Unrepentant Geraldines
9 May 2014
Mercury Classics
2.5 stars out of 5
Tori Amos lost her edge sometime around early 1999. Coming
after the excellent From the Choirgirl
Hotel, the bloated double CD To Venus
and Back was an epic disaster, and, with the exception of a brief
near-return to form with 2002’s Scarlet’s
Walk, everything she’s recorded since has been bland and forgettable. Unrepentant Geraldines does nothing to
rescue the once brilliant and vital artist from the quicksand of mediocrity. If
anything, it’s a feeble attempt to rise up that’s resulted, sadly predictably,
in Amos sinking a few more inches into the muck.
I know I’ve already utilized the adjective “bland” in this
review once, but I cannot stress this enough: this is some of the blandest
music Amos has ever made. I cannot even pretend to blame the production or the
demands of the record label for sanding off her edges and watering things down,
because it’s difficult to imagine that there was anything to sand or water to
begin with. A concept record about unapologetic women who refuse to compromise
is all fine and good, and her lyrical prowess is not the issue here. What is
problematic is Amos’s disinterest in investing any sort of emotion or intensity
in either her music or her performance.
When all the dust has settled, most of Amos’s ‘90s body of
work will still be considered an impressive achievement, and the drop off after
1998 will be seen as an unfortunate collapse of a once integral voice in
popular music. The repeated mis-steps since then are not the sign of a
misunderstood genius for whom the world isn’t ready; rather, they are the
stumblings of an artist who is out of step with herself, having forgotten what
made her powerful and interesting to begin with.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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