Tori Amos - Boys for Pele REACTION and REVIEW

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Written and recorded following Tori Amos’s break-up with her longtime boyfriend/collaborator Eric Rosse, “Boys For Pele” (named after the famed volcano Goddess), details the sordid details of the breakup and it’s aftermath. Infamous for it’s cryptic lyrics, the album covers the breakup and it’s impact on Amos as she seeks to find her own way following the breakup.
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Tori Amos - Boys for Pele (1996): 8/10
Genres: Singer-Songwriter, Art-Pop, Alt-Pop
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Fav Tracks: Beauty Queen / Horses, Blood Roses, Professional Widow, Mr. Zebra, Marianne, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Hey Jupiter, Little Amsterdam, Talula, Doughnut Song, In the Springtime of His Voodoo, Putting the Damage On
Least Fav Track: Not the Red Baron
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this confused man only forms his own dumb opinion here, you should too. ========================================
Timestamps:
0:00 Opening Thoughts
2:19 Beauty Queen / Horses
7:57 Blood Roses
13:13 Father Lucifer
15:56 Professional Widow
19:12 Mr. Zebra
21:28 Marianne
24:15 Caught a Lite Sneeze
28:49 Muhammad My Friend
32:55 Hey Jupiter
36:47 Way Down
38:04 Little Amsterdam
42:10 Talula
46:08 Not the Red Baron
48:02 Agent Orange
48:55 Doughnut Song
51:30 In the Springtime of His Voodoo
53:46 Putting the Damage On
56:40 Twinkle
58:22 Closing Thoughts
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#albumreaction #albumreview #firstlisten #toriamos

[@ScottStevenErickson]

You’re basically going through a tour of all the albums which saved my life as a teenager! ❤

[@ScottStevenErickson]

It would definitely complete the tour if you also did “Live Through This” by Hole!

[@robbiereacts22]

Exactly

[@sabrielmoon]

YES

[@timothyochoa1841]

Same

[@TheAndersox]

Totally. And of all her albums, this is the one I keep coming back to even 20ish years later.

[@jasonep2]

This is one of my all time favorite albums. The bass on this album is by George Porter Jr. He was the bass player for one of the classic American funk bands, The Meters. And regarding the track "Hey Jupiter" - in the lyrics "are you gay are you blue" blue here isn't referring to the color. Here it means to be sad or melancholy.

[@nikolanikolic1366]

and I think gay means happy here, like it used to just mean happy

[@leosaidhi]

My favorite Tori album. For me, a timeless masterpiece. So strange and unique.

[@dustinhall669]

This is ,maybe, my favorite album of all time. Ever. It changed my life.

[@DavidMichaelCommer]

Happy to see you review this album. In your prior two reviews, you kept saying there should be more guitar...this has been a battle Tori has fought against male record executives her entire career and I was bracing for you to say that about keyboards-heavy Boys for Pele, but you were quite restrained in that judgment this time. 🤗 You mentioned the backing vocalists a few times. Tori is her own backing vocalist. 😊 You really should look up the "making of" video that features Tori recording the backing vocals for Caught a Lite Sneeze. She recorded them ("Inanna/Inanna/Inanna/Bring your son"-a prayer/sacrifice to a pagan Sumerian goddess) a capella in an Irish church, and she has said that this album forced her to greatly expand her vocal ability for those and some other lines-all by her own design, of course. Consider when you listen to Tori's music from this point on that Tori: composes her own music, writes her own lyrics, sings all vocals herself, makes all executive production decisions herself, and she performs all these songs live as a self-proclaimed "road dog" who throughout most of her career has performed more than 200 live concerts every year. She's an incredible artist and a force of nature. Her lyrics especially on this album may sound like gibberish, but they are effectively associative blank verse poetry meant more to convey raw emotion than to tell an explicit story (with obvious exceptions such as Little Amsterdam, Twinkle, et al.). One of the albums you have yet to listen to, Scarlet's Walk, is the opposite: it's lyricism is deceptively sophisticated and it is a brilliant work of literature that chronicles United States and American Indian histories, Tori's own life story, the story of a fictional character named Scarlet who takes a road trip through the U.S., and the story and spirit of the land itself, which Tori regards as its own living entity. This is Native American history month in the U.S., and to understand Tori and her music it is important to understand that her mother's family are from and belong to the Eastern Cherokee tribe, and many of the beliefs of which she sings and much of her worldview, which has been mocked relentlessly in the press throughout her career, emanates from a distinctly Native American interpretation of this world and perhaps other worlds. You struggled to find a genre to assign to some of the songs on this album. I consider it, above all, to be Southern Gothic (a distinctly American genre of art), but for a fuller, ridiculous description, I'd call it Southern gothic folk art harpsichord-blues-folk-rock-singer-songwriter confessional poetry. To me, each of Tori's early albums embodies a different style of art. I have a type of synesthesia in which certain sounds create distinct visuals in my mind, and each of Tori's albums creates different types of imagery: -Little Earthquakes: Realism -Under the Pink: Expressionism -Boys for Pele: American Folk art -From the Choirgirl Hotel: Expressionism (leaning toward German expressionism of the Nosferatu and Metropolis, The Scream, etc. variety) -Scarlet's Walk: Interwoven early Americana & traditional American Indian textiles It's interesting to me that Father Lucifer and Hey Jupiter are among your least favorite tracks upon first listen because they and Caught a Lite Sneeze are the songs that drew me in when much of the rest of the album was very challenging and even off putting to me back when I first heard it. If you ended up appreciating Tori's artistry after these albums, you really must listen to From the Choirgirl Hotel, Scarlet's Walk, Night of Hunters, (for the holidays) Midwinter Graces, Native Invader and her latest, Ocean to Ocean. You'll notice some shifts in all aspects of her music. You seem most attuned to production decisions and composition and arrangements, but if you ever feel invested enough to attend to Tori's lyrics, Scarlet's Walk, Native Invader and Night of Hunters are brilliant, all in different ways. I think of Tori's music more as literature than as popular music.

[@robbiereacts22]

Scarlet’s Walk is my favorite Tori album

[@nikolanikolic1366]

Fun reaction once again! This is such a unique record...the strange and deep lyrics and the unusual instrumentation. Im glad you liked it as much as you did. My guess is the next one could be your favourite, we'll see :D

[@solfar88]

one of the most subtely brilliant "north american pop" albuns i have ever listed to. . . from the lyrics to the production , really an all around deeply inspired one that no matter how much you listen to it , you'll always discover something new on each song , everytime _/\_ one thing about production on this album ( not sure if it was mentioned ) , it was all recorded on actual churches accoustics , so that's why it sounds so clear and great _/\_

[@robbiereacts22]

I hope you are doing the rest of Tori’s albums? I’ve seen her live over 50 times and she definitely helped me through the darkest times of growing up

[@openyourchakras918]

Thank you for the reaction, excited to see you do more of her albums 💗 💫

[@sidhedanu]

The sound at the beginning of Beauty Queen is a Leslie cabinet being turned on. Posies & pansies are flowers, I'm guessing hosies are panty hose. "If Neil makes me a tree" He did in one of his books, Stardust I believe. Tori says she had a conversation with the harpischord where H tells T that she hasn't been played right, so T says "alright, babe, I'll play you right". She also says something about giving it some ass, while sitting in the grass outside and being our beloved weirdo. The 15 minute behind the scenes documentary on the making of the album is extemely enjoyable. You get to watch her sing the Inanna background lyrics in the Irish church....omg. Angelic. First you loved Professional Widow, then you said Mr. Zebra was your favorite. My heart is filled with joy....welcome to the fanbase. ❤️🤣 Marianne is the one we know for sure that Tori did not sit down and write before recording, although I believe many of the transition songs and b-sides (so many they make their own album in the anniversary edition) were also improvisations. Her orchestral director was fucking phenomenal with those added strings. On Hey, Jupiter those post-chorus vocals are a nod to Prince. Also, she's asking whether he is happy or sad when she asks if he he's gay or blue. We sometimes say we're feeling blue if we're sad, and gay meant happy before it meant homosexual....although, the beauty of a Tori Amos song is that it means whatever it needs to mean for you. She's interpreting messages from the Muses left and right on this album, and often refuses to give any specific meanings to her lyrics. So happy you enjoyed this album. Sometimes, Twinkle is my favorite song. I've seen several people say it just hit them out of nowhere that it's one of her most badass songs. Such an unassuming song, but then..."I killed a man, T, I've gotta stay hidden in this abbey".

[@jacobadams3098]

Easily my favorite Tori album. Your reaction/reviews are incredibly thoughtful and entertaining, especially this one. Looking forward to you going deeper into her discography.

[@sabrielmoon]

Blood Roses: "That was very interesting. Also, the chorus" Highlights and just looks "Okay, let's move on" 🤣

[@luggareviews]

😂😂😂

[@solfar88]

I rushed right into this reaction ! ! o__O

[@davidmenke7552]

LOVED that you reviewed this. As a Tori fan for almost 26 years, I absolutely loved your reaction at 15.32..."Maybe she's hiding in a hot dog?....(followed by several silent seconds)....and then, "ooookay". That was the best! Boys for Pele is my favorite album of hers:)

[@openyourchakras918]

This should be a great reaction 😁

[@Nobody-nv6ds]

Tori at her best! Thanks!

[@openyourchakras918]

Would love to see you react to “Hey Jupiter (The Dakota Version” it is the preferred version for most of us toriphiles

[@ScottStevenErickson]

I actually can’t decide between the two!

[@sidhedanu]

I really prefer the original.

[@justinsomething]

looking forward to your reaction to from the choirgirl hotel!

[@NoCreamedCorn]

There’s a great making-of doc of this somewhere on KZbin.

[@NoCreamedCorn]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJW6enmcmr2DgtE

[@TeraLee..]

Marianne is about a friend of hers. “And they said Marianne killed herself and I said NOT A CHANCE…not a chance”

[@almandragoran]

“Talula” is probably the least streamed song on the album because it was released as a single with a different mix (“The Tornado Mix”) which I’d guess is the version most people listen to. It replaced the original album mix on the UK version of the album and on re-pressings of the album in the US, so for a lot of people, the single mix is THE version of the song that they are used to listening to.

[@robbiereacts22]

You gotta listen to the other version of Hey Jupiter which is called Hey Jupiter (Dakota Version) it’s the best and has a trip hop beat and some different lyrics. Also on this song & Madonna’s Bad Girl you where talking about using the word blue. Blue in the way they are singing means sad. So gay means happy while blue means sad. It’s an English word to describe sad.

[@dumbbunny9178]

On Hey Jupiter, in English the word gay used to mean happy at least in the Victorian era here think late 1800’s, not sure the origin of the word. The word blue can mean sad, as in “I have the blues.” So she’s asking Jupiter (most likely her ex boyfriend) is he’s happy or sad. On Blood Roses when she’s saying I think you’re a queer, she’s saying she thinks he’s odd, which was the original meaning of the word. I don’t know if that one did have a double meaning to her. Although Tori has always been an ally to the LGBTQ+ community so I don’t think she word ever call someone gay or queer and any kind of insult.

[@DavidNicolet20]

Not the biggest fan of hers, but this album is amazing, definitely her best. The next album is pretty good, then she completely lost me. Heard her last two albums very pretty good, but haven't listened yet...

[@szymonte7013]

27:22 Pretty Hate Machine is the first studio album of Nine Inch Nails. I think Tori had relationship with Trent Reznor.

[@codice_pin]

This album is an acquired taste

[@NoCreamedCorn]

Did you hear the bulls on professional widow?

[@sillywhale]

You’ve got to do From the Choirgirl Hotel!! It’s her best imho

[@sillywhale]

Also, you have great taste!!

[@luggareviews]

Thank you :) From the choirgirl is up today!

[@sillywhale]

@@luggareviews it is?! I don’t see it yet but I’m looking forward to it

[@sillywhale]

@@luggareviews also, between you and me, if you listen to the rest of her albums I would stop at Scarlet’s Walk because after that it’s very hit or miss, or completely miss.

[@luggareviews]

@@sillywhale yeah the upload is kinda messed up probably have to upload it again tomorrow (also for possible problems with copyright)

[@sabrielmoon]

The album is divided into separate parts with each short song being the intro into the next section.

[@CarbonEye]

Really? 22 years a fan here and I didn't know that. Huh.

[@sabrielmoon]

@@CarbonEye I can't remember the interview where she talks about it but here's this from the albums Wikipedia: "The arrangement of the songs on the album reflects the progression Amos intended to achieve on the double vinyl LP of the album; each of the four sides of the album on vinyl would open with an interlude track that leads into the rest of the three or four songs on each side.[15] The vinyl release is the only version of the album in which the interludes ("Beauty Queen", "Mr. Zebra", "Way Down", and "Agent Orange") are not numbered."

[@CarbonEye]

@@sabrielmoon Interesting! Thanks!

[@viviandarkbloom4339]

Did you figure out what Blood Roses was reminding you of? I’m curious about the song you were thinking of. This is my favorite Tori album because of all the awesome harpsichord songs. Unfortunately the harpsichord isn’t featured on any of her albums after this until her Christmas album 13 years later-and then, it wasn't used in the most exciting mannner. Thanks for the great reaction!

[@luggareviews]

I still can‘t remember… but I had something like a 2000s pop track in my head i used to hear on the radio back then, someday i will remember :D Really nice how she used the harpsichord on this album!

[@valentinomiller6251]

This album is lauded by fans. I've tried, but just don't understand why it's so beloved. To me, it's rubbish.

[@davidmenke7552]

Oh stop it with the "its rubbish" nonsense. Like you can't even see its merit. Get over yourself!

[@carlosrecuerdaruiz2948]

stunning album ! . . . almost experimental stuff ! obscure and ambitious ! god save Tori Amos ! 😍