On the topic of SW's overall sound though: I always liked the album on principle because, like Tori, I love a good concept. When I was a lot younger and just getting into her I wondered why the music didn't necessarily reflect where Scarlet was, geographically. NOW I love the album's general pastoral sweep, I see golden fields and rolling hills and panoramic cloudscapes and dirt roads and small towns dotting the landscape. I feel like the album would have aged like a kitschy mess if it had been what 18 year-old me thought it should have been.
Tori Amos - Ocean to Ocean + World Tour
- Thread starter xOJakeXo
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In the New Yorker interview for the book, she mentions that she was rewriting her album when her mom passed last year. She also described listening to "hundreds and hundreds of hours" of music that she's recorded since the last album. So she's at least working on a new album. If we didn't get anything this year, this would be a contender for the longest gap between albums.
If Tori still plans to tour in 2021, I think we'll still get a new album later this year. She wouldn't postpone it.
Well it's not like she uses external collaborators anymore... The recording part might as well be unaffected.
She hasn't played with a band in ten years. I know her last albums have been appreciated more but the production choices have just kept me from listening to them more than twice. The programming is just not it for me. Imagine what 'Up the Creek' would have sounded like with an actual band...
Yeah as much as I thought Native Invader was on the whole a set back in the right direction at the time... I couldn't tell you a second of how any of it goes apart from the opening to Up The Creek. I think I preferred Geraldines.
Might give both a wee relisten.
Might give both a wee relisten.
I've.... *made adjustments* to both Unrepentant Geraldines and Native Invader. I like both, but I like Unrepentant Geraldines more. There's an oaky, quilty warmth to its sound. Native Invader is a troubled album, it's weighed down by something cold and sad.
I adore the recent two albums and I'm so grateful for them after the 2009 albums and the diabolical Gold Dust album.
Unrepentent Geraldines was/is her best since Scarlet's Walk. I feel less connected to Native Invader, but I think that's more because Tori hardly performed the album live (other than the hideous backing track versions).
Unrepentent Geraldines was/is her best since Scarlet's Walk. I feel less connected to Native Invader, but I think that's more because Tori hardly performed the album live (other than the hideous backing track versions).
Don’t forget.... Night of Hunters...
I actually appreciate Night Of Hunters because it had an incredible tour, but I also think it gave Tori the confidence in herself that had disappeared the previous few years.
he/him
Geraldines was the first Tori album I got to experience as a full era so maybe I'm biased, but I really enjoy it. Native Invader I have to be in the right mood for most of the time.
he/him
I think y'all need to give Native Invader another listen! It has a subtlety and atmosphere I feel like she was missing on Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Night of Hunters, and Unrepentant Geraldines. Looking at the tracklist now, It's easier for me to count the duds - Wings, Chocolate Song, and Bats. Everything else ranges from interesting to genuinely great. Reindeer King is probably the most stunning song she's done in the 2010s. That plus Breakaway (gorgeous ballad), Climb (beautiful melody), Bang (production is actually interesting), and Mary's Eyes (heartbreaking, especially now) are fantastic later day songs for her.
However, did everybody know she had the title of the album and the tour booked before the album was done? She essentially rush wrote and recorded everything in the span of a few months from what I understand. Based on the interviews she's given for the book, she has "hundreds" of hours of music. I'm curious to see how the inspiration translates this time.
However, did everybody know she had the title of the album and the tour booked before the album was done? She essentially rush wrote and recorded everything in the span of a few months from what I understand. Based on the interviews she's given for the book, she has "hundreds" of hours of music. I'm curious to see how the inspiration translates this time.
Reindeer King is incredible, as is Mary's Eyes. I like Wildwood, I like Bang, Climb, Upside Down 2 kind of stops me in my tracks to this day. The album as a whole leaves me a little emotionally adrift when it's done. There's a lot of pain in the margins and all around it.
Unrepentant Geraldines needed a little pruning, I'm happy with the 11-track 48-minute version that I came up with. Dixie and Forest Of Glass should've been on the album proper (Dixie almost made water come out of my eyes the first time I heard it so). Weatherman slays me, 16 Shades Of Blue, Wild Way, Wedding Day, the title track, Invisible - I mean I could name more than a few.
I like Oysters but it'll forever be colored by another fan's theory in which Tori now recognizes that no one wants her long-ass 78-minute, 20-track albums (not every *girl* is a pearl / not every *girl* is popular). Now I can't unhear this interpretation of artistic self-pity and I'm just like "okay T *uncomfortable giggle*"
EDIT: imo two 70+ minute Tori albums actually justify their length and they're Boys For Pele and Scarlet's Walk.
Unrepentant Geraldines needed a little pruning, I'm happy with the 11-track 48-minute version that I came up with. Dixie and Forest Of Glass should've been on the album proper (Dixie almost made water come out of my eyes the first time I heard it so). Weatherman slays me, 16 Shades Of Blue, Wild Way, Wedding Day, the title track, Invisible - I mean I could name more than a few.
I like Oysters but it'll forever be colored by another fan's theory in which Tori now recognizes that no one wants her long-ass 78-minute, 20-track albums (not every *girl* is a pearl / not every *girl* is popular). Now I can't unhear this interpretation of artistic self-pity and I'm just like "okay T *uncomfortable giggle*"
EDIT: imo two 70+ minute Tori albums actually justify their length and they're Boys For Pele and Scarlet's Walk.
he/him
That's funny about Oysters @NobodyKnowsMe - I always read it as her trying to "find herself" again after having somewhat of a midlife crisis at the tail end of the 2000s. "I'm working my way back to me again" feels like a mission statement, particularly in a post-Native Invader world.
I love that the piano line in it is literally straight out of Let It Will Be. Legends only!
I love that the piano line in it is literally straight out of Let It Will Be. Legends only!