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?"
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.
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.
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.
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...
Tales was my intro to Tori outside of the Armand van Helden remix of Professional Widow so I’ll always have something of a soft spot for it even if the majority of the mixes aren’t great. I actually really like the less reverb-y Tear In Your Hand and the alternate mix of Jackie’s Strength.
Yeah Tales was my first Tori album, too. I'm guessing I would hate the remixes/remasters more if I heard the originals first, but it was a pretty good starting point.
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.
I am currently throwing a deep cuts playlist and have just added this. Say what you want about this era, but goddamn she was committed to make dolls work eventhough they did not.
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)
ok i want to hear the song that almost made them divorce nn. Femme Fatale is already iconic in my eyes.
