Peekaboo
Under Ice
"Let me be weak.Let me sleep,and dream of sheep"
Posts: 19
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Post by Peekaboo on Dec 17, 2003 20:10:05 GMT
Just wondering anybody here like her? I'm a big Tori fan and I know she is always getting compared to Kate.Her Little Earthquakes album cover resembled the american album cover of The Kick Inside (well to some it did) and I suppose the girl and her piano thing too.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Peter Gabriel tell Kate to build her own recording studio so that she would have more control over her music? If it is true then Peter has told Tori to do the same.She has her own recording studio in Cornwall.
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Post by Al Truest on Dec 17, 2003 21:48:09 GMT
There are many of us here that are Tori fans as well. BTW Welcome! We discuss other artist's here too. See threads on the "Other Topics" board and also "Kate's Influence" and "Who you'd like to see Kate working with" threads. The album cover comparisons have been made here before too. Also Peter Gabriels influence on other female artists e.g. Sinead O'connor, Paula Cole etc. have been made here as well. Catch up on some old threads and dig them up for rehash.
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Peekaboo
Under Ice
"Let me be weak.Let me sleep,and dream of sheep"
Posts: 19
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Post by Peekaboo on Dec 17, 2003 22:45:11 GMT
Sorry I had looked all through this thread before I brought up Tori. Gosh there's so much to search here. Please Be Kind To My Mistakes
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Post by Al Truest on Dec 18, 2003 2:19:42 GMT
Sorry I had looked all through this thread before I brought up Tori. Gosh there's so much to search here. And it's all good!
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Post by Xanadu on Dec 18, 2003 19:58:21 GMT
Sorry I had looked all through this thread before I brought up Tori. Gosh there's so much to search here. Please Be Kind To My Mistakes By no means feel embarassed, I've done the same thing myself once or twice. ;D I'm just glad your interested in discusssing these topics and not afraid to jump in. Al has the mental inventory of all that has been discussed here (just teasing ;D ;D) at one point or another... so he'll direct you to the appropriate spot.
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Post by Xanadu on Dec 19, 2003 22:19:02 GMT
Actually, I unearthed an article about Kate Bush and Tori Amos recently. If any Tori fans would like it, I could post the highlights here?
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Post by ~ Rocket's Tail ~ on Jan 3, 2004 19:53:53 GMT
Actually, I unearthed an article about Kate Bush and Tori Amos recently. If any Tori fans would like it, I could post the highlights here? Yes, please do! So long as it is nice to them both... ;D
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Post by Xanadu on Jan 3, 2004 20:58:08 GMT
Yes, please do! So long as it is nice to them both... ;D Of course, only good things! And welcome Rocket's Tail ;D It usually takes one of us to reach nearly 300 posts to get that as our rank... Glad you've joined us and jumped in. Anyway about that article... It's titled "Two Sisters In Song... Of Sorts" from New York Times and I must have found it a while ago when searching for Kate information, so thanks and credit goes to whoever owned this article first. So here's most of the relevent information: When Tori Amos burst onto the pop scene last year with her album "Little Earthquakes," critics were hard pressed to find a label to describe the singer's exceedingly personal, exuberantly melodic music. "Was it pop, folk or rock? Was Tori Amos a musical earth daughter tapping into the primordial emotions of the human heart or just some crackpot offering the most self-absorbed brand of feminist spiritualism?" Regardless of the many critical opinions Amos's arrival engendered, the one thing almost everyone agreed on was that she sounded a lot like Kate Bush.
Listening to both artists' new albums, Bush's "Red Shoes" and Amos's "Under the Pink," one easily hears the similarities between the two singer-songwriters. Both have high, frilly voices capable of conveying girlish insouciance, pouting allure and shrieking madness; both write piano-based melodies heavily influenced by the emotional sweep of classical music and the drama and bombast of opera; and both possess a keenly imaginative romantic sensibility that challenges patriarchal notions of love, sex and religion. But Kate Bush is more of a musical philosopher than Tori Amos, divining meaning from her experience and giving it universal scope. Amos's songs are like psychological case studies, providing listeners with a vicarious catharsis rather than any actual insight into existence.
Emerging in 1978 amid the abrasive anarchy of the British punk movement, Kate Bush's debut album, "The Kick Inside," as a musical anomaly, what with its heady art-rock arrangements, baroque vocals and grandiloquent literary allusions. Subsequent albums found Bush experimenting with musical textures through the use of synthesizers, multilayered vocals and world-music instrumentation. Bush was seeking increasingly complex ways to express the landscape of consciousness and the soul's connection to God and the supernatural world.
On "The Red Shoes," Kate Bush is in a wiser, less breathlessly romantic mode. Gone is the grandiose mysticism of songs like "Wuthering Heights" and "Running up That Hill." Instead, Bush's quest for meaning is more earthbound, concentrating on the pangs of the heart and the joys of the flesh. In the breakup ballad, "You're the One," Bush places the listener firmly in the real world as she sings to her ex-lover, "It's all right, I'll come around when you're not in, and I'll pick up all my things."
In the Eastern-flavored "Eat the Music," Bush connects sex with food, imagining herself a piece of fruit; "Split me open, with devotion," she demands jubilantly. The music, too, is much more intimate than on her past efforts. Bush no longer sounds as if she's addressing the heavens; her vocals now rarely reach their former ear-piercing levels.
The album's title track, based on Michael Powell's 1948 movie of the same name, illustrates the tragedy that can result when dreams and reality collide. An aspiring dancer puts on a pair of red shoes and dances herself to death to the furious sound of lute and zither. Another song about fate, the funk-driven "Why Should I Love You?," a track Bush wrote and recorded with Prince, contemplates the spiritual forces that conspire to bring two lovers together.
Tori Amos is less concerned with what brings two lovers together than what happens to them when they connect. On the affecting "Little Earthquakes," the singer sang of her sexual awakening at the hands of men who were interested only in her body and who lorded their power over her as if it was sent straight from God. Elsewhere on "Earthquakes," Amos detailed her disillusionment with religion and the pain of forging an identity in a world that wants you to be something you're not. The songs melded Amos's melodies with studio touches like sampled keyboards and strings, expertly giving the singer's passionate songs their due.
On "Under the Pink," Tori Amos refines her cabaret-meets-classical style, almost completely forgetting the use of guitars and drums. Instead, she interprets her melodies mainly with her piano, which she plays to gorgeous effect.
The singer is in a less confrontational mode on "Pink." Indeed, the only song in which Amos actually confronts an oppressor head on is also the most studio-enhanced. On "God," the singer taunts the Creator for being sloppy and lazy, with sampled screeches giving the track a predatory quality. Yet, as on "Earthquakes," Amos continues to use her personal experience to challenge religious and sexual conventions. In "Icicle," she sings about masturbating in her room while her family is downstairs saying their prayers.
Perhaps now, having seemingly exorcised many of her personal demons, Amos will turn her gaze outward, translating what she sees and feels into a more universal vision. After all, it works for Kate Bush. I think I may have a quote or two of Kate's about Tori's music somewhere. I don't believe she really had much to say, but was aware of her music, and referred to it as "nice." I'll have to search for that for you while I'm doing research for another board topic here. If you look around here a little (the exact thread escapes me at the moment) I had posted about the similarites of the covers of "TKI" and "Little Earthquakes" (including links). From the American cover of TKI, you can't exactly tell that she is also in a wooden box, but other photos from the shot reveal it. Also, if anyone has seen the cover of Tori's first album, promo-only released "Y Kant Tori Read" there are some image comparisons to "Babooshka" with the warrior look and the sword. Enjoy the article.
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Post by ~ Rocket's Tail ~ on Jan 3, 2004 21:13:55 GMT
Wow thank you! ;D I could never see the similarities between Kate and Tori. I remember taking my copy of The Dreaming into a music lesson once, and sitting in the studio with a few friends at school listening. And my friend Ally says, "Is this Kate Bush? You can really hear her influences on Tori!" And I just didn't get it I suppose when you "live inside" the songs, you know them so well that such comparisons are difficult to see. The similarities between the album covers is very true though. Great article ;D
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Post by Al Truest on Jan 3, 2004 21:17:15 GMT
Thank you Zan, that was fascinating. I had not had enough experience with Tori Amos to draw some of the conclusions this author makes; but, it challenges me to listen with a new ear. I do have several of her CD's. I will post my thoughts.
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Peekaboo
Under Ice
"Let me be weak.Let me sleep,and dream of sheep"
Posts: 19
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Post by Peekaboo on Jan 4, 2004 21:26:20 GMT
OOp's I'm late replying to this. After listening to Kates music and Tori's too at first I thought there were similarities between the 2 artists. I think it's the media that decided Tori was an American version of Kate. The cover of 'Little Earthquakes' compared with 'The kick inside'. The girl and her piano thing. Tori plays live and Kate sadly does not now. Tori loves to tour . I have seen her many times and I really wished Kate would have carried on doing that. When I go to a Tori concert I get so much.Not just hearing the songs but seeing her playing live and connecting with the fans.The passion and emotion that comes out with the songs. I just wished Kate would do that again.
I think it's because of the above I feel more closer to Tori in a sense. I love Kate, don't get me wrong,she came first, but I seem to get an album a video and that's it for the next 5-10 yrs. Thank Goodness there is this place which keeps Kate and her music going while there is a drought in her music.
I hope none of you think I'm calling Kate because I'm not,I'd never do that.I get a whole different emotion and feeling from her songs.I get alot of imagery from her songs,she is very magical and mystical to me. With Tori alot of her songs are like codes,hard to figure out but then all of a sudden they make sense. Tori's music style has changed alot since she became a mum.It will be interesting to hear if this has changed Kate's songwriting at all.
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