Toei (wasRe: Jewel Bush?)

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SLEyawnEPY <sleyawnepy@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970829210901.RAA20396@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> Hey.... I HEAR YOU THERE!!!  I like Jewel but she is no Kate, and she
> doesn't come close.  IF she did, it wouldn't be with "These Foolish
Games",
> anyhow.   But as for your comparison to Tori Amos, I have one explanation
> as to how the chain got linked, and that is that Tori Amos is a
> completely-remodeling imitator of such originals as Kate, ideal for the
> 90's sensibility of selling out classics to make room for a generation's
> creative failure.  Matter of fact the first time I heard Tori on the
radio
> I thought Kate was just killing time making records again and decided to
go
> it half-assed.  I was so glad to find out she wasn't!  I never made that
> mistake with Jewel.  
> <sigh>  I LOVE YOU KATE!   hehehehe... why'd you ever have to grow up? 
> <sigh>
> 

This is something of an insult to Tori, but everybody's entitled to their
opinions. Here's mine. I never associated Kate with Tori or vice versa.
Maybe that explains my confusion over other people doing so. 

Their singing is nothing alike
One thing I noticed immediately in Kate was her vocal control. Listening
very closely to tori's singing, that's the one thing she has NO use for.
She's something like a concsientious objector to anything restraining
either when she plays or sings. In a lot of ways Tori satisfies something
in me that Kate has never seemed to have that much interest in---cutting
loose with rage.  (Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake, Violin, and the
Wedding List are a few attempts that come to mind, but they had a
definitely Kate as actress feel to them)

Their writing is nothing alike
I think that Kate's sense of story (as has been mentioned in another reply)
is light years beyond Tori's. Why? Because Tori doesn't see that as really
important. This might seem "half-ass' to you, but that doesn't mean that
Tori hasn't had her moments of telling a story in a single line
"He said you're really an ugly girl, but I like the way you play"
While Kate's songs have a way of looking at the world  from 'on high' (a
theme I appreciate deeply)
Tori wallows in it. While Kate's attention and solidity of thought, her
coherence, keeps everything in a tight musical package of well structured
music principles. Tori rages and ranges and floats. Even when Tori keeps a
lucid focus on something, she keeps taking little detours. "Me and a  Gun"
for example, an almost painfully direct song a capella, even though she's
telling a story, the words are like a slot machine at times. Where Kate is
more likely to drop mythology elusions, Tori digs through a very personal
sub-conscious. The only real similarity in their writing is that both can
do unexpected things with lyrics.

Their playing is nothing alike
I can't see Tori sitting still long enough to do one of Kate's much slower,
very measured torch songs. Kate, likewise frankly doesn't have the training
to do what Tori does with a piano. Any moans and gripes about that
statement, and I'll refer you to Mother on Little Earthquakes. I don't
think Kate would ever be in danger of breaking a piano. I wouldn't put it
past Tori in a second, not from destructiveness, but because that's the
kind of player she can be (getting moreso every tour).  Even their world
music type influences and things they've included in their recordings are
vastly different.  Of course the difference in America and England do
explain most of that. Kate picks up anything and everything to incorporate.
Tori has taken ideas but not music, she puts the thoughts and experiences
in a mental blender but produces what she's best at, solid piano-based
music. The dance tracks of Tori's are, hmmm, I hope they're anomalies. They
are okay, but she's much better at blues structure flourished with
classical training. Kate's instrumentation is at its best when it's
eclectic. As in other ways, Tori doesn't see this as that important.

I think the 'completely remodelling imitator' remark  is completely
unfounded. There is a definite story, a progression that throughout her
life has made Tori the musician she is, NOT a scheming to take advantage of
any particular aesthetics. If you were talking about Alanys, I'd agree, but
Tori is far too original to get pegged as a poser.


I won't even dignify the "this generation's creative failure" remark with a
response, especially since I remember how Vapid much of the 70s and 80s
were. The fact that Tori gets as much attention for her creativity is
really a sign not that this generation artistically bankrupt, but that it
has finally progressed to the point where someone in the same general vein
of oddity as Kate can become popular as well. When Kate started, people
said "That's unusual" and went back to listening to their Blondie. 


Okay, end of rant
If anybody wants me
I'll be in my room

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