siren

several people have asked me what i think of the new tori amos album, the beekeeper. none of these people knew me in early college, when i bought literally every tori amos release, including t-shirts, song books, and necklaces that said shit like "raspberry swirl." who could blame me? i fell in love with tori amos after she released boys for pele, which i still believe is the most perfectly-constructed pop album of the 90s. she's got some stiff competition from that decade--exile in guyville comes to mind--but i think boys clenches the title.

wait a second. does the fact that i'm talking about albums that came out upwards of a decade ago make me tragically unhip? although if being hip means listening to that trashy, alcoholic slut lindsay lohan (i know, pot calling the kettle black) i'd rather wear a pocket protector and glasses that are taped together.

the problem with tori amos nowadays is...well, i don't know what her problem is. i could name a lot of possibilities, all of which would make me sound like a heartless, hateful bitch. so, here we go!

• tori amos was married to her sound engineer, mark hawley, in the late 90's, which sapped her of any true breakup angst. her best work, in my opinion, was created in the wake of disaster. when you've got a hot husband who loves you and does nothing but work with you in your home studio and spread clotted cream all over your scones, angst just don't happen.
• ms. amos gave birth to her daughter, natashya (could we please be any more pretentious), which brought out her inner earth-mother. this pop-out-a-baby-become-enlightened problem has happened to some of the best angry bitch singers: liz phair released the absurdly lame whitechocolatespaceegg right after expunging a child from her womb, and some of sinead o'connor's most yawn-inducing songs are directed at her children.
• ms. amos, instead of being pissed off at christianity, has embraced all sorts of religious traditions, from native american folklore (see scarlet's walk) to eastern religions and everything in between. unfortunately, this has caused her to spout unintelligible references to some religious figure who was discovered in 1968 under an aztec pyramid. "Yaldaboath Saklas I’m calling you Samael!" i'm sorry, tori, what was that? i didn't quite understand you. is that sanskrit? jesus might have gotten it, but it flew right over my head.

so, the problem at hand, the beekeeper. tori hinted at the direction in which her music was headed with her first epic release, scarlet's walk. though certain songs were nothing but sarah mclaughlin-sounding pop radio filler, there were still several that one could point to and say, "that. that's tori amos." the beekeeper has lost those songs. any number of the cuts could be slopped onto adult contemporary radio without a problem; any of them, i mean, except the ones that are too shitty to even be considered adult contemporary. take "ireland," for instance:

driving in my saab
on my way to ireland
it's been a long time
a long time.

driving with my friends
on my way to ireland
it's been a long time
a long time.

i'm a hard-core enough tori amos fan that i still purchased the beekeeper. i listen to it, even. granted, i deleted "ireland" from my ipod so that i don't have to bother skipping it. i've heard it suggested that while she was making the beekeeper, tori was pressured by her label to make something more radio-friendly. nothing from boys for pele could really have been a hit single, and i think that's part of the reason that i like it so much. i refuse to admit, even now, that tori would bow to such pressure. i like to think that if tori's putting out such shitty music, it's because she wants to put out shitty music. and who knows: maybe mark will leave her or "tash" will be kidnapped, and we'll get our good ol’ tori back.