AnckSuNamun said:

What does Fat Albert have to do with Tori?

sextonseven said:

Nothin' I guess HEY HEY HEY!

AnckSuNamun said:

You're silly.

As a probationary member of the brigade, I submit:

Little Earthquakes -
Under the Pink -
Boys For Pele -
From the Choirgirl Hotel -
Scarlet's Walk -
Beekeeper -

This is all relatively speaking on a very high level. With Boys For Pele and Choirgirl Hotel, she hits the ball out of the park. The others I all like equally, but they're still pure genius.

heartbeatocean said:

only 3 for L.E? I think I'm the only here who's really loving Scarlet's Walk.

Yeah, on Boys for Pele and Choirgirl, she really sounds like no other.

AnckSuNamun said:

I love Scarlet's Walk too. In fact, I love the whole mood of Scarlet's Walk, which captures this certain feeling that none of her other albums capture - a real warmth to it. These rating systems are very misleading because I love all her albums and really, I give them all

I'm actually least enamoured with L.E. I only discovered her in the last year and feel more connected to her recent work. L.E. is nice but her later work seems to have more complication, complexity, depth. However, I do like the piano purity of the early albums and the more classical influence in them.

heartbeatocean said:

That is what TOTALLY drew me to her when I heard her first album back in 1991-1992. To be honest, if I heard Tori for the first time now (like Beekeeper or Scarlet's Walk), I probably wouldn't be a big fan.

can any of you tell me what the hell Carbon is about. I've only recently started digging on this song and, though i like it much more now than when it was new, i just can't figure it out. it seems like she may drawing from her fight with atlantic but i don't know.

Carbon made
Found her at the
End of a chain
Time to race she said
Race the downhill
Behind crystaline irises
Loons can dive
Where the world bleeds white

Just keep your eyes on her
Keep don’t look away
Keep your eyes on her horizon

Bear claw
Free fall
A gunner’s view
Black and blue
Shred in ribbons
Of lithium
Blow by blow
Her mind cut
In sheets
Layers deep
Now unravelling

Just keep your eyes on her
Keep don’t look away
Keep your eyes on her horizon

Get me neil on the line
No I can’t hold
Have him read
Snow glass apples
Where nothing is what it seems
Little sis you must crack this
He says to me
You must go in again
Carbon made
Only wants to be unmade
Blade to ice
It’s double diamond time

And keep your eyes on her...

On her eyes
On her horizon

AnckSuNamun said:

I've started to. There have been a few Tori albums that I totally skipped when they were out but have revisited since my rediscovery of her a few years back. Choirgirl and Scarlet I just wasn't feeling during their release, but I truly love them now. She just outgrew me a few times and it took me some time to catch up.

SassyBritches said:

All I can ever gather definitively is from what she says directly about her work. Maybe this'll help.

"Sometimes you don't have to necessarily spend a lot of time with somebody to have exchanged a lot of yourself. And taking away parts of them that become a part of your body map, that sort of become... written, tattooed on you in some way. And it can't be seen visibly but it's felt internally. Carbon is this woman that Scarlet has gone to see. She's Carbon-made, she only wants to be unmade. There is a brilliance, though, to Carbon, as there's a brilliance to a diamond. But people chip away and chip away and chip away at this person, because of their brilliance. They wanted her, so they excavated her. So, there is not a lot left in some ways, but a whole another world has been created in all the ways for her to survive it. So Scarlet is having to deal with both these mm... people... who live in the one being of Carbon." [Scarlet Stories]

Next she meets up with the manic depressive Carbon. They travel through the Black Hills of Dakota and to Wounded Knee, scene of one of the darkest episodes in Native American history. "All Carbon wants is to disintegrate into nothingness. So it's an extremely destructive story. Just as people risked their lives to keep their sacred land, a meltdown is about to happen in her life and a waltz into insanity is on the horizon. She's on this downhill race in her mind and Scarlet has to get to her before she kills herself." They end up in a ski resort - Bear Claw, Free Fall and Gunner's View in the song are all ski runs. But for Carbon the normal parameters and boundaries have ceased to apply and given way to self-mutilation and an urge to plunge over the cliff. Scarlet walks into this madness, but the outcome is left unresolved. [Scarlet's Walk bio]

"Each person has their own myth, their own mystery. Most of my characters, I guess all of them, are based on real people. They're not made up. ... But really, just the average person has such a story to tell. And I find I never know it. Do you know what I mean? It's the people that I don't expect. ... [You're] pulling yourself into a place where you can see from that character's point of view. That's always tricky. Like in Carbon, trying to get into that space, being around somebody who is a manic-depressive, unless you're that way, it's very tough to see it like that. I found that one very tricky. To study and try to imagine being like that, doing that kind of research ... when you don't feel it within yourself. You try and make yourself almost like a canvas so that their experience can just tattoo or imprint on you." [The Journal News - March 6, 2003]

i fucking love her. she talks in madness and completely understands herself, lol! thanks for the info, gangsta, i'm gonna listen to it with that stuff in mind.

GangstaFam said:

The 'Scarlet's Walk' songs are much more interesting when reading about them than listening to them.

sextonseven said:

i agree.

SassyBritches said:

Have you guys tried burning your own version with the songs you don't like removed replaced by some of the better b-sides?

GangstaFam said:

Scarlet's Walk has b-sides?

sextonseven said:

Well, not many technical b-sides since there weren't many singles. But all of those "Scarlet's Hidden Treasures" tracks count.

You got these?

Ruby Through the Looking-Glass
Apollo's Frock
Indian Summer
Bug-a-Martini
Tombigbee
Seaside
Mountain
Operation Peter Pan

I usually think of Angels and Snow Cherries From France being Scarlet songs too.

Makes for a nice mini-album.

GangstaFam said:

Geez, I forgot about that EP. I like it more than the Scarlet's Walk. I should add it to my ratings post.

sextonseven said:

I really love Scarlet's Walk now, but I think with its long length, it could've benefited from a few faster, punchier songs like Tombigbee, Mountain and Bug a Martini. I'll post my ideal Scarlet tracklist once I get it worked out.

GangstaFam said:

I like "Angels" and "Snow Cherries From France" better than anything off Scarlet's Walk also.

sextonseven said:

See, I really struggled with the same albums you do. Maybe if you revisited Choirgirl and Scarlet, their b-sides, read the quotes, etc. they'd start to click for you. I'm so glad that they did for me, cuz I felt like there were major holes in my love of Tori's work.

GangstaFam said:

I predict liking Tori's last two albums better once I listen to them more, but 'from the choirgirl hotel' is I'm afraid a lost cause. Not totally, since I think half the album rocks, but that second half is dead to me.

grammar edit
[Edited 7/8/05 19:10pm]

SassyBritches said:

she

yea, I just like the way she looks

lilgish said:

Were you the one who started the "I wanna bang Tori Amos" thread?

GangstaFam said:

me

I think she should bring that look back.

GangstaFam said:

i actually did that and it makes for a much better listen! all of the b sides/outtakes are fantastic!

Little Earthquakes

Under The Pink and a 1/2

Boys For Pele

From the Choirgirl Hotel

To Venus and Back

Strange Little Girls

Scarlet's Walk

The Beekeeper