Tori Amos — Strange Little Girls

Just as Tori presents us a different face on the fold out booklet (filled with pictures or herself dressed up in various styles), she offers us a lot of different musical faces on this CD. I presume Tori Amos does not need any introduction anymore, so I will spare you the biography you can find at the million and one Tori Amos fan sites. But for those of you who did not know yet, this is not a true new work by Tori Amos, but rather a CD filled with covers.

While covers all the songs form a whole and logical CD, the songs in itself can be very different in style, but in the end they all fit perfectly. She covers tracks from artists as different as Eminem and Slayer! She put a lot of effort into these covers, often changing the entire song so drastically it becomes hard to recognise. The songs have become her own and if you’re not familiar with some songs you might even be tricked into thinking they are her own compositions. So a big thumbs up there!

I won’t go into every cover on the album, partly because I am too lazy to do so, but mainly because I could write an essay about every single one. Overall the quality is extremely high, so no worries there. The first cover that really springs out to me is Eminem’s ’97 Bonnie & Clyde’. Tori’s version of this song (sung in the perspective of a guy who just murdered his wife, talking to his daughter) send shivers down my spine! I wasn’t aware of the Eminem version and never held him in high regard, but if the original is only half as scary as Tori’s cover I must give credit where credit is due.

In good Tori Amos tradition an emotionally unnerving song like ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ is followed by a more upbeat song. In this case the rather happy and bouncy title track ‘Strange little girl’. While not special in itself, it is so happy and bouncy that it just demands respect. It makes you want to jump around the room and spin circles, arms outstretched.

Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’ is perhaps the only disappointing song on this album. She stuck pretty close to the original and for me it lacks that trade mark Tori Amos sound, despite the whole girl with piano thing going on there. The following songs are all pretty good, but it’s ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ that really springs out again. This Beatles song is filled with samples of news about Lennon being shot. It really slams the message of the song down your throat. This bitter sweet combination (lyrics & samples) makes this a very powerful track.

Slayer’s ‘Reign in Blood’ is perhaps the song to cause the most controversy among metal fans. Tori surgically took the song apart and changed it into something almost totally new. I know this disappointed some Slayer fans, undoubtedly hoping to hear Tori Amos scream like Tom Araya over roaring guitars. Instead we get a very claustrophobic sounding piano song. It really sparks images with me of solders in a mist filled Vietnamese jungle.

She closes the album with a cover of Joe Jackon’s ‘Real Men’. Tori Amos once more slaps the homosexual issue in our faces (‘Raspberry Swirl’ anybody?). This cover is not that different from the original version, except for the thicker sound. Here however I think she did well not to change it much, as the original was already a very powerful song. Changing it too much would only diminish it.

All in all, while not a real Tori Amos CD, this has actually become a REAL Tori Amos CD. Once more she proves her genius (not that I ever doubted her). This is no cheap and quickly put together album, just made to squeeze another penny from fans. No, this album stands out proud among her other releases. This is Tori Amos at her best, and I recommend it to any fan. However if you’re just a fan of one of the bands she covered, like Slayer, you might not like what you hear.