Pros: A handful of good songs and some thoughtful themes.
Cons: Sterile production. Flat singing and playing. Long, with almost no good melodies.
The Bottom Line: Just as muddled and dull as "Strange Little Girls", but this time she doesn't have covers to hide behind. Inconsequential kitchen-sink nothingness.
floatingcity's Full Review: The Beekeeper by Tori Amos
If the 18-track adult-contemporary fest of "Scarlet’s Walk" wasn’t enough, Tori Amos elected to follow it up with “The Beekeeper”: this time with 19 radio-friendly, inoffensive ditties. Once again, the songs present a simple set of piano/guitar/drum arrangements, with the odd touch of gospel choir and Hammond organ to add a funky flair. The production is mostly clean and clear, but has a tendency to sound sterile, and several interesting drum and guitar lines get obscured by less interesting parts of the mix.
Thematically, the album is interesting, if in definite need of Occam’s Razor. Written in response to the more right-wing leadership of America in recent years, the album questions whether Christian values are being misappropriated; with a specific focus on religious divisions in spirituality, sexuality, masculinity and femininity. The Gnostic gospels and the story of Mary Magdalene crop up in a few tracks (most notably “Marys of The Sea”); it’s hardly The Da Vinci Code, but Tori incorporates the idea of the Jesus/Mary marriage and bloodline and utilises it to critique contemporary religious thought. The beekeeper of the title ends up being a gender- and politically-neutral entity through which these viewpoints are discussed. Keeping in with the ‘nature’ idea, the songs are divided into six themed gardens – however, these groupings seem to be pretty arbitrary and have no bearing on the track listing: if you didn’t know about the concept, you wouldn’t notice it at all. Paring away some of the needless extravagances would have worked better, but as it is Tori mixes in so many metaphors and avenues of study you end up not having any idea what she’s going on about.
Fortunately, the album does have some nice strengths at the ‘song’ level, despite its issues at the ‘album’ one. “Parasol” is a pleasant unassuming opener, making reference to George-Pierre Seurat’s painting with clean drum breaks, gentle bass and some relaxed, unhurried piano playing. The chorus melody is among the album’s catchiest, and the song serves as a rather nice example of simple adult-contemporary music done well. “Sweet The Sting” is a bit of swaggering folk-funk, with a Caribbean influence lent from the chilled percussion and a gospel choir providing back-up vocals. A Hammond organ provides a somewhat cheesy vibe, but the track is still pretty tolerable. The excellently titled “The Power of Orange Knickers” follows; Damien Rice provides backing vocals on a great chorus that builds nicely as the song goes on. The arrangement and production is a tad sterile, but the track is overall solid and one of the best on the album. “Jamaica Inn” is inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s novel of the same name, Tori dropping references to pirates and seafaring while crooning that “The sexiest thing is trust”. It’s corny yet true, backed-up with shuffling pieces of percussion, the odd gorgeous piano line and some lovely vocals. You’ll completely forget about it the instant it’s over, but it’s certainly not bad. “General Joy” fits the same mould; it seems to make reference to the Bush administration; specifically the President as the title character. Tori seems to be questioning his commitment to America, in lines like “General Joy, it seems you don’t love your bride/But that doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy “ and “General Joy, it seems you need a soldier girl – now ‘they’ have Liberty gagged”. It’s nice while it’s on, but that is all.
“Sleeps With Butterflies” was the album’s first single, and deservedly so. It’s a fairly predictable, conservative piano-ballad, but there are some pretty piano touches and sweet lyrics, and the chorus has enough fluidity and movement to make it fairly memorable. Factor in a nice, standard running time (three and a half minutes), and you have a perfectly serviceable tune. Similarly, once you get past some near-beatboxing by Tori on “Cars and Guitars”, there are some decent, memorable vocal sections and an okay chorus.
After a nice-if-hardly-spectacular opening set, “The Beekeeper” takes a dive with an amazingly drab middle section. The bulk of the material in this area fails not because it’s bad, but rather because there’s absolutely nothing interesting going on. “Ribbons Undone” is a torturous song-for-child with nothing worthwhile at all, while “Mother Revolution” serves as little more than background noodling and “Witness” collapses into a mire of dull, cheesy pseudo-funk that plods along for six minutes. It ends up sounding like a Macy Gray cast-off, and other songs like the faceless “Ireland” sound like your typical, irritating bland folk offerings complete with insipid lyrics (“Drivin’ in my Saab, on my way to Ireland…”). Thankfully, “Original Sinsuality” is a nice two-minute break with its musing on the true basis of Christianity, and the title track is a surprisingly complex and interesting mix of low, growling guitar work and electronica, coupled with the occasional soft vocal harmony; it could have fit in nicely on “To Venus and Back”.
The album’s final songs show a little bit of recovery after earlier problems. “Martha’s Foolish Ginger” has a nice military drum line, cute climbing piano and some pleasant vocal work as the track’s protagonist gets on the titular boat and wonders what would have happened “If those harbour lights were just half a mile inland…”. “Goodbye Pisces” is a fairly standard break-up song that neither bores nor enraptures, while “Hoochie Woman” is a bit of goofy fun that acts as a nice reprieve from the album’s needlessly serious tone: “Ooh ooh hoo! You can keep your hoochie!” “Marys of The Sea” is a great full-band rock number and the song where Tori sounds most involved in what she’s doing; her vocals are much more impassioned and there’s a nice transition between rocky and gentle parts. It’s a shame it’s not the album’s finale; that honour goes to “Toast”, which is an ode to Amos’ late brother. It’s peaceful and nice, but nothing to get excited about – which is a statement that applies far too often during the course of this album’s 79 minutes.
Overall, there is nothing incredibly bad or offensive on this record – it’s just that there’s equally nothing inspired and worth dwelling on. It’s perfectly suitable background music for doing the chores or reading, but fails at the level of closer analysis. The literary and artistic influences are intelligent but not explored well enough, and the musical expressions of these things take what could have been fiery and challenging and mutate it into sluggish, faceless kitchen-sink fare. While it’s certainly true that all of Tori Amos’ records require a degree of input from the listener to unravel their abstract complexities, there’s simply nothing worth here investing your time in exploring, and as such it becomes a leaden listen that could be more adequately marketed as a cure for insomnia. A noble attempt, but it’s ultimately dashed by a total lack of quality control.
America s queen of avant-garde adult pop follows up 2003 s Tales Of A Librarian best-of collection with this, her seventh studio album. On this self-p...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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