Focus On The Family reviews "from the choirgirl hotel" -1998
Added June 17, 2000
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Focus On The Family reviews "from the choirgirl hotel" -1998Added June 17, 2000 |
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Toriphile Rob sent me a review of Tori's 1998 album "from the choirgirl hotel" from the christian organization Focus On The Family. The review appeared on their web site at one time. While I do not agree with much of what this organization says, the review is interesting (and amusing) reading. ARTIST: Tori Amos Advisory: Chartwatch Critiques may contain explicit content. Album reviews
are not intended as an endorsement by Focus on the Family. They are
provided as a service to families to assist them as they set their own
standards for acceptable music entertainment in their homes.
Brief Overview/Artist Profile:
Myra Ellen Amos was born on August 22, 1963, in Newton, North Carolina.
This daughter of Edison Amos, a Methodist minister, could play the piano by
the age of two-and-a-half, and was composing musical scores by the age of
four. "I was a freak child who had really good rhythm," she recalls. "I'd
be invited to parties simply because I played the piano." By age five, she
was packed off to the prestigious Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.
Expelled at the age of eleven, Amos spent the next several years playing
Gershwin standards in the gay bars and hotel lounges of Washington, D.C.
and Baltimore (accompanied by her father). She changed her name to Tori at
age 21.
Somewhere around 1988, Amos was kidnapped and raped (or "nearly raped"
according to some accounts). In the aftermath, according to the singer, she
was laying on her kitchen floor for six months, moping and depressed. To
"releas[e] her pain," she began writing the songs that would eventually
become her debut Atlantic album, Little Earthquakes. One website biography
describes her music this way: "Her dyed flamed red hair almost reflects the
fire that seems to be burning inside her; the flames of anger, pain and
frustration, all combining to be released in her emotionally draining
songs." Rolling Stone (2/8/96) says: ". . . it's a bit hard to muddle
through the enigmatic artifice and fanciful metaphors that Amos wraps
around her songs like so much obscuring gauze . . ." The singer herself
says, "Even the Christians who listen to my songs know that I'm chasing the
dark side of myself and at the same time chasing the dark side of
Christianity." [The Inquirer, 5/3/98]
Amos seems to chase the dark side of everything. In the liner notes of her
last CD, one photograph shows her breast-feeding a pig. In an interview
with Spin (3/96), Amos offers insight into her deeply disturbing
theological beliefs, some of which pop up on this CD as it has on past
projects: "I wanted to marry Lucifer even though I had a crush on Jesus,"
says Amos. "On some of my darkest days, [Lucifer] is the one that comes and
gives me ice-cream. I feel such a sadness from him. I cry and feel his
presence with his music. I feel like he comes and sits on my piano." More
recently, Amos has described Christianity as, " 'A religion without a
penis' " (USA Today 10/1/99).
Pro-social/Neutral Content:
"Hotel," while not "pro-social" appears to be free of objectionable
material and contains a line that subtly denounces fame as empty ("You say
he's the biggest thing there'll be this year/I guess that what I'm seeking
. . . isn't here").
Objectionable Content:
Commenting on her Boys CD, Rolling Stone magazine noted that Amos takes aim
at God and the church: "God" [a song from Amos' Pink album that asks the
Heavenly Father, 'Do you need a woman to look after you?'] was just the
opening salvo in the war on religion that Amos wages full-scale on Boys for
Pele . . . This time around she's criticizing not just her own Christian
heritage but most of the world's major religions." The opening song on
Choirgirl ("Spark") carries on that same tradition although not as
harshly. Reeling from a recent miscarriage (mentioned in the Inquirer
article and in the lyric, "She couldn't keep baby alive"), Amos
disturbingly concludes, "If the Divine master plan is perfection/Maybe next
I'll give Judas a try/Trusting my soul to the ice cream assassin").
On "Cruel," Amos plugs dancing "with the Sufis", a holistic healing practice
associated with an offshoot of Islam that embraces Eastern mysticism
("Dance with the Sufis, celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain"). In
addition, she claims, "I can be cruel" while criticizing a person for
smoking only "peeled Havanas" instead of cigarettes ("No cigarettes, only
peeled Havanas for you").
The singer appears to be promoting a modified reincarnation on "Black Dove
(January)", one that holds to the belief that past lives were lived, not here
on earth, but on other planets ("They don't know you've already lived on the
other side of the galaxy").
Although veiled, Amos on "Raspberry Swirl" apparently is promoting foreplay
as a necessary part of lovemaking ("If you want inside her/Well, boy, you
better make her raspberry swirl"). A gender bending line also appears
("Everybody knows I'm her friend/Everybody knows I'm her man").
Several problematic lines, including one applauding witchcraft and another
giving a nod to marijuana, are included on "Jackie's Strength":
"My bridesmaids getting laid"
"So I show you some more and I learn what black magic can do"
"Sleep-overs, Beene's got some pot/You're only popular with anorexia so I
turn myself inside out"
"If you love enough, you'll lie a lot"
On "iieee," Amos laments that there is no ultimate hope in life ("I know
we're dying and there's no sign of a parachute/We scream in cathedrals/Why
can't it be beautiful?/Why does there gotta be a sacrifice [or
Sacrifice?]").
Apparently the "she" on "Liquid Diamonds" is God, a person in Amos' view
who "still grants forgiveness" but views mankind as a cosmic game ("I hear
she still grants forgiveness/Although I willingly forgot her/The offering
is molasses/*Calling for my soul/At the corners of the world/I know she's
playing poker with the rest").
On "She's Your Cocaine," as the title suggests, a woman is compared to the
white powder in a relatively positive context. Transsexual themes are also
central, highlighting a "boy" who shaves his legs and wears makeup ("She's
your cocaine/She's got you shaving your legs/You can suck anything/But you
know you wanna be me/Put on your makeup, boy/*She's your cocaine/Your
Exodus laughing/*Your sign Prince of Darkness/Try Squire of Dimness").
On the suggestive "Northern Lad," women are advised to let go of
relationships when they get "only wet because of the rain." The artist
inexcusably utilizes the f-word ("It gets so f---ing cold").
Amos, on "Playboy Mommy," sings from the perspective of a war-era
prostitute asking her dead daughter to be accepting of her lifestyle ("You
got a playboy mommy/*I never was there . . . when it counts/*You seem . . .
ashamed that I was a good friend of American soldiers/I'll say it loud here
by your grave/*Don't judge me so harsh[ly], little girl").
Summary/Advisory:
Amos told Rolling Stone (11/17/94), "I think our generation loves our pain,
and if you dare f, ing take it away from us, we're going to kill you. We
like our pain. And we're packaging it, and we're selling it." On Choirgirl,
Amos proves once again she means it. Distorted theology. Emptiness. Sexual
innuendo. Christian bashing. All combine to make yet another disturbing
Amos project to avoid. |
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