Please tell me I need to listen to this more to NOT think this album is a bit lacking original material....

I'm really hoping it's not gonna be the third studio set in a row that I'm not gonna like much.

Cloudbuster said:

U didnt like Scarlet's Walk?

HamsterHuey said:

I'm wondering the same thing...and it's not just my first listen opinion either.

A lot of the songs feel uninspired and unemotional.

dreamfactory313 said:

I like some of it very much but it's lacking in diversity and because of that it seems to last forever. Pele's a lengthy bugger too but there's enough stylistic leaps to keep me interested. SW just seems to be one long laid back groove. It get's kinda bland after a while, but I don't consider it a bad album.

The Beekeeper is a more joyous set of songs than Scarlet's walk. Scarlet had this melancolic and notalgic feel to it (Strange, Amber Waves...).

The Beekeeper is more direct...It's a blissful record!

Some songs like The power of orange knickers and The Beekeeper have entered my Tori Top 40.

Still record in studios removes some of that Tori magic we love...

Rolling Stone pretty much bashed it in the review


their bottom line is.. they think its a lame album

Sdldawn said:

I don't get it - they gave it 3 stars. That's not a negative review. I thought it was a balanced review. Short, but fair enough.

RipHer2Shreds said:

Yeah but their context in words were terrible.. they gave it 3 because of the potential it has.. or thats what I got out of their review...

"She squanders her gifts on a bland record. At its worst, The Beekeeper suggests a female John Mayer or Jack Johnson. Many of these underwritten, underproduced tunes sound as if Amos could have composed them in the supermarket express lane. Her duet with Irish folk singer Damien Rice, "The Power of Orange Knickers," is surprisingly direct and catchy, but the arrangement is startlingly sterile and dull. "


Thats about 40% of the article.. and that was their point...


I love the album.. im a little dry on it right now.. cause I wore it out.. but its a great album

not as excellent as Scarletts Walk.. but close

Sdldawn said:

Ur r right!
It's doesn't the emotional depth of Scarlet

tori sucks these days, pretty much.

her old stuff was brilliant, but now she's a little older and her whimsical fairy stuff doesn't fit.

listening to it right now.... again. in my opinion, it's the best of her career.

thats the beauty of music.. subjective


I think its a great disk.. just doesnt meet the depth and context of Scarlets Walk.. that my friend is my all time favorite tori album of all time.

It's like she's gone from writing the most amazing and well
worked out adult classics one minute, to writing cottoncandy
children's books the next.

I don't get an emotional kick in the gut from her new songs
anymore. Her material up to "Venus" was able to do that but
since

Strange Little Girls
Scarlet's Walk
Scarlet's Hidden Treasures
The Beekeeper

I feel that something is missing. She lost a lot of magic
in recent years. I can dig that she wants to write other
type of songs but they just sound like new age demo's and
not like well worked out songs.

It says a lot that on her new album, the song I like most
is the most commercial track of them all "Orange Knickers".

On older albums that song would have been a nice segue from
one kick ass emotional punch to the next. On this album it
is *sadly* the highlight.

JonSnow said:

I haven't heard of it yet, but somehow I'm already bothered by this statement. It's like a Prince fan saying Musicology is his best work so far.

EvilWhiteMale said:

There is a huge difference between Musicology and The Beekeeper. Musicology is a decent Prince pop album. Nowhere near his best.

The Beekeeper is 80 minutes of some of the most interesting and inspired music of her career. It is also very diverse stylistically.

The reason why I think it is her best album: there are no weak points. It is consistently good. On any given Tori album, there are 3 tracks among my favorites, and 3 tracks among my least favorites. Every song on TBK is a winner, and that's why I think it's her best work.

Some people complain that her recent music is "missing something". Perhaps they are missing the pain, anguish, and heartache that went into albums like Little Earthquakes, Boys for Pele, and Choirgirl. Yes, that is largely absent now, which means the emotional impact of the more recent material may be less immediate. But it is there, still - just different emotions. Tori is not in the same place in her life when she recorded those earlier works. And, while tracks like iieee, marianne, hotel, silent all these years, spark, etc.. are compelling, I am personally glad that the circustances no longer exist which led to the composition of those types of songs.

especially after reading her new book, and realizing all that she went through w/ the miscarriages, and her battle with Atlantic Records... she is much happier now, married and a mother, and with a label that supports her. She is true to herself and true to her music - what would fans say if she put out a seething, angry record like Pele, but knowing that was not who she was anymore? It would be fake.

Give the Beekeeper a chance, folks.. the angry/tragic Tori Amos of Pele, LE and Choirgirl is gone, but she is getting better and more sophisticated as a songwriter, lyricist and producer, and there is alot to discover on The Beekeeper.


.
[Edited 2/12/05 12:27pm]

I wants to like it SO badly. It is like listening to a friend who lost the way.

The horrid thing is, the album is not bad. It's just not good. It's too long and so many songs musically remind me of other things she has done...

With other artists I do not mind that much, I just give up on them. I mean, emotionally and musically no contest, but to just give an example; bye-bye Lenny Kravitz, who seems to have a patent on making the same song over and over again.

I will forever love Tori Amos. I love her voice, the way she bends it around notes, the way her voice(s) sounds like heaven when she overdubs it herself.

But the thing that drew me in, the passion, seems gone from her music. She tried to borrow it from a band, she tried to steal it from others by ways of a cover album, to some mixed responses from yours truly.


Or maybe I should give it another spin, the background vocals of Sweet The Sting are getting to me while I type this...maybe I need to turn off the Org...

Or maybe I need sleep....

It’s eating me from the inside out
Many of these nights I just zone out
I don’t make sense to anyone
It’s almost the day that it begun
Almost...

It’s almost too much to miss you, dear
But I’ve wasted yet another year
So now it’s time that I move on
Put myself where I belong

So I’ll travel...
Away from myself, closer to you
Need to surround myself with something new

honestly.. I liked it more when I had first impressions of it.. now it could take some time to digest my full feeling about it.. im leaning both ways..

Sdldawn said:

It might work the other way around. I have listened to it three times now, listening to it now, I might grow to like the album later on.

These were just my first impressions...

It's sunday in Holland, I will have a lazy start and breakfast with Tori... maybe this is an album that needs to be digested in different ways and is to be seen set apart from the image I have of her in my head.

Will keep you posted...like I said, while I was typing my previous post all of a sudden the backing vocals started drawing me in.

Waiting to get this in the stores. I've grown to hate getting albums ahead of time through downloads.

Maybe some of the special-ness of hearing The Beekeeper was lost to you guys this way.

Here's what other fans had to say.

http://www.albumvote.co.u...keeper.htm

Here's a good detailed review. I don't really agree with it, but I thought I'd post it anyway for a variety of opinions.

JamesBee
Jan 29, 2005
CD [Rating1520789]


Tori Amos' "The Beekeeper" is an album rife with expectations. Arguably her biggest years of succses were 1991 (in the U.K.) and 1997 (in the United States.) Her debut album "Little Earthquakes," with it's quirtky and deeply personal lyrics, struck a chord with European audiences who are much more open to different or experemenatal music than Americans. 1997 was Amos' "year of the remix," with several major dance chart hits that led people who wouldn't ordinarily listen to her albums.

From then forward public interest has declined as Amos has indulged her own experemental inclinations with mixed successes. (The elecronica infused "To Venus and Back", 1999, turned off many of her traditionalist fans; 2001's "Strange Little Girls" was mostly just turned off.)

In 2003 Amos released "Scarlet's Walk," a thematic album about post-9/11-America that produced her biggest American radio hit ever in "A Sorta Fairytale." Despite this, and possibly because of the advent of digital music trading, sales remained fairly dismal in comparison to many of her contemporaries.

A heavy and humid anticipation rests on the shoulders of "The Beekeeper,' Amos' forthcoming 2005 release. Early press releases promised "gospel choirs and Afro-Cuban drums," and many suspected a leap back towards 1996's heavily experemental and harpsichord filled "Boys For Pele." Then the first radio single, "Sleeps With Butterflies," was released; it proved to be an extremely basic piano ballad about heartache. Heads were scratched; anticipation doubled.

"The Beekeeper" is most similar to "Scarlet's Walk" in that the songs are almost all very low-key and mild in their tone. Lyrically is is quite unlike Amos' previous efforts, primarily because the lyrics are painfully straight-forward and mostly devoid of Amos' typical need for metaphor-upon-metaphor. Though it occasionally ventures into typical Amos-indulgence, it is a surprisingly plain and unconfrontational album that hits the mark almost completely.

Amos, who is fond of thematic packaging for her releases, does not leave behind this penchant with "Beekeeper." On the limited edition version of the release, the album's tracks are divided into gardens: Roses and Thorns, Herbs and Elixers, The Desert Garden, The Greenhouse, The Orchard and The Rock Garden. (It also comes with a special seed packet.) In both versions photographs depict Amos in shadowy garden backgrounds.

The songs begin with the trancelike "Parasol," where Amos takes on the personality of the subject of Seurat's painting "Seated Woman With a Parsaol." Lyrics like "and the Seated Woman with the Parasol may be the only one you can't betray" suggest a sympathy with the Victorian women who allowed themselves to become reduced by men. Musically it is straightforward, with an almost Sheryl Crow feeling because of the Hammond Organ which permeates the track.

"Sweet the Sting" follows a sultry wah-wah guitar and tells the story of a man's seduction of a fragile woman; moreover, it is two person's hope that a sexual encounter might relieve some kind of pain. "Is it sweet, sweet, sweet the sting?/Is it real, this infusion?/Can it heal where others before have failed?"

Track three is "The Power of Orange Knickers," a pseudo-duet with British music darling Damien Rice (who is more ore less a backup singer.) The song seems to be a final nod to Amos' miscarriages, something she has addressed lyrically before. Herein she seems to be finally taking responsibility for her actions: "Shame shame you've had your fun/shame shame for letting me think that I would be the one." Unfortunately the track is extremely boring, song in almost complete monotone. (For your reference, it is said that wearing orange underpants increases fertility.)

"Jamaica Inn" is another fairly basic piano ballad that pays tribute to a European pub by the title name. In it the main character seems to go there to get away from the betrayal of a friend: "With the gales my little boat was tossed/How was I to know that you’d send her with a lantern
to bring me in?"

The next track, "Barons of Suburbia," closely echoes "Carbon" from "Scarlet's Walk" in that it's rapid piano playing slips in and out of different time signatures and is echoed by popping drums. It's a harsh but beautifully sung accusation to the average, every-man who is allowing the current global situation to continue. Amos promises that she is "I'm piecing a potion
to combat your poison..."

"Sleeps With Butterflies," the first released single, is as direct as the album gets. Tailor made for chart success, it's the love story of a woman giving some space to the one she loves so he can grow and decide what is right. "You say the word you know I will find you/or if you need some time I don't mind/I don't hold on to the tail of your kite..."

"General Joy" is another bit of a sleeper, with drums and piano droning on as more commentary is made on the war situation of our times. "By boat by tram by motorbus/could it be the Hawks are protecting us/from the Men who have now assumed their name?"

In the context of lyrical arrangement, "Mother Revolution" is the most interesting listen simply because words and sentences are broken up rhythmically to bring some interest to what is otherwise a fairly boring melody. It heads further into the idea of romantic betrayal but is not specific enough to be lyrically interesting: "Lucky me
I guessed the kind of man that you would turn out to be..."

"Ribbons Undone" is obviously a tribute to Amos' own young daughter, and it's beautiful balladry is representative of some of Amos' best. Lyrically it could literally be the most straightforward song Amos has ever written. "From school she comes home and cries/"I don't want to grow up Mom, at least not tonight!"

Unfortunately, "Cars and Guitars" is a complete disaster that begins with Amos attempting to scat over a generic drum beat and chord-placement piano playing. Amos attempts to use car-talk metaphor to describe herself and the decay of a relationship, but between the poorly mixed overpowering vocal performance and the corny lyrics, it's actually grating (especially after the loveliness of the last track.) "If I choke Boy you start me up again/restring my wires y'know this gearbox can make the shift polish my rims.."

"Witness", which clocks in at over six minutes, is the only track where Amos' attempt at a bluesy, funked-out sound truly explodes with success. With a gospel choir and Chili-Pepper worthy guitar riffs, she seems to be aggressively pained by the betrayal of a friend (or lover)'s addiction to cocaine. "So then when did you then Begin your Craving for White powder?/...thought I had a witness!"

"Original Sinsuality" is not the most orignial Amos track in her extensive history of writing about religion; it's a point blank denial of woman's responsibility in the Garden of Eden. Her spot-placement references to religious iconography like "Yaldaboath" and "Saklas" are cold and flat despite the track's inherant balladry. The track barely breaks two minutes anyhow and seems a bit like an afterthought.

"Ireland" brings back some bluesy action with some opening "Sha-na-na-na's" but again seems lyrically like a forced attempt to be as generic as possible. "Drivin' with my friends/on my way to Ireland/it's been a long time..."

"The Beekeeper" is by far the most interesting listen on the album, sounding again like one of Sheryl Crow's more retro tracks. Though another droner, it is thick with organs and low-key percussion, and for nearly seven minutes Amos addresses the idea of death and greif. "'Do you know who I am', she said,/'I'm the one who taps you on the shoulder when it's your time/Do not be afraid, I promise that she will awake Tomorrow Somewhere..." Sadly the song contains a lyrical acknowledgement of the recent tragic death of Amos' 50 year old brother, as she almost whispers..."Take this message to Michael!"

If nothing else, "Martha's Foolish Ginger" carries on Amos' penchant for somewhat absurd song titles. With a military-sounding drumbeat in the background, it is one of the harder tracks to interpret. It's filled with nautical imagery as Amos sings "If those harbour lights had just been a half a mile inland, who knows what I would have done?"

"Hoochie Woman" is unquestionably the bomb of the album. Amos tries desperately to deliver an "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" slammer about "bringin' home the bacon", but from her it sounds forced and just an inch shy of desperate. It even begins with a Missy Elliott style "Ungh! Ungh!"

"Goodbye Pisces" is another forward ballad with piano vocal stylings. Apparently Amos was inspired by a bedside astrology book to explore the idea that our relationship attitudes are predestined by astrology; it is her attempt to explain why we repeat our mistakes in love. "There we go again/Breaking porcelain/Is that all I am, just a Doll you got used to?"

Following this is Amos' least confrontational and most elegant confrontation of the religious right to date. Unlike 1994's "God" which spewed "God, sometimes you just don't come through," here in "Marys of the Sea" Amos somewhat sadly questions the improper use of the word of Christ to punish, maim and judge others. "Hey there's a new Jerusalem/Hey you built a rock that's on sand/For now you have hijacked the Son/Last time I checked he came to light the lamp for everyone!"

The album closes on "Toast," which again follows an Amos forumla by closing out on an extremely simplified ballad of piano and vocal. It seems to be a final goodbye to a lost friend, but it is not specified the nature of the relatinoship. More steeped in metaphor than other tracks they're still fairly obvious ones: "with a toast he's telling me it's time to let you go/I thought I'd see you again/You say "You might do;/Maybe in a carving in a cathedral/somewhere in Barcelona."

To be sure, "Beekeeper" is just as uneven as almost all of Amos' projects. It does have the long awaited potential to break barriers for her once again by making itself far less obtuse and, to a degree, less pretentious than past works. Songs like "Hoochie Woman" won't win her back any of her recently lost fans, nor will tracks like "Martha's Foolish Ginger" appeal to the unconverted, for each of these there's a "Beekeeper" or "Sleeps With Butterflies" to make even the most wary listener feel invited to the party.

Rated: 5.0 stars


http://rateyourmusic.com/..._is_207662

AnckSuNamun said:

Strongly disagree w/ this review.

"Ireland" is a joke. The way it begins sounds so cheesy and campy. I admit there are times when I like cheesy, but I didn't expect it from Tori Amos. And hearing the intro to "Hoochie Woman" makes me cringe. I've been listening to this cd for the past few days and my original opinion isn't gonna change. Tori, what happened?

lyrics edit
[Edited 2/14/05 18:47pm]

Who's read the book?

JonSnow said:

Bingo! Why do people need angry/depressed music to cling to?


I don't care if the cd is good or not... Her tours are always great. I was going through my mp3s and found the performance of Graveyard/Tear In Your Hand that she did here in San Diego. I STILL get teary-eyed when I hear that. And I just love how people scream and hoot and holler when she performs... it's like they are on a rollercoaster ride. I can't wait to see her live again. Sometimes the songs are WAY better live too.

VinaBlue said:

YEAH THAT TRUE

POOK JUST NEED INTERESTING MELODY

SO WHEN TORI FIND THAT AGAIN

GIVE POOK CALL