Tori Amos - To Venus and Back
|
List Price: Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $4.99 (25%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $1.14 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for To Venus and Back
Free Music Review: Witnessing Tori's fading talent
Hit: 2 Stars
After the lackluster "From the Choirgirl Hotel", Tori went back to studio to create yet another weak record. Even if the studio disc of "To Venus and Back" sounds as a small improvement, the live disc brings things down, making this an uneven endeavour. Whatever Tori's muse happened to be, she's lost it. All she's doing is churning out radio-friendly material that lacks surprises, idiosyncrasy and inspiration. The record starts with "Bliss" which is shifting between different moods and comes off as an uneven mix. Things improve in "Juarez", the only real triumph on "Venus". The songs has harrowing lyrics set to a mid-tempo thumping beat and it is one of the rare moments on "To Venus and Back" that will stay in your memory. The rush of "Concertina" makes the listener feel uneasy and "Glory of the 80's" and "Josephine" don't do much for me. "Lust" and "Datura" are empty and uninspiring, especially the latter which contains the lyric "dividing Canaan" repeated over and over for four minutes.
On the other hand, "Suede", "Riot Proof" and "Spring Haze" are all exceptionally beautiful. The album, however, closes badly with the track "1000 Oceans". The live disc shows how self-indulgent Amos is as a performer. After a long drum intro, the disc kicks in with "Precious Things" where Tori's singing is just unfocused and, well, bad. She improvised near the song's climax, but it is still unworthy of your attention. Most of the material here is too long. Nobody wants to sit through 75 minutes of material, especially one that is lacking so much quality. "Cruel" loses its touch when she starts singing in high pitch and over-extending words in that typical Tori fashion. "Cornflake Girl" contains too much improvising and sounds nothing like the "Under the Pink" classic. When turning into a live track, "Bells for Her" loses its intimacy and the haunting ambient. "Girl" sounds nothing like the trembling number from "Little Earthquakes". Tori could have benefited from doing a live performance solo, but she chose to go for a full band sound which is simply not good. In fact, the only member of her band that you can hear in most of these songs is the drummer.
It's not possible to make a comparison to a studio version with "Cooling", but the song is lacking distinctive qualities. In contrast, "Mr. Zebra" is a pure standout wherever it appears. You really have to make an awful live album to make "Cloud on My Tongue" seem like one of the highlights. "You're already in there" is sung so beautifully that it seems like the most sincere moment on "Venus". "Little Earthquakes" lacks the magic it has on the debut, and it's even more disappointing considering the fact that it's my favorite Tori song. Likewise, "Space Dog", one of my favorite "Under the Pink" songs is presented here in a stiff mode, not taking advantage of the full band sound. "Waitress" drags on for more than ten minutes, which is unbearable considering how bad it sounds. The opening melody of "Sugar" is one of the rare moments on the live disc that possesses vitality, but it soon turns into a puzzling track.
Overall, "To Venus and Back" is a highly unsatisfying effort. Worse still, it makes the listener doubt Amos' talent. The heroine of "Little Earthquakes" is practically unrecognizable. It's as if she lost her power to write real songs and continued to produce material with her misconception of what a Tori Amos song should sound like. With "Venus", Tori ended the decade she started with astonishing works badly. Thankfully, she stopped employing so many electronic beats on her subsequent albums and went for a more fully-formed sound. However, Tori's talent is a fading one, as witnessed on "To Venus and Back", among other records. The captivating spirit of the woman she was in the early '90s reappears at moments, but is mostly untraceable.
Free Music Review: TWO SIDES OF TORI
Hit: 5 Stars
Ambivalent, multifaced, dark and full of light , thats Tori Amos with "To Venus and back" one of her most admirable pieces of work, in this album Tori delighted fans with not only a full lenght album of then previously unreleased tracks such as "concertina" , "Juarez" , "glory of the 80s", "a thousand oceans" and "bliss" but she added an extra gift, with a bonus live cd were she recreates her now classics like "space dog" in an amazing way, "Mr. Zebra", "cloud in my tongue" (one of my alltime favorites)and "girl" among others, this were also the times were Tori developed her "friends" (songs)as she uses to call them, to make them more colorfull with the addition of drums, bass, percussions, and not only guitar and her Bosse or harpsichord as she used to do after the release of "under the pink", she is Tori Amos, more than prolific, always giving her fans an excess of information, a charming confussion in her lyrics and providing her fascinating personality for our free interpretation, To Venus and back is a basic in her discography.
HM
Free Music Review: I love this album!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a very awesome album. The live cornflake girl and spacedog are out of this world. Tori is a Goddess.Free Music Review: Awesome!
Hit: 5 Stars
God, I love both halves of this album. tori is a goddess. The live section is awesome, the original stuff is remarkable.... buy this.Free Music Review: Tori Out Of Orbit : The Uselessness of "To Venus and Back"
Hit: 2 Stars
This review is for CD 1 of this 2-CD Set. The second CD is a compilation of some of Amos' live recordings. For Toriphiles like me who collect entire concert recordings of her performances, the second CD was redundant and also quite insulting to my sensibilities, considering some of the versions of the songs they put on there were possibly the worst renditions of the songs ever. That said, the first CD contains all new recordings (at the time, at least), and is a proper `studio' album in the strictest sense of the word.
Why is "To Venus and Back" so unlistenable? Even as a Toriphile, this and "Strange Little Girls" hardly get any airplay on my player or my Ipod. I don't even host this on my Ipod. It just sits on my laptop asking to be added on, but I can't bring myself to do it. Its one of these oddities that you either `get' or don't get. I've been trying for years to possibly bring myself to find something here worth playing, and it still hasn't happened. No matter though - the album has its' own set of cult followers, and I'm glad they have found something here to love.
"Bliss", in my estimation, is the best song here. The opening line itself is worth the price of the album. It has a slow, thumping bassline with a chorus and melody that far surpasses the rest of the compositions here. The same however, cannot be said for the rest of the tracks. "Concertina", which many fans consider an excellent single, is baffling. It has a very mediocre sound and chorus, and I really can't see myself playing this or even listening to it in concert - its dull and lifeless. The same goes for "Riot Proof", which rates very highly on my list of Tori Songs never to hear again.
Still, there are a few gems here that could possibly grow on you with repeated listening. One of these is the `classic' "1000 Oceans". This song has spawned various cover versions, and is certainly beautiful in its' own way (though decidedly sub-par when compared to Tori's own back catalog of singles). The other song of note is "Glory of the `80s", which was released as a single. Fans drool over the song, but I guess I missed the bus on this one. Its as lifeless yet overblown - not a good combination.
The problem is the faux-electronica sound that defines this album. Electronica is a unique genre and its easy to go wrong with it. Not to mention that Tori going the William Orbit way is a concept that should have been handled with great care and tenderness. What we have here instead is one stomping bassline over the other, with very little attention to production or melody. The lack of any cohesive melody on ANY of the songs is what prompts me to award this album a paltry two stars.
So yes, this is perhaps the worst Amos album alongwith the hideousness that was "Strange Little Girls". I've known electronica fans who thought it was garbage, and I've known Amos loyalists who consider it her big mis-step. Still, seeing as there are enough people out there who write positive things about this CD, it might well be that I am not musically schooled enough to appreciate records such as this one. Be that as it may, I still cannot bring myself to listen to this over-produced, messy lump of an album.
Two Stars.