Raoni Duran translated a TOAL review from the February 2004 edition of Bravo! Magazine in Brazil from Portuguese into English, and I have posted it to the Dent's Article archive.

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It is a positive review, but the reviewer does erroneously state that Little Earthquakes was released 21 years ago, when it should actually be 12!


Intimate Singing
Best of Tori Amos album portraits the feminine universe without being corny

Tori Amos' songs are touching, creating a poetic atmosphere with a style that leads most people to pretension. After all, vocals that are emotional and surrounded by a diffuse operatic sense exposed in notes extended between high and low - and everything followed by arrangements with orchestral touchs - are constant elements in records of hundreds of female singers that try to make "sensitive music". Twenty one years after her first album, Little Earthquakes, Amos shows in this Best Of album why she is one of the greatest artists of the contemporary pop. Her songs bring back many memories. Cornflake Girl has something of Enya. Sweet Dreams (previously unreleased) has arrangements e pitching that allude to Patty Smith of People Have the Power. In God ("God, do you need a woman to look after you") has vocal and atmosphere that remits to Laurie Anderson in Big Science. The tracks are perfumed by something of the kitsch chic of Kate Bush. And everything she's convinced she could hold back a glacier, but she could'nt keep baby aliveworks perfectly, because Tori has the sensibility to put together the best moments of the pop tradition, and also she is a beautiful representative of the pain and pleasure of being a woman. In Spark, for example, from the album From The Choirgirl Hotel (1998), we hear: "she's convinced she could hold back a glacier/ but she could'nt keep baby alive", refering to the miscarriage she had suffered. It's pop with content, but without morbidity. There's a bonus DVD with solo interpretation at the piano.

Written by: Marco Frenette