fanning the flames

[spaced heater <woj@remus.rutgers.edu>]

this was written by a friend of mine who would be counted amongst the
torifans when KaTe comes to judge us in Her glory. he asked me to send
it along to love-hounds. i think it is an interesting, if blasphemous,
opinion. ;) ;) ;)

>From: dgk@genie.com
>Subject: The Dreaming
>
>Always willing to entertain the possibility of changing my mind, I dragged out
>Tom Weber's copy of =The Dreaming= today and played it. Latest verse the same
>as the first. I find the album overdense, airless, brittle, antsy, and cold.
>Brilliantly composed and constructed, perhaps, but very artificial. And if
>Tori Amos released an album =entirely= consisting of songs like the studio
>version of "Little Earthquakes" (which I never listen to; the piano-only live
>version is a pinnacle of her work), or "God," or "Caught a Lite Sneeze," I
>wouldn't like it, either.
>
>Tori Amos has made a series of ballads that are her equivalent to "The Man
>with the Child in his Eyes" a cornerstone of her career (culminating so far
>with "Hey Jupiter"). Kate Bush has never written its like again. (It's true
>that "Night of the Swallow," and "All of the Love," and "Houdini," touch on
>that mode; but none of them will =sit still=, and the album is three-quarters
>over by that point anyway.)
>And as I said in a review of piano-rockers Ben Folds Five (who are excellent
>but not the least to my taste), if Tori Amos released an album =entirely=
>consisting of songs like "Leather," and "Happy Phantom," and "The Wrong Band,"
>and "Mr. Zebra," I wouldn't like =that= either.
>One of the many things I like about Tori Amos is the variety of styles at her
>command.
>
>And didn't she act with perfect decorum on the Regis and Kathie Lee show this
>morning....
>