Album Review: American Doll Posse + Abnormally Attracted To Sin (Tori Amos)

A couple of years ago when Tori Amos came out with American Doll Posse, I was convinced it would be her big come back into my life. So convinced was I that I went straight out to buy the new album without more than a listen to the catchy first single "Big Wheel". Actually, I was almost right. And I got excited about it. It was some of the best stuff I'd heard from her in... I won't start counting- but it didn't knock the chip (which has been steadily growing since the first theme album) completely off my shoulder.

Let's face it: ADP was too long. It was obvious to me that Tori felt it imperative to give all of her girls equal time. In this case when I say girls, I'm actually not talking about Tori's usual reference to her songs, but the female "personalities" that "wrote" and "performed" ADP: Santa, Pip, Isabel, Claude, and of course Tori. This being her latest theme album in a seemingly endless slew of them, Tori has gotten herself used to the rule that all parts of the theme get equal time. So each lady, you may have noticed, had just about the same number of songs.. how neat. And awful. It was obvious that to give each lady her alloted number of songs, Tori had to come up with a couple of extra tunes for the ladies that weren't as vocal or present as some of the others. Even if this meant putting some crap songs on the album, Tori couldn't stand cheating any of the ladies out of their equal say.

Now this frustrated me to no end because in my opinion, had ADP been about 10-12 songs long it would have been the uncompromising return of the true goddess. The goddess who really cared about quality control and not putting anything out there unless it was 200%. Sure, sure, you can say that she stood up and put out an unconventional album at an unconventional length because she wants to prove that she has total control over her music and she can do whatever she wants, but- and call me whatever you want here- I just find it self-indulgent and tiresome.

I wish Tori would give her fans a little credit. We who have been die-hards for nearly 20 years know that the girl cranks out more songs than Little Debbie cranks out cupcakes. We know that she's quirky and usually cryptic as hell. We know that she's battled against the norm in a business filled with men and general bad-guys and she's prevailed. We know that she's made an empire for herself by learning killer marketing strategies that we've all jumped at the chance to throw money at even though we recognize them as marketing strategies. After all this we are still in love with her. We still want to support her. She's the queen of singles and B-sides (the collectors have dozens of them). The queen of meet-and-greet VIP packages (the high price is worth meeting her, isn't it?). She's the queen of touring. She's earned the right to do whatever she wants now. And we'll let her.

But Tori, don't you know a little something about us too by now? Don't you think we see through some of it? It seems to me like Tori needs someone close to her to say, "Hey, Tori, you already did the dressing up like other people thing. You've done the theme album thing to death. All of your albums have between 18-24 songs and what about the joy of the B-sides that didn't make the cut?" Where is that friend? Where is that person who can stand up and say, Tori- go back to the farm. Eat some biscuits. Drink some iced tea. Walk in your bare feet. Remember what all of that is like?"

I'd say at this point the most original, stunning, and desirable thing that Tori could do would be to drop the band, stop trying to be the poster child for sin, anti-religion, and bad-girl archetypes and just write about what she's feeling inside. Reflect on the journey. On life, love, motherhood, meaning. Who wouldn't love to encounter some bare-bones Tori again?

Here's the abbreviated cut of ADP that I listen to:

american doll posse: abbreviated
1 big wheel
2 bouncing off clouds
3 mr. bad man
4 girl disappearing
5 secret spell
6 father's son
7 programmable soda
8 code red
9 roosterspur bridge
10 beauty of speed
11 dark side of the sun
12 smokey joe


I intended to write a review of the new album Abnormally Attracted To Sin, but I couldn't do it without first articulating my feelings on the previous album. Now that you know I thought ADP was much too long, I guess it's pretty obvious where I'm going with AATS. Waaaaay too long. This album has even fewer gems than its predecessor, so you really shouldn't hide them in all that self-involved rambling.

I'm posting an early abbreviated track list for AATS as well, but so far I haven't actually been able to find enough songs that stand out to feel very confident about any track list at all for this album. Nevertheless, here are the songs that didn't put me to sleep or made me want to poke my eye out (may change my mind about that though):

1 give
2 welcome to england
3 flavor
4 not dying today
5 maybe california
6 fire to your plain
7 500 miles
8 fast horse
9 ophelia
10 lady in blue


Edit 5/29/09
** Note **
I realize now that the list above is just the songs that don't horribly suck. I don't actually like any of them. I don't actually like this album at all. I'd rather listen to Strange Little Girls-- at least there are two to three pretty good songs on that one.