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One
thing about being a Kate Bush fan is that everyone assumes you must also
like Tori Amos. People are always trying to get you listening to her, to
convert you. Let's face it, they are pretty similar: single waifish
females writing, producing and performing their own music characterised
by shimmering piano sequences and multiple-octave vocals; shaking their
long tresses and bizarrely mis-pronouncing words. They are even similar
lyrically: "She's addicted to nicotine patches," sings Tori (Spark),
"Keep breathing, breathing her nicotine," gasps Kate (Breathing);
"Get out of my garden!" orders Tori (Datura), "Get
out of my house!" yells Kate (Get Out of my House). They
also both like getting in boxes. Yet, despite being given to even more
outrageousness and eccentricity, there was always a sense, in the UK at
least, that Tori was the poor relation, a poor man's Kate Bush, probably
because, by no fault of her own, she emerged in Kate's shadow. It was as
if Tori was never going to make it in Kate's heartland. The kook rock
goddess vote had been cast and it was a Kate Bush landslide.
"I was blown away by her, no question," says Tori of Kate,
" but I knew I had to be careful. I left the records with my
boyfriend because I didn't want to copy her." But even this homage
failed to dent my determination not to like her. Put simply, quite apart
from the fact that she seemed to be treading on Kate's territory even
though she wasn't, I found her immensely irritating. There was something
a bit too precious and intense about her, from the way she straddled her
piano seat side-saddle, through her sixth-form singing to the
over-the-top passion with which she played, calling to mind a young
Jacqueline du Pre (which I resented). For me the critic Jeffrey Lee
Puckett hit the nail right on the head: "I don't like her. I wish I
did. Really. I'd like to share in all of the emotion that her intense
fans toss around like frisbees. The thing is, though, I'm not a female
between the ages of 14 and 17, which seems to be the bulk of the Amos
demographic. That's a very hormonal group that sees everything in shades
of purple and blue... Amos is a rock star for "girls" - her
term - and that's a pretty important area for role models."
Scarily,
I saw what people meant when they said they couldn’t stand Kate Bush.
I had the same initial response to Tori Amos. If you want to know what I
mean listen to Mr Zebra, The Happy
Phantom, Winter, Beauty Queen,
The Wrong Band and Father
Lucifer (especially the beginning) – all of which I still can’t
listen to without cringing.
The
first Tori track I ever heard was Winter and it turned me off her
instantly. It was played to me by a friend who was convinced I was going
to love it. But like most of her songs it was infused with far too much
heavy breathing, sighing, saliva and microphone head for my liking, and
the horn section was far too grandiose. The stateliness of the music,
the melodrama, the over-emotional posturing and the gritted teeth made
me feel intruded upon, like she'd invaded my personal space (at least
Kate maintained a dignified distance, staring through you rather than at
you). So I spent the next six years avoiding her like the plague.
Fortunately, apart from the Professional Widow remix, that wasn't too
hard.
Then a strange thing happened. My then boyfriend, a closet Tori fan,
sneakily bought Boys for Pele on cassette and I found it lying
around. I was struck by the album cover not only because her hair looked
an awful lot like mine at the time, but because of the sleeve imagery -
dead chickens, snakes, dirty mattresses, combusting pianos, not to
mention Tori breast-feeding a piglet (yikes!) Having heard so much of
the remix, and out of what I can only explain as an unexpected blast of
unprecedented masochism, I figured I'd quite like to hear the original Professional
Widow, if only to reinforce my original feelings, to prove to myself
how right I was. Bracing myself, wincing in anticipation, my finger
poised over the stop button, I put it on.
With typically exquisite irony what followed was unforeseen.
Surprisingly there were some things that reminded me of myself almost
immediately, especially in Professional Widow, Tori's manic Beethoven
bashing hell out of a harpsichord impression. For a string of
profanities I found this divine cacophony of words and music addictive:
"Slag pit, stag shit, honey bring it close to my lips, yes"
she sings (the sound of a bull baying in the background). What? I mean,
I'm all for fortifying the immune system but this is ridiculous. This,
followed by repeated utterances of the F word on a par with Eminem (my
mum definitely wouldn't approve), culminating with "Give me hope,
peace, love and a hard cock" screamed really loudly at the end (at
least I think that's what she says... Incidentally, how many of us have
recurring dreams about standing on a desk in a public library and
shouting "Give me hope, peace, love and a hard cock" at the
top of our voices? Or is that just me?...) What was this primitive,
wild, uninhibited femininity? Here was someone earthier, more honest and
deliberately provocative - just more downright human - than any other
singer I'd encountered before, appealing to my darker side. The hair on
the back of my neck was erect.
As it turned out, the chlaustrophobic Boys for Pele album (Tori
getting intimate with different keyboards) was a good place for me to
start, with Horses, Caught a Lite Sneeze and the heavenly
Mozartian Blood Roses all arousing my curiosity. Without it I
doubt I'd have bothered to seek out other Tori albums and discover great
tracks like Precious Things (that bit when the piano and the
drums go mad reminiscent to me of Animal from The Muppets), Crucify,
A Northern Lad, Cornflake Girl and countless others, all
memorable for their verbal subject matter as well as their amazing
musical content. "Look at the thoughts I've had," she was once
quoted as saying. "Killing people, mangling people, hurting myself,
having sex with God. But I can't censor or contrive. These were my
thoughts." Indeed - "really deep thoughts": murder,
erections and getting laid all feature boldly in her songs, as do vivid
confessional recollections of her own personal experiences of rape
("He buttoned down his pants, me and a gun and a man on my
back" - Me and a Gun) and miscarriage ("She's convinced
she could hold back a glacier, but she couldn't keep baby alive" - Spark).
Then there's the masturbation: "When my hand touches myself I can
finally rest my head... Getting Off Getting Off while they're all
downstairs singing prayers." (Icicle). One of the Boys
for Pele sleeve illustrations shows a reclining Tori looking like
she could almost be doing this very thing in a carriage covered with
butterflies. And let's not forget the great menstruation moment:
"Boy you'd best pray that I bleed real soon" (Silent All
These Years). Mmm, yes... (as Tori would say. Or Kate, in The
Sensual World).
It has to be said though that there's an awful lot more to Tori's art
than swearing and taboo subject matter. For a start there's no doubting
her virtuoso piano playing, (for me those three notes after "and to
the one you thought was on your side" in Space Dog comprise
one of the most sublime musical moments in modern music). Then there's
her inspired use of words, especially on To Venus and Back (her
tightest, most coherent and satisfying album to date). Get a load of the
silky lyrical texture of Concertina: "Got my fuzz all tipped
to play, got a dub on your landscape, then there's your policy of
trancing the sauce without the blame" Speaking of "trancing the sauce", while her piano
playing speaks to a higher version of ourselves, quite often she
juxtaposes it with sentiments expressed in the most common vernacular -
stuff one might say while waiting for a bus: "Who do I gotta shag
to get outta here?" (Glory of the Eighties) and "Gets
so f***ing cold" (A Northern Lad).
Kate or
Tori? Tori or Kate? The two wired sisters. In Gulliver's Travels
Swift observes that "the red-haired of both the sexes are more
libidinous and mischievous than the rest". As a fellow redhead I
can relate to that, and there is something definitely more unreachable,
untouchable about Kate (literally these days) - yang to Tori's yin (or
is it the other way round?). Complementarily, both sides rock the House
without sitting in opposition. Albeit not an out and out stalker I'm now
a devoted fan of Tori Amos as well as Kate Bush, profanities,
preciousness, monsters, fairies and all. It was a struggle but I got
there in the end.
© Agnetha 2002
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Kate
or Tori?/ Tori or Kate?
For
some more striking similarities click here
My favourite Tori
picture: brings a whole new meaning to "getting wood"...
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