Friday, July 17, 2009

Y KANT TORI AMOS PHANS B SANE?

Y KANT TORI AMOS PHANS B SANE?

Tonight at the Greek Theater nestled in the Griffith Park hills Tori Amos is going to be playing her piano and singing songs. Though you wont be able to hear any of that because she'll be around her fans. By fans I mean crazed ass bitches who have been fucked over one time too many by people with dicks (guys) and can't take it anymore. Either that or they're lesbians and really really have been fucked over by girls who are cunts. Pardon my harsh language here, but I can say that Tori Amos fans are batshit insane. I should know, I'm one of them.

But I'm not one of those fucking screaming harpies that have ruined my last few times I've gone to see her. One of those times the girl sitting in front of me was screaming so loud through most of the set about how much she loved Tori, as if she could be heard. Then after a couple of songs she just fell down and started crying. Clearly something about Cornflake Girl hit her like a ton of two scoops of raisins.


Ah, the good ol' days.

You see the problem with Tori Amos fans is that they not only use the word "fairy" as adults, but they also spell it "Faerie." That alone makes me want them all to die in a little Earthquake. They can select an out-of-context Tori lyric to justify melodramatic overreactions to any imaginable situation.

Have you've seen the way they respond to Youtube comments? Filled with sentences like "The sexist, misogynist specimens will ALWAYS feel threatened in the presence of the invoked Goddess." Delusional fantasy-kingdom inhabitants given to histrionics and wordy, self-impressed defenses of their deified heroine: Yeah, I'm sure these are the sort of people who can take criticism well. So maybe it would be smarter for me to just end this now, right?Wrong!


Tori grinds against a fake plastic tree and wears see through clothes because
1.) She's an ageless plastic nymph or
2. She's fucking weird

I can't let this go unsaid. Though, if you've ever met someone who was a Tori Amos fan you need not be told this sort of things. You'll already realize they were bat shit insane. There's a fan site called Undented that collects hundreds of stories... Many of which similar from people who share how they embarrassed themselves trying to express thanks to Tori only to be thwarted by even more humiliation when they end up crying, hyperventilating and more than likely pissing themselves. It's like a largely female premature-ejaculation support group. In all the anecdotes, Amos seem to be a remarkably good sport, but it's little wonder why she spends so m uch time in the studio, writing needlessly long records as a way to avoid uncomfortable interactions with drooling fanaticism.

Which brings us to the newest spawn of the recording process. ABNORMALLY ATTRACTED TO SIN is Tori Amos' fourth straight over 70 minute adventure into flabbergasting overkill. Previous attempts include a concept album about beekeeping and Gnostic mysticism, and even fruitier concept album called American Doll Posse, in which Amos took on the roles of five female personae based on Greek mythology. That concert was one that I nearly almost killed the fat cunt in the row in front of me.


Even with multiple personalities, not a single one isn't crazy

I suppose that before talking about her new album, I should point out the best things about Tori Amos' career thus far. This isn't for the benefit of you fans, who moret han likely committed all this stuff to memory above knowing when their own birthday is and committ this to memory among the other strange Tori details no one besides her OBGYN should know. Besides, those fans are currently busy writing me hate mail and calling me a pig. But instead this info is for you regular folks. Who more than likely never thought of Tori as anything more than that 90's red head who sang a song about some girl who likes corn flakes.
  • In 1988, Amos' first band Y Kant Tori Read released an unlistenable synth-rock album, which deservedly tanked. After Amos became popular, Tori fans paid thousands of dollars for it, and even now copies go for $30-$300 in various formats. The best part about these transactions is that everyone who pursues and purchases this record knows it's shitty. Also, they understand that buying an out-of-print album from used stores and auction sites in no way supports their beloved artist. Still, they feel compelled to own this abomination out of sheer psychotic obsessiveness.
  • Tori supplied guest vocals to Tess Makes Good's "Distant Storm," a sappy tune that appears during the unassailable vigilante film China O'Brien ("she's out to stop crime -- cold," *China slams some redneck asshole's head with the freezer drawer*). Because of the aforementioned compulsiveness of Amos fans, this film has been sought and coveted by many people outside the martial-arts realm, thus raising recognition for a much cooler redhead, Cynthia Rothrock.
  • Amos covered Slayer's "Raining Blood," recasting the best song ever as an ode to menstrual flow.
  • In this video, Amos performs "Precious Things," a perfectly tenable ballad. However, I draw your attention to the 4:06 mark, when Amos starts grunting like the Other Sister, her tongue lolling violently as though she's receiving an unanaesthetized tonsillectomy. Then skip ahead to 6:16, when she's suddenly possessed by Rebecca De Mornay's Hand That Rocks The Cradle psycho. Normal people might perceive these spasms as bizarre blemishes in the performance, but Amos fans actually cite them as highlights, because to them freakish outbursts are synonymous with creative passion.
On to Abnormally Attracted.. It starts off with GIVE, a decent Portishead-style melody. The album ends with a quality instrumental coda after Amos has stopped singing. Maybe California does a nice job with Tori's old piano-and-flittering-butterfly-vocals formula. That leaves 14 tracksand 60 minutes of mostly filler material.


I wish I was that mic.. then on second thought.. I'm glad I'm not that mic.

On the whole, the only songs that really annoy on the album were "Not Dying Today", which was filled with spoken jive vocals "Ani DiFranco-esque," and "Police Me," all which are boring as all hell and filled with guitar sounds as if Y KANT TORI READ was making a come back. The rest of the album is pretty boring with a slight easy-listening 97.1 the wave version of electronica. The only real opinion that I have on a whole with this album is that it took up my time.

Amos enjoys a reputation for obtuseness, but she occasionally writes the most obvious shit possible. Once I watched some anonymous loser on amature night perform the lines "what if wrong was right, and right was left?" I concluded he was the worst lyricist I'd ever heard. But Amos comes close to echoing his idiocy with "I left the right man" and "I wronged the right man." She stoops to "Ophelia/I feel you" wordplay, and writes a song called "Mary Jane" about marijuana. Unlike previous "Mary Jane" songs, this one contains the phrase "Tetrahydrocannabinol Pure Isomer Dronabinol." This is not a positive development.


Tori Amos as she masturbates on stage

Tonight Tori plays the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. While I did go to her last tour in L.A. at the Nokia Theater, I'm not going tonight but hey, if you're all up for seeing Tori perform, here's hoping that she doesn't do too much of the new stuff. I heard she did some funky stuff up in Northern California. Here's hoping that she goes back to writing stark piano songs about her personal tragedies so those crazy as shit followers can glean unearned emotional depth from feeling vicariously harrowed

1 comment:

InsipidVitriol said...

a) you're right about the fans

b) you're a dickhole sometimes

c) this seems like a lot of wasted energy talking shit about someone you like

d) there was a (non-fat) screaming bitch behind me at the show i went to who was making me really fucking angry and left me with a terrible headache at the end of the show

e) OMFG Y KANT TORI REAAAADDDDDDDDD!!!! yeah, i'd not buy it, but, goddammit, "cool on your island" is a good song and i don't care what you think!

f) in summation: don't hate the playa, hate the game. playahata!

=)