Tori Amos – Tales Of A Librarian
Really more of a contractual obligation than anything, Tales Of A Librarian brings Tori Amos’ contract with Atlantic Records to an end and provides the fans with her first official best-of compilation. As with so many greatest hits collections, the main critique is going to be in the selection of material, though in most cases Librarian gives you what you’d expect; there’s a heavy emphasis on Little Earthquakes, represented by “Tear In Your Hand”, “Me And A Gun”, “Winter”, “Crucify”, “Precious Things” and “Silent All These Years”. Under The Pink is represented by “God”, “Cornflake Girl” and “Baker Baker”, while “Professional Widow” (wildly reworked; see below), “Way Down” and “Mr. Zebra” are here from Boys For Pele (what, no “Caught A Lite Sneeze”?).
There’s a surprising omission in the selection of songs from from the choirgirl hotel as well, as “Raspberry Swirl” is nowhere to be found; that album’s selection instead consists of “Spark”, “Jackie’s Strength”, and a version of “Playboy Mommy” that I’d swear has been, if not re-recorded, then at least heavily remixed. (All of the songs have been subtly reworked at least a little bit, but this is the most extreme example of that.) Perhaps not surprisingly, Strange Little Girls doesn’t make a showing at all, while only “Bliss” is drawn from the double album To Venus And Back.
The early era of Tori’s career – in some ways her most creatively energized years – is also represented by the Little Earthquakes-era B-sides “Mary” and “Sweet Dreams”, though they aren’t the original recordings.
“Mary” and “Sweet Dreams” were both re-recorded from the ground up for this album, and both of them receive a somewhat more raw, stripped-down treatment than their original versions. “Sweet Dreams” was always a bit of a jaunty, rollicking little number, with Tori backed up by the Subdudes, only here it’s arranged a little more loosely (though still with a full band backing), perhaps a little more representative of how it would sound today played live. It’s also shifted down a couple of keys, losing some of the original’s soaring backing vocals in the chorus. “Mary” has undergone an even more striking change, though – it’s gone from the traditional Little Earthquakes-style piano solo to a laid-back full-band arrangement similar to “Sweet Dreams”. And while I prefer the originals of both songs, these new arrangements aren’t bad. Just different. I’ve actually grown to like this alternative reading of “Mary” quite a bit.
Completely new on Librarian are “Angels” and “Snow Cherries From France”, which of course follow the same style as the rearranged B-sides: laid-back, with a small band, something that wouldn’t have been out of place on Scarlet’s Walk.
The whole re-recorded B-side thing bugs me a bit, because there’s something that would easily fulfill the contractual obligation and please the fans: Tori’s B-sides are a goldmine of fantastic material (in fact, while I rarely review CD singles here, I made an exception for some of Tori’s early CD singles because they were actually better than some of the album tracks). Not only are they good material, but they’ve become fairly scarce on CD. Surely a best-of-B-sides collection is waiting to happen somewhere.
Similarly, the bonus DVD of live material, while nice, misses the boat too – for years, Tori’s fans have been waiting for a video compilation on DVD. At least half of the tracks on Librarian have music videos that are just begging for an official release, and they’re some of the best examples of that medium in the past 15 years. Atlantic has announced and then cancelled a Tori Amos music video DVD at least twice to date; 
perhaps Librarian could’ve been a simultaneous multimedia release with these same hits receiving a long-overdue DVD treatment.
As it is, though, Librarian is a nice chronicle of Tori Amos’ career, with some interesting tracks that span the gap between where she’s been and where she’s going next.
… Read more
- Precious Things (4:32)
- Angels (4:29)
- Silent All These Years (4:12)
- Cornflake Girl (5:08)
- Mary (4:44)
- God (3:56)
- Winter (5:45)
- Spark (4:15)
- Way Down (1:52)
- Professional Widow (3:50)
- Mr. Zebra (1:07)
- Crucify (5:02)
- Me And A Gun (3:45)
- Bliss (3:37)
- Playboy Mommy (4:08)
- Baker Baker (3:14)
- Tear In Your Hand (4:40)
- Sweet Dreams (3:41)
- Jackie’s Strength (4:27)
- Snow Cherries From France (2:56)
Released by: Atlantic
Release date: 2003
Total running time: 79:20
Inspired by the unusually candid post-September 11th confessions of fans she met on tour in late 2001, Scarlet’s Walk is Tori Amos’ return to form after the misstep that was Strange Little Girls, as well as her debut on her first new label since 1988. Scarlet’s Walk gets Tori back to the basics of Little Earthquakes and Under The Pink, ditching the club music elements that dominated her later output on Atlantic. Whether this was her decision or Epic’s call, it doesn’t matter – it was long overdue, and reminds me of what first drew me to her music ten years ago in the first place.
I actually do like it – but on a whole, this album is a cohesive collection that stands well alongside Little Earthquakes and Under The Pink – and stands way, way above such recent efforts as Strange Little Girls and the studio disc from To Venus And Back. It doesn’t hide a nasty stain, and it’s not just lying there – Scarlet’s Walk proclaims that Tori Amos has returned.
Truly a legendary album, Y Kant Tori Read’s debut (and thankfully only) album appeared and disappeared from the Billboard charts in the summer of 1988 within the space of a month – and no one heard from the band again until one of its members, pianist/vocalist Tori Amos, resurfaced as a solo artist at the forefront of a whole new movement of female artists in 1991.
This one was a real surprise. Since her debut album in 1992, Tori’s music has always been imbued with at least a little bit of rage, from the victimization theme of Little Earthquakes, to the revenge theme of Under The Pink, and 1996’s who-really- knows-what-this-one’s-about Boys For Pèlè. She’s been accused of being everything from an angry feminist to a lesbian, and people either love her music or hate it. (Amusingly, I was once told in an IRC discussion that since I’m male, I have no right to listen to or enjoy Tori’s music because I didn’t agree with one chatter on what a particular song was about – proof that interpretation is everything in Tori’s music.) But this album is a total departure both musically and emotionally. Sure, there are still some ballads that have Tori’s ominously depressing signature (hey – some of us actually like that about her music!), but for the most part this album is a little bit more uplifting and not quite so emotionally distressed – why, in a few cases, it sounds like she’s having fun with it! Another change in Tori’s sound is the addition of a full band, consisting mainly of players who have graced her previous efforts. This time, the one-girl-and-her-piano sound – which some people considered to be Tori’s permanently carved niche in pop music – is pushed into the background in favor of rockier and more experimental combinations which made such previous songs as “Caught A Lite Sneeze” and “The Waitress” such standouts. Possibly my favorite song on the album thus far has been “Raspberry Swirl”, an oddity since I normally can’t stand the thumping-drum-‘n’-bass style, but her vocals make it interesting, especially that positively sultry, breathy “Let’s go” that opens the song. In some places, a little bit of vocal processing makes this sound like
Is it possible that the immensely talented Tori Amos stretched her stylistic envelope about as far as it could possibly go with her 1992 debut album? Or could it be that her subject matter is finally getting so “out there” that I’m losing track of her? Much of the lyrics of 1992’s Little Earthquakes seemed, at least on the surface, to deal with rape; the abusive element continued in 1994 on Under The Pink, which concerned itself with a number of vindictive themes.
She’s back again, perhaps a little more contemporary than she was with Little Earthquakes, and more than likely as a result of her surprising success things have moved into a more modern direction. The verdict? Too bad. Her debut album was so powerful simply because it was drastically different from current product. The changes, while not quite a wholesale defection to commercial expediency, really wind up being unnecessary. But there are enough songs which seem to be on the right track in spite of themselves – “Pretty Good Year”, the seemingly Ren & Stimpy-inspired “Space Dog”, and the curious 