Tori Amos, Disco Diva/Kate-n-Tricky Team-Up?

["Brian J. Dillard" <dillardb@pilot.msu.edu>]

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I just wondered:

A recurrent Tori thread is Tori's marketing efforts (numerous b-sides, 
glossy videos, frequent albums, plentiful publicity, and of course the 
concerts) and I was wondering how familiar y'all are with her new efforts 
to become a dance diva.

After Utah Saints sampled "Cloudbusting," Kate released that rather tepid 
"Shoedance" thing. As a Kate fan I love it, but as a *raver boy* for lack 
of a better term, I have to say: "Shoedance" is total shite if you try to 
take it seriously as house music.

But Tori has been collaborating with much better deejays than Kate, and 
one result - NYC bad boy Armand Van Helden's remix of "Professional 
Widow" - was an authentic club staple in Europe and America this fall. 
Strangely enough, Tori's weirdly elliptical lyrics work much better as 
dance-floor fodder than they do as thought-provoking poetry. The phrase 
"Honey bring it close to my lips now" doesn't mean much in the context of 
the original song, but it makes a killer hook when grafted onto 
hip-gyrating electro-funk at 130 beats per minute.

Now Tori has released "Blue Skies," a collaboration billed to "BT 
featuring Tori Amos." BT is an American expat DJ who copped the British 
DJ Sasha's "epic house" sound and is now trying to carve out a name for 
himself on his native shores. "Blue Skies" is getting club play here in 
Chicago, although it doesn't seem to be as much of a crowd-pleaser as the 
Van Helden "PW."

I don't know how many love-hounds are into electronic music, but I would 
love to see Kate follow Tori's lead and collaborate with some house, 
techno, drum-n-bass or trip-hop djs.

Tricky, the brilliant trip-hop poster child, always cites Kate as a big 
influence. A recent article (in Detour or Raygun, I forget which) 
included the detail that "Don't Give Up" was playing in Tricky's flat 
during the interview. Tricky often gets compared to Prince in terms of 
talent level, ego level and breadth of influence. So I would love to see 
her Kateness collaborating with the likes of *him* next time she decides 
to allow a remix -- if ever.