Muzak: No, Virginia...(Pt. 1 Prelude to a Review)

I loves me some Tori Amos.

From 1992 to 1998 I was privileged enough to be able to hear four amazing studio albums from her, plus a plethora of singles, remixes and side projects. It was some of the most powerful music I have ever known.

She was very much a product of her musical era, a 90’s singer/songwriter, showing off the softer, but no less tortured, side of grunge/alternative.

Then, in 1998, she seemed to make peace with many of her inner demons and her music went from soul-searing to light and breezy, and I lost my connection to her.

I enjoy female singers much more than I enjoy male ones. I touched on part of the reason for that in my Weezer Red album review. I find the majority of male-fronted musical ventures, who even touch on the subject of love, to be nothing more than sad, sappy bastards who waste my time moaning about how much they love some unobtainable woman.

I spent the majority of my late teens and early twenties doing the same thing so I fail to see the appeal. Why should I pay to hear some wanna-be rockstar complain about how, when he waves around his popularity and a fistful of cash, some groupie doesn’t throw herself at his feet fast enough. Gee I can totally relate to that scenario.

Pass.

So I found myself gravitating to female artists, the angrier the better.

Which is where I stumbled onto the Dresden Dolls. They opened for NIN at a concert about four years ago. I generally try to avoid opening acts like the bubonic plague but I’d made an exception for this one because I wanted to be as close to the stage as possible when Trent and Co. made their appearance.

Watching the Dolls (Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione) play on stage that night was akin to listening to Little Earthquakes for the first time. I’ve seen plenty of concerts and watched lots of musicians strut and preen but I’d never seen someone actually play themselves to the point of collapse before. This wasn’t music it was a live exorcism. There was a demon in that keyboard goddamit and Palmer was going to get that thing out of there if she had to rip it apart with her bare hands.

Hells yah.

I was sold. I had my Tori back. I had the anger, the passion and the sheer human pathos digitally etched into my brain. This is what I wanted out of my music.

So I bought the album, played it all day, every day, for about a month, drove my roommate at the time abso-friggin-lutely nuts and thanked my stars that I’d been lucky enough to find the Dresden Dolls.