Tori Amos - Ocean to Ocean + World Tour

I've been discussing Tori with a friend/coworker. He's definitely interested. I knew he'd like the concept of Tales of a Librarian so I explained it to him, the Dewey Decimal System stuff, all that. And he goes, "so, is that like the closest thing she has to a concept album?"

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I've been discussing Tori with a friend/coworker. He's definitely interested. I knew he'd like the concept of Tales of a Librarian so I explained it to him, the Dewey Decimal System stuff, all that. And he goes, "so, is that like the closest thing she has to a concept album?"

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Tales is awful with those ghastly remixes!
 
Tales is awful with those ghastly remixes!

I find them interesting purely from the standpoint of "the artist herself was involved in what happened here and the fact that she called these shots intrigues me." But it's a bit like George Lucas and his Star Wars remasters. This didn't have to be done. The alternate mixes on A Piano are the same way. Like Cruel's entire atmosphere changes in that alternate mix.
 
She brought out an old journal from 2006 and was literally reading straight from it, including songs we'd heard of (Inside Job, anyone?) and ones we hadn't (Cocoa Confesses, Christmas In July, and many more)

And some that she had no clue about or had forgotten about. Looking at her notes, she had recorded a song called "Inhale" that she couldn't remember and also looked at a song called "Hi Ho Silver" and said "Oh, 'Hi Ho Silver'. What in the world is that?"

Also a song called "Crystaline" which became "Reindeer King" and one called "Shoot That Arrow" which she has been working on for 15 years.
 
I find them interesting purely from the standpoint of "the artist herself was involved in what happened here and the fact that she called these shots intrigues me." But it's a bit like George Lucas and his Star Wars remasters. This didn't have to be done. The alternate mixes on A Piano are the same way. Like Cruel's entire atmosphere changes in that alternate mix.

The only reason she used alternate mixes is because she coudn't find the originals! She's such a ding-a-ling!
 
Also, while I like the concept of Tales... in practice that should have been a double-disc proposition. The representation of Boys For Pele was hideous. Two interludes and a dance remix. My god.
 
Also, while I like the concept of Tales... in practice that should have been a double-disc proposition. The representation of Boys For Pele was hideous. Two interludes and a dance remix. My god.

Well it was a contractual obligation for Atlantic (hence the lack of Scarlet songs) rather than something she actively wanted to do.

The problem with a Tori compilation is that everyone would want different songs on it. She would have to include the singles - Silent All These Years, Cornflake Girl, Spark, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Bliss, A Sorta Fairytale etc but then does she include Troubles Lament or Welcome To England given than they're pretty weak compared to other tracks on their respective albums? Where do the fan favourites like Space Dog, Doughnut Song, Northern Lad or even Weatherman and Toast sit? Damn it she has too many good songs for compilations!
 
Well it was a contractual obligation for Atlantic (hence the lack of Scarlet songs) rather than something she actively wanted to do.

The problem with a Tori compilation is that everyone would want different songs on it. She would have to include the singles - Silent All These Years, Cornflake Girl, Spark, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Bliss, A Sorta Fairytale etc but then does she include Troubles Lament or Welcome To England given than they're pretty weak compared to other tracks on their respective albums? Where do the fan favourites like Space Dog, Doughnut Song, Northern Lad or even Weatherman and Toast sit? Damn it she has too many good songs for compilations!

In Piece By Piece, I forget who says it - they said that in the initial meetings with the people from Atlantic all the usual gusto and blustering was there: "we're going to make this one of the top five most important releases from Atlantic" and so on. But then when it came time to pull out the checkbook...
 
they / them
I think people do a lot about Tales. As someone who's been a fan since almost the beginning, my friends and I were really interested to hear the alternate versions. It was certainly sold at the time as "Tori revists these songs to make them closer to her original vision and undo record label interference" - eg raising the levels of the counter-melodies in Cornflake Girl and the spoken bits in God. At the time, the consensus was that some songs (Winter was normally singled out) had never sounded better!

Some of it definitely works better than others - for me there's an early/later split - the Choirgirl and Venus songs sound muddy and dulled, but the early tracks sounded so much clearer (remember, no remasters yet back then) and crisper. Some remain my go-to versions of the songs. And the longer coda on Way Down still gets me every time.
 
Wow thank you! Sadly my tracklist is gone but I have something to work with!

I actually have the reissued B-Sides from the first three albums listed in the order they are in those sets, but then I have the missing tracks in separate ones, like...

Forgotten Earthquakes

Angie
Thank You
Ring My Bell
The Happy Worker
When I Was Dreaming (Demo)
Little Drummer Boy (Live)
Numbness (Live)

The Faeries' Revenge

Losing My Religion
Butterfly
A Case Of You
If 6 Was 9
Strange Fruit
Peeping Tommi
Famous Blue Raincoat
Tuesday Afternoon (Improv)

Golden Hordes & The Lord

Samurai
Blue Skies (BT Feat. Tori Amos)
Down By The Seaside (With Robert Plant)
Landslide
I'm On Fire
Abbey Road
Om La Boomleigh
Father Lucifer (Sylkscreen Remix)
Talula (Tornado Version)
Putting The Damage On (BT Twilight Mix)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Live)
For Mark (Improv)

Liquid For The Velvets

Finn (Intro)
Siren
Purple People
Bachelorette
Cooling
Never Seen Blue
Beulah Land
Do It Again
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Paradiso Perduto
Merman
Violet's Eyes (Demo)
 
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