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Boys for Pele, the title of Tori Amos's epic third album, is as awkward and confusing as the music inside. Though it sounds like a recruitment slogan for Little League soccer, the name actually refers to the lost temples of feminine divinity. Pele, you see, is the Hawaiian volcano goddess; the boys, well, they're the sacrifL
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Boys for Pele, the title of Tori Amos's epic third album, is as awkward and confusing as the music inside. Though it sounds like a recruitment slogan for Little League soccer, the name actually refers to the lost temples of feminine divinity. Pele, you see, is the Hawaiian volcano goddess; the boys, well, they're the sacrifices that quell the rumbling lady's rage. Attempting to regain fires stolen long ago, Pele rewrites the crucifixion to star a girl Jesus and in doing so conjures a forgotten matriarchal mythology. While Amos's characters--Jupiter, Muhammad, Lucifer--are male by name, the aural landscape into which they're thrown is as symbolically and expressionistically female as Georgia O'Keeffe's skull-and-roses paintings. Pele is a complex and formless--and often impenetrable--work of gothic-pop chamber music, both beautiful and ghostly in its nearly complete reliance on Amos's rolling Bosendorfer grand piano, chilling harpsichord (which she bangs like a courtly punk rocker), and acrobatic voice (as earthy as Joni Mitchell's and as otherworldly as Bjork's). Unfortunately, she takes us only halfway: her songs engage and challenge us to understand, but the imagery offers few clues to help us crack their frustrating opacity. Pele ends up as much a pretentious and self-indulgent trip as it is a synthesis of talent, imagination, and skewed vision. Still, there's reason to celebrate that an album as formalistically and thematically alien to pop audiences as Pele would win such quick success upon its original release. --Roni Sarig
"Had you asked me in the '90s what my 5 desert island albums were, this would have easily made the list. Funny how things change over time, but I still say this was Tori's best album.
Favorite song: "Little Amsterdam"
"
kayipotoban added this to a list 7 months, 4 weeks ago
"Released: January 23, 1996
Genres: Art Pop, Progressive Pop, Baroque Pop, Experimental Pop
Favourite Tracks:
- Blood Roses
- Caught A Lite Sneeze
- Father Lucifer
- Horses
- Muhammed My Friend
- Professional Widow"
"Tori Amos - Father Lucifer
Father Lucifer
You never looked so sane
You always did prefer the drizzle to the rain
Tell me that you're still in love with that Milkmaid
How's the Lizzies
How's your Jesus Christ been hanging
Nothings gonna stop me from floating
Nothings gonna stop me from floating
He says he reckons I'm a watercolor stain
He says I run and then I run from him
And then I run
He didn't see me watching
From the aeroplane
He wiped a tear
And then he threw away our apple seed
Nothing"
Pumpkinate added this to a list 3 years, 4 months ago
"Release: 22 January 1996 (UK), 23 January 1996 (US)
Track listing
1. Horses
2. Blood Roses
3. Father Lucifer
4. Professional Widow
5. Mr Zebra
6. Marianne
7. Caught a Lite Sneeze
8. Muhammad My Friend
9. Hey Jupiter
10. Way Down
11. Little Amsterdam
12. Talula
13. Not the Red Baron
14. Agent Orange
15. Doughnut Song
16. In the Springtime of His Voodoo
17. Putting the Damage On
18. Twinkle"
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