08 May 2007

NMT: 01 MAY 07 Tori Amos --- American Doll Posse

This may be a week late, but it took awhile to figure out what I thought of it, and I may not have been doing these NMT for awhile now, but this album deserves some words.

Tori Amos' latest, American Doll Posse is a sprawling mess of an album. And I mean that in a good way. Each song is by different entities, each with their own webpage (the wiki is a good place to start).

Short review: Multiple Personality Disorder never sounded so good!!!

It's a bit ridiculous, a bit pretentious, a bit crazy, but also pretty damn brilliant and when it works, it really works.

The best songs are "by" Clyde and Pip. Funnily enough the songs I like the least are the ones "by" Tori. That persona is a bit worn out for her I guess.

Basically this album is 16 songs with a bunch of other interstitial material thrown in.

Stand out tracks are "Body and Soul", "Girl Disappearing", "Bouncing Off Clouds", and "You Can Bring Your Dog".

When she rocks, she can really rock, there's some great glamtastic stuff going on here. The sensitive piano oriented plaintive stuff on this album doesn't move me, though. But luckily there's not so much of that this time around.

I have to wonder if this album won't turn off long time fans while not doing anything to pique the interest of new listeners.

It's a bit too conceptual, a bit too unlike where she's been most of her career. It's a gutsy move, whether it's rewarded commercially, it definitely sounds as if she found it rewarding artistically.

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