Re: tori amos

[satyr!buck@apple.com (Michael Butler)]

In article <9303170406.AA03765@romulus.rutgers.edu> woj@remus.rutgers.edu (l.l. cool bean) writes:
>[apologies to the gaffan purists]
>
>satyr!buck@apple.com (Michael Butler) sez:
>>I'd love to hear, say, Tori's third or fourth album; or stuff that wasn't
>>so evidently derivative.  Her delivery reminds me (a bit annoyingly) of
>>Sarah McLachlan on Sarah's debut (only?) album.
>
>funny - one thing that constantly went through my mind when i first heard
>_little earthquakes_ was a similarity in vocal delivery to sarah as well.
>i don't consider it annoying though. as for derivativeness, i disagree com-
>pletely. yes, KaTe and tori both play piano; yes, Kate and tori both are
>female vocalists. however, their piano styles are distinctively different
>and their lyrical subjects are almost at odds to one another. KaTe sings
>of fantastical stories and tori sings of gritty reality; Kate is interested
>in production and tori is into simple delivery of her ideas. the piano and
>their gender is the end all and be all of their similarity.

I could fight this one.  Fantastical stories?  Absurd.  What's
fantastical about "The Kick Inside", "Infant Kiss", "Empty Bullring",
"Night of the Swallow", "Ran Tan Waltz", the "Oh To Be In Love"
trilogy...  Arrrgh!

And I could say, Look at the *corpus* of KaTe's work; examine, not the
exact piano stylings but the choice of treatments; strip away the
production values that are (IMNSHO) are what makes KaTe take so long to
"churn out albums :)"; you can "hear through" things like production
values with a bit of training; didn't the _Cathy Demos_ and all those
lightly-produced B-Sides show you that KaTe is not as simply painted as
you've...  Arrrgh!

But after reflection I've concluded that all I may be seeing is that
teenage angst songs (and yes, to an UnBeliever, that's what some of
KaTe's early songs have been characterized as, *gasp*; though they
still move me, I find myself able to appreciate the characterization
as *one genuine reaction by one kind of person*) tend to have many of
the same lyrical themes.  Remember, I did mention word-count analysis
in my post.  Have you ever written your own poetry while studying
others'?  It *does* rub off, often...

Anyroad--look hard at, to take just one minor example, *which I
enjoy*, "Happy Phantom" and see if it can't be held up to the light as
a curious complement to *at least* three of The One True Goddess's
works, considering music and lyrics (two hints: "You can't hear
me/here in the room with you now", "I look at eye level/it isn't good
enough"...).

I saw a great connection in many places between _Little Earthquakes_
and many of KTB's songs.  Were I pedantic, I would labor for days
weaving my evaluation, and post it; I would very likely be wasting my
time utterly.

I retract (after consideration) my prior unfounded assumption and
assertion that the similarity I saw (and to a lesser extent, still
see) is significant of any emulation on TA's part, or "derivative".

I am now prepared to believe that it's cultural.  Rest assured that
I am fond of a number of female piano-vocalists and am accustomed to
making distinctions.

Past that, I'd *still* like to see her third or fourth album.
And I'll probably be buying the ones before that.  OK?  :)

Michael