Tori Amos - Boys for Pele
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CD Details
Artist: Tori AmosEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1996-01-23
Music Label: Atlantic / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Horses
- Blood Roses
- Father Lucifer
- Professional Widow
- Mr. Zebra
- Marianne
- Caught a Lite Sneeze
- Muhammad My Friend
- Hey Jupiter
- Way Down
- Little Amsterdam
- Talula
- Not the Red Baron
- Agent Orange
- Doughnut Song
- In the Springtime of His Voodoo
- Putting the Damage On
- Twinkle
Music reviews of Boys for Pele
Music Review: Tori at her artistic peak
Rating: 4 Stars
After parting with her boyfriend and producer Eric Rosse, Tori was left alone and vulnerable. The overbearing presence of men in her life forced her to change her approach to music, and ultimately, to transform as a musician. This is Amos' debut as a producer and with help of sound engineers Mark Hawley, Marcel van Limbeek and Rob van Tuin--who mixed the record--she created her most confident work to date. Tori reached new heights with "Boys for Pele" and experimented with different tactics for the first time in her career. In terms of songwriting, instrumentation and recording, it could be considered her masterpiece. Just like Polly Jean Harvey turned to religious lyricism on her pivotal "To Bring You My Love", Tori used religion as a message of overwhelming patriarchy and romantic loss in her life. Both women worked extensively with men (John Parish and Eric Rosse were somewhat a guidance for them), but Tori decided that it was her time to stop answering to a patriarchal figure and do things on her own.
The album was recorded in a church in County Wicklow in Ireland as well as in New Orleans. The religious undercurrent of those places haunts "Pele". The acoustics of the church are complementary to the intimacy of the record. Tori's piano playing got more intense and she didn't follow the pop structure to the same extent as on "Little Earthquakes" and "Under The Pink". Harpischord and clavirchord add a nice touch to her usually B?sendorfer-driven sound. She also hired a choir, a brass band and a string orchestra. Musically, "Pele" is beneficially homogenic and coherent. Lyrically, Amos was swimming in obscurity. Certain references made to her friends can be heard throughout the record (Neil Gaiman in "Horses" and Trent Reznor in "Caught a Lite Sneeze"), as well as clear afterthoughts on her break-up and religious upbringing, but for the most part, you won't understand what she's talking about. Needless to say, you'll love her all the more for it.
The record starts with "Beauty Queen" that serves as an intro to the brilliant "Horses". Amos soon turns bitter in "Blood Roses", one of the more lyrically direct tracks on "Pele" which probably discusses Rosse among other things ("I've shaved every place where you've been boy"). Tori's greatest piano melody to date is witnessed in "Father Lucifer", one of the highlights for which she had an ecstasy trip with a shaman that, oddly enough, resulted in her having an affair with both Satan and Jesus (in her own words). Typical Torisms follow in "Professional Widow", one of the more harrowing songs Amos has crafted. It discusses various subjects and ends with one of the most memorable lyrics she's written, all set to seemingly angry harpischord playing. The biggest highlight, however, is a song that wasn't even let to grow--"Mr. Zebra" clocks in at a little more than a minute, but is a pure gem with its brass section and excellent vocals.
"Marianne" and "Hey Jupiter" showcase Tori at her more unconventional piano playing, the former being a song about her friend who died of drug overdose and the latter being a result of Tori's overwhelming loneliness during her tour. "Caught a Lite Sneeze" is the greatest single that Amos has released to date, serving as both an emotional breakdown and a catharsis. It contains marvelous drum programming, heartbreaking harpischord melody and piercing background singing. "Muhammad My Friend" is the most obvious of the patriarchy-beating tracks, where she changes Christ's gender and sings with mellow vocals. "Way Down" and "Agent Orange" represent the shorter material on record that serves as separator of longer tracks. Jazzy influence that was always welcome on her early material is now sadly reduced. There are only trances of it to be found on "Pele". "Little Amsterdam" is an absolute standout with perfectly set mood (filled with a great beat and some radio channeling in the background).
"Talula" brings back the harpischord, but it's not as effective as in other tracks. The problem with "Boys for Pele" is that it can at times seem underwhelming. But these moments are rare, as Tori is on her artistic peak here, churning out some of the best material of her career. The quiet, soothing pieces such as "Not the Red Baron" and "Doughnut Song" may lower down the mood of "Pele" and as it ends with two rather silent tracks, it seems as if the whole album is a quiet endeavour. Overall, "Boys for Pele" is a highly satisfying effort and a rewarding piece of music. It is a tad too long, but contains a handful of highlights to keep things interesting. It became a fan favorite and one of the most successful albums that Amos has made. If it seems puzzling at times, it's because it wasn't meant to be self-explanatory. But that hardly makes it a bad record. What's really confusing are the choices Amos made on subsequent records where she stopped being a protagonist and became a part of the sound texture. Still, "Pele" gives you a taste of how good she can be.
Description of Boys for Pele
Boys for Pele, the title of Tori Amos's epic third album, is as awkward and confusing as the music inside. Though it sounds like a recruitment slogan for Little League soccer, the name actually refers to the lost temples of feminine divinity. Pele, you see, is the Hawaiian volcano goddess; the boys, well, they're the sacrifices that quell the rumbling lady's rage. Attempting to regain fires stolen long ago, Pele rewrites the crucifixion to star a girl Jesus and in doing so conjures a forgotten matriarchal mythology. While Amos's characters--Jupiter, Muhammad, Lucifer--are male by name, the aural landscape into which they're thrown is as symbolically and expressionistically female as Georgia O'Keeffe's skull-and-roses paintings. Pele is a complex and formless--and often impenetrable--work of gothic-pop chamber music, both beautiful and ghostly in its nearly complete reliance on Amos's rolling Bosendorfer grand piano, chilling harpsichord (which she bangs like a courtly punk rocker), and acrobatic voice (as earthy as Joni Mitchell's and as otherworldly as Bjork's). Unfortunately, she takes us only halfway: her songs engage and challenge us to understand, but the imagery offers few clues to help us crack their frustrating opacity. Pele ends up as much a pretentious and self-indulgent trip as it is a synthesis of talent, imagination, and skewed vision. Still, there's reason to celebrate that an album as formalistically and thematically alien to pop audiences as Pele would win such quick success upon its original release. --Roni SarigGeneral CDs
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