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In Character
Tori Amos
tour explores rock, female archetypes
By Alan
Sculley
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Tori Amos performs in South Florida Nov. 21. |
For an album very much about character
types, Tori Amos’ latest CD, American Doll Posse,
ironically took the artist out of character in some major ways.
Thematically, the CD is
consistent with Amos’ past work. In American Doll Posse,
the artist — who has explored what it means to be a woman
throughout a solo career that dates back to her multiplatinum
1992 debut CD, Little Earthquakes — adopts four distinct
female characters based on Greek mythology as a way to study and
break down stereotypes of the contemporary woman.
Musically, however, the album
is a different story.
That is apparent by the time
Amos and her band unleash the crashing chords of “Teenage
Hustling,” the CD’s fourth song. Although previous Amos albums
(such as 2005’s The Beekeeper and 2002’s Scarlet’s
Walk) were known for their baroque and often delicate
piano-centered pop, American Doll Posse quickly
establishes itself as a rock album distinctly different from
much of Amos’ past work. It’s melodic, musically smart and one
of her most accessible CDs.
The female-centric concept of
American Doll Posse actually played a big role in leading
Amos to make this harder-hitting musical departure.
“As a scribe, you have to
listen to what the songs want to be,” Amos said in an early
October phone interview. “It wasn’t a typical singer-songwriter
record, which the last one was really more of. This one was not
that way at all. So because the narrative was very much about
female character types, sonically the songs were saying we have
to go to the rock gods. So I needed some testosterone, and I
knew that.”
More subtly, American Doll Posse forced Amos to yield
some of her usual control as a singer-songwriter, especially
when it came to the music.
“Mentally, the producer and
composer were in the driver’s seat, not the singer-songwriter
persona,” Amos explained. “I had to have a chat with Tori the
singer-songwriter and say simply, ‘I need you to agree to be a
band member here, a player. These guys have to be given their
[due]. They can’t just be playing and be a support band. … The
piano might have to take a back seat in a lot of songs.’”
The idea of exploring female archetypes was inspired by what
Amos believes is a regression in the roles of women in American
society. The situation, she said, is largely a result of the
influence of the Christian conservative movement and the Bush
administration.
“It seemed to me that the
Christian right wing had done their job very well,” Amos said.
“They were able to distract the women from really looking at
what the Bush administration [has done], from how the Bush
administration views the place of women at the table of power. …
I thought, well, women are stepping into these stereotypes, and
we need to rattle our own cages. So the way to do that is we
have to expand these definitions of who we are. Then, in that
way, maybe as we become more powerful and complete with
ourselves, maybe we can look and see who the real aggressor to
women being equal is.”
The 23-song CD doesn’t so
much preach about rebelling against simplified and subservient
stereotypes as it offers character studies, stories and, in a
sense, a process that women can follow to get in touch with and
become more of their authentic selves.
In creating American Girl
Posse, Amos looked to Greek mythology, when the female was
considered divine. She created four characters — Isabel (based
on Artemis, the most political of the characters), Clyde (drawn
from Persephone, an idealistic and emotionally naked character),
Pip (culled from Athena, a warrior) and Santa (based on
Aphrodite, who is full of passion and sensuality).
The singer builds on those
characters and the themes of American Doll Posse with
blogs she created and in her live show.
Each evening, Amos comes
onstage dressed as Isabel, Clyde,
Pip or Santa, and performs a few songs related to that
character. She then shifts into herself as Tori Amos for the
remainder of each two-hour show.
“It’s a real blast because
you don’t know what the show is going to be until, I don’t know,
you have an hour before the show to change it,” Amos said.
“That’s kind of exciting. And God knows, something might have
happened at five
o’clock that afternoon on the news in that town. And you say,
‘We have to do Isabel tonight. It’s a political issue. We have
to do Isabel.’ And those are the decisions that get made.”
Tori Amos will perform at 8
p.m. Nov. 21 at the Raymond Kravis Center for the Performing
Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. For tickets visit
www.ticketmaster.com or call 800-572-8471. |
