American Doll Posse Bonus Spec
Studio: Sony Music Release Date: 05/01/2007
In an era of digital downloads and singles, Tori Amos embraces the conception album in a sprawling 23-song oratorio. Firing throughout the American psychological, social, and political landscape, she takes on the state of the world, war, and feminism. To help her, she adopts five personas–her American Doll Posse–who take their characteristics from Greek gods, but not their names: Clyde, Pip, Isabel, Santa, and Tori. You need a scorecard to keep track, but don’t worry. It’s still Tori Amos, bending syllables in improbable pretzels with rippling piano themes and choruses that threaten to go Broadway at any moment. Amos vents her political spleen through “Isabel,” leaving no doubt as to her targets on tracks like “Yo George,” and remarks on our impersonal age and computer addiction with “Digital Ghost.” That’s sung by the reputation “Tori,” who is reputedly based on Demeter and Dionysus, representing the split amongst Amos’s earth-mother side and her wilder, more libertine tendencies. Anti-war and pro-feminist themes are plastered throughout American Doll Posse like sloganeering posters. “Dark Side of the Sun” laments both sides of the war, including the Islamists who lay down their lives “for a great deal of sick promise of heaven.” Amos adopts a big ’80s rock sound on galore tracks, with guitarist Mac Aladdin pealing off Brian May-style guitar licks over an arena-rock beat. It’s where Amos details a more personal sound that American Doll Posse leaves a lasting impression. “Girl Disappearing,” sung by “Clyde,” holds echoes of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” not only because of the string quartet and nostalgic tone, but the modified tale of a woman losing herself. “Smokey Joe” brims with dark atmospheres, Robert Fripp-like guitar sustains, and Amos’s most elaborate vocal arrangements, interweaving two sets of lyrics for “Pip.” More than a conception album, American Doll Posse is a convergence experience, mixing online blogs from each character, videos, MySpace sites, and more. –John Diliberto
American Doll Posse Bonus Spec Pic
American Doll Posse Bonus Spec Pic
American Doll Posse Bonus Spec Picture
American Doll Posse Bonus Spec Pic
Tori Stardust and the Angy Inch
For years I’ve read when it comes to how Tori has been inspired by outstanding rock bands of the 1960s and ’70s (The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, etc.) and upon listening to AMERICAN DOLL POSSE in it is entirety, I feel that she has in the end let loose and actually jammed with her gifted bassist Jon Evans, drummer Matt Chamberlin, and guitarist Mac Aladdin on this long-overdue sonically heavy album. After all, it was her adoration of this music at such an early age that got her kicked out of the Peabody Conservatory, so it’s good to listen her music being so directly influenced by it. She begun hinting at her rock-tinged roots with galore of 1998′s FROM THE CHOIRGIRL HOTEL, even more so with 1999′s TO VENUS AND BACK, and to a lot of extent with 2001′s covers album STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS, but she without doubt or question had no inhibitions making this glam rock/rock opera-esque album which, as music reviewer Matt Mazur stated, plays out also to ZIGGY STARDUST and HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. Consequently, I couldn’t agree with him more.
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