn murmur within; but it was the murmur of the future, and not of the past, the preoccupation with life, not with death, that filled the pale galleries within."and I recently read it in Lark Rise by Flora Thompson too:"On the evening of the day he died, Edmund was round at the back of the end house banking up his rabbit-hutches with straw for the night, when he saw Queenie come out of her door and go towards her beehives. For some reason or other, Edmund followed her. She tapped on the roof of each hive in turn, like knocking at a door, and said, 'Bees, bees, your master's dead, an' now you must work for your missis.' Then, seeing the little boy, she explained: 'I 'ad to tell 'em, you know or they'd all've died, poor craturs.' So Edmund really heard bees seriously told of a death."so there you go! :)
you expect artists to growyes, indeed! i think after the "experimental" venus, she didn't know what to do with herself. hence the cover album, then the compilation album, and two new albums which i find very poor in contrast to her previous work.and she seems to be pushing into the main stream, writing simple love songs like 'a sorta fairytale' and 'sleeps with butterflies' that i assume appeal to the masses? i was rather surprised to see a link to the 'sleeps with butterflies' video right on the main page of yahoo launch, but perhaps that isn't all that unexpected, i don't know.:( :( :(
yes! 'cornflake girl' was the first song i heard by tori and i still love her best with plinkety piano pieces. she really really doesn't sound nice on high notes though, even in some of her old songs i can't stand it.
china is alright. off the top of my head, i don't like professional widow, or twinkle.
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