Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos

Pros: It's Tori - beautiful, unconventional melodies and arrangements, great songwriting
Cons: Over-long and somewhat unwieldy

I’ll start by saying this: I love Tori Amos' music, and I doubt that I could even pretend to objectivity about anything that she might release - and if that renders me inept to review her latest offering, Scarlet's Walk, then so be it. But...

Pros: A Sorta Fairytale, Don't Make Me Come To Vegas, Taxi Ride
Cons: Too long, too boring, over produced, unemotional

Flaming red hair, explosive vocals, and a piano characterize Tori Amos. A southern Christian girl at heart (her daddy's a minister), Amos has since the early 1990's carved out a fantastic career. She is respected as a singer, musician, and songwriter ...

Pros: Her voice sounds amazing
Cons: A bit long for my tastes

Scarlet’s Walk is Myra Ellen Amos’ 7th full-length album and her first on the Epic label. Better known to most folks as Tori Amos, “Scarlet’s Walk” chronicles the journey of “Scarlet” (who or whatever...

Pros: Ethereal, gorgeous arrangements
Cons: A little redundant towards the end and way too long.

Tori Amos returns once again with a collections of songs that basically are about a woman traveling across the country. There's a lot of story and creative ideas that went into this album but I didn't do a lot of research. I decided just to take the ...

Pros: Great vocals, Decent lyrics, Musically and instrumentally interesting, Duration.
Cons: None of significance (Minor slurring on some of the lyrics)

Today I find myself considering the body of my music reviews and finding myself somewhat troubled. There are very few perfect albums in my estimation and I try to reserve my five-star reviews for the perfect albums. I'm feeling strange, though, ...

Pros: Where do I begin?
Cons: None. What?! None?! Yeah, None.

Whoa. Finally. Three years after she released her previous album (not counting Strange Little Girls, which was filled with so many strange covers that I don’t consider it to be a real album), Tori is back. It hasn’t really been that long...

Pros: Clarity in songwriting, performance.
Cons: Some tracks are fairly short.

A few years ago, Madonna announced her first tour in seven years. Before fans rushed to buy tickets there was much talk about what she’d sing and do on stage. Some wanted a return to her golden day antics, yet Madonna publicity announced that those...

Pros: Production values, vocals, and accessible lyrics.
Cons: Oh, go away, you.

They say that change can bring great new beginnings, and the career of Tori Amos is a perfect example of such. During the first phase of Amos' career, she was sucked into and fronted a late 1980's pop/metal band called Y Kant Tori ...

Pros: Tori's voice and piano sound lovely.
Cons: Boring, repetitive, and overlong.

Tori Amos fans are strange. They know this though; they revel in their shunning of the mainstream. Tori fans are not the head cheerleaders or prom queens of their high schools. More likely the Tori fan is artistic, doodles during class and writes...

Pros: Tori returns to fine form once more.
Cons: Not enough angst for some; long album (18 tracks).

I wasn’t exactly bowled over at first by ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ (2002). Yet an intangible beauty manifested itself all the same. A few more spins, and voila! ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ would show a Tori Amos who had returned to fine form once more. It would possess ...

Pros: Beautiful melodies and vocals. Features some of Tori's strongest lyrical offerings.
Cons: A few weak songs; not enough variation.

Flash back to approximately a year and a half ago: I'm sitting in a movie theatre, waiting for a movie to start, and a vaguely familiar piano melody starts floating over the loud speakers. "Hmmmm...." I think; "Isn't that Tori Amos? That's ...

Pros: ---
Cons: ---

I know very little of Tori Amos. I only heard 2 songs from her, "Spark" and "Raspberry Swirl", and that was it. These past few months my interest in Tori Amos has grown and I thought about getting one of her albums. So 2 days ago, I went out to look for ...

Pros: Bracingly ambitious scope; a few superb songs; nifty bonus stuff
Cons: Ultimately doesn't gel; some weak songs

Update Dec. 17, 2002
On December 17, 2002, Tori was a live guest on the music program "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on KCRW-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate in Santa Monica, Calif. Tori fans would've loved it! It was just a girl and her...

Pros: A number of thoughtful yet catchy songs. Some nice political commentary.
Cons: Unless listened to very closely, it passes by as a homogeneous, bland mass.

A ‘sonic novel’ encompassing a cross-country US trip, “Scarlet’s Walk” sees Tori Amos settling comfortably into the titular woman’s shoes as she explores America’s political and social climates following the September 11th ...

Pros: Mature, organic, and fully realized.
Cons: Lengthy. Emotionally oblique.

Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk is so dense in its own personal mythology that it might at first seem like it is at once impenetrable and overwhelming. Though this release might draw parallels to Amos's other eighteen track monstrosity Boys For Pele, the...