Customer Reviews

The Pretty Good Years: A Tribute To Tori Amos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

For the unauthorized "Tribute to Tori Amos", "The Pretty Good Years" may sell well, if only for an interesting look on some past Tori hits. You'll be disappointed. This is always going to to happen- expectations of a clone of the original singer will dash your possible liking of the newer one. If only that were so. It's not that at all for this album.

"Years", which is fully performed by British band E-Clypse and vocalist Jemma Price (mostly known for a previously released tribute to Kate Bush), is occasionally bareable. There are points where the music is distinctly Tori Amos-sounding. Still, part of the amazing thing about Tori was the fact that she could write, sing, and perform all on a single song.

Obviously, Price doesn't do this. The piano is top notch on "Silent All These Years", but it's not Tori Amos playing. It's not the same.

Price's voice, which may be best described as a combination of Annabella Lwin (from 80's band Bow Wow Wow known for their hit "I Want Candy") and Berlin (another '80's vocalist). It's thin. It's high. It doesn't stretch well. Her pitch on songs like "China" and "Caught a Lite Sneeze" are only occasionally on the mark, while she rips "Hey Jupiter" apart, shredding every essence on emotion the song possessed. It is true, however, that it's almost impossible to perform a song written by another artist, because the words will never mean exactly the same to you. There's still no excuse for drab, toneless talking on songs like "Winter" and "Leather".

Her best attempt is the album's opener, "Cornflake Girl", which rises hopes of a good CD. Her sound is slightly higher and nasal that one may expect, but she eventually glides well through it, even if it does feature a slightly less than welcome tinny sound at some points. It beats her worst attempt- a dreadful "Professional Widow".

"Professional Widow" is one of the most controversial songs of Tori's career. In the song she says three of the "seven words you can't say on television" (or some variation of them) five times in total. Price cowardly wavers her voice around them, especially one the final word of the song, making it sound like a donkey braying.

Price tries her best on songs like "Baker Baker" and "Crucify", but her voice is far too hard on the ears. Where she should be high, she's high, where's she's supposed to be low, she's high.

Interestingly enough, although the album is titled "The Pretty Good Years", the song "Pretty Good Year" is nowhere in sight. Thank you, Jemma Price, for partially knowing your limits.

When I purchased this CD I thought that it would be by multiple artists. Boy was I wrong! How unoriginal could a person possibly be. This girl sings all Tori's songs just like Tori does, only not as well. DO NOT buy this CD if you are a Tori fan. You will be disappointed, if not angry.

I have to say of this cd though I'm not good at English. I'm tori fan from Korea. Please understand if there's any broken on my expression.

Actually, sounds on this cd is good enough to hear to. Sings good, instruments are performed appropriatly. Specially, singer is very similar to Jewel,all songs even mainly played by accustic gitar.

But that is just all about this cd. While listening, at once, you'll feel kind of unpleasant thing about all of this. They plays totally COPY than Tribute to Tori. Very well maden, but has no worth as a tribute--I personally think it's too early to make any tribute to tori--. If they play copys of Tori like this in some club, yeah, I maybe would give them a clap. But, No, this is really not that situation.

A Tribute album is played by good famous musician. From the music, we feel greatness for a song, performer and also for tributed musician. And music has played diffrent, because performer has reanalyzed original one. But This album, sounds just like tori songs copyplayed. Nothing new. I think this was wrong from the planning idea basically. Maybe you're interested in this cd just because you're so into Tori and you maybe wonder how similar copy sounds like real Tori by curiosty. Now, after I buy this cd, I can say your curiosty is wrong. This album take advantage of it.

Nothing you can get from this one. Tori fans you don't need this one at all. You'd much better get buy Tori's other single cd or boot. You'll just anew how great how beautiful Tori's original songs are and you'll even feel guilty for Tori.

Sad. This album should've been titled, "Should've Kept Silent All These Years--Sessions From A Bad Karaoke Bar" because that's exactly what it sounds like. Sure, we all sing Tori in the shower, in the car, wherever, but at least the rest of us have the common sense not to put it on a record! Toriphiles--this is your alert to steer clear! Stick to the real thing--you'll be much better off.

As a huge Tori fan I was intrigued to find a tribute cd by various artists. Imagine my surprise to find the "various artists" was a 23 year old unknown English woman whose previous claim to fame was a tribute cd to Kate Bush! She has a good voice but, naturally, can't compare to Tori. Basically this is a cd of Tori covers. I wouldn't mind so much but they sound exactly the same as the originals. Nothing added, no re-interpritations. I keep thinking of Tori's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and can't help thinking this tribute could have been better. I guess there is some novelty in owning it but it isn't a must-have.

As an AVID Tori Amos fan (Ear With Feet), who has purchased everything Tori Amos has ever produced, I bought this CD with mediocre expectations. Obviously (and we should get this straight up front), NO ONE can equal Tori Amos. This is HER music, and only she can do it as it was intended. HOWEVER, I am not sorry I bought this CD, and I enjoyed it very much. WHY? Because Tori herself said, "I said 'you don't need my voice 'cause you have your own.'" I think Tori would really be honored to know that a young lady named Jemma Price thought enough of her music that she would want to do a tribute album, and express Tori's songs in "her voice." Now, don't go into this CD expecting a perfect Tori imitation. This girl has a voice of her own to project. She is (in my estimation) a cross between Jewel, Tori, Kate Bush and Bernadette Peters (that kind of whine/twang thing is going on). The musical backgrounds are respectable as well, although not intended to be perfect imitations of Tori's backgrounds. I especially enjoyed the acoustic guitar version of "Winter," and there was something about her version of "Crucify" that hit me deeply too.

In conclusion, as a fellow singer, I only wish I'd had the resources to do this album first. Tori is one of those singers who has really made it in the business, doing her own thing, and she DESERVES a tribute album, no matter what we all think. We should not downgrade this young lady because she doesn't sound exactly like Tori. She is not trying to. She is honoring a wonderful writer/singer/pianist who obviously affected her life in a positive way. I wish I could do as much for Tori. What a lovely way to say, "Tori, you mean a lot to me, and I want to say, 'thank you,' and this is what your songs mean to me and how I'd like to express them." For any young lady to step in the spotlight and sing Tori's songs takes great courage. Thank you, Jemma, for sharing your thoughts about Tori with us.

Sorry! I bought this cd "blind" not knowing what to expect. I guess I was hoping that it would be various artists interpreting Tori Amos songs. Instead, it's some hack singer trying to re-create, note-for-note, what can never be recreated. What a waste of money - this one's going straight to the used CD outlet.

I found this CD is a store here in Holland. It was cheap, so I decided to give it a go, together with the Kate Bush tribute this band did (no, it's not by various artists, it's a band, with a singer called Jemma Price). I only give this album two stars, because it lacks originality. The songs are still great, as they're Tori's, but I feel, if you do a cover, create an alternate version, something (completely) different from the original. This band stays so close to the original version - why bother buying this, then? And the vocals are, well, terrible at points! Some tracks sound like they've been recorded only once - false notes and all. This album may be cheap, but spend the extra few dollars to buy Under The Pink - that's value for money.

Wow. I own almost all Tori b-sides and albums and when I ran into this CD a couple years back I was super excited to see another artist's take on Tori's songs. Now, I'm not obsessive about the music, I welcome and love reworks of originals. But this CD is painful to listen to. It is one thing to cover someone's songs and put your own spin on them (just look at Strange Little Girls for example) but this CD offers nothing original or even uniquely its own. All they are doing, ALL they offer is slower, more boring, whiney replicas of the originals. What bothers me is that the instrumentation is almost exactly the same as the originals and the vocalist does do anything "new," she pretty much tries to sound as much like Tori as possible. I've heard more original reworkings of Tori Amos songs from Tori herself, and that's saying a lot for her.

It truly sounds like NO DOUBT decided to cover Tori...and no, they can't pull it off. When you get the opportunity to record your own album, you should do just that. The whole idea of an unknown somebody making an entire cd of Tori's songs (not changing them in the slightest) sort of bugs me, and probably frightens Tori. I close by saying...STAY AWAY unless you feel like laughing, of course.