Boys for Pele

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Boys for Pele, the title of Tori Amos's epic third album, is as awkward and confusing as the music inside. Though it sounds like a recruitment slogan for Little League soccer, the name actually refers to the lost temples of feminine divinity. Pele, you see, is the Hawaiian volcano goddess; the boys, well, they're the sacrifices that quell the rumbling lady's rage. Attempting to regain fires stolen long ago, Pele rewrites the crucifixion to star a girl Jesus and in doing so conjures a forgotten matriarchal mythology. While Amos's characters--Jupiter, Muhammad, Lucifer--are male by name, the aural landscape into which they're thrown is as symbolically and expressionistically female as Georgia O'Keeffe's skull-and-roses paintings. Pele is a complex and formless--and often impenetrable--work of gothic-pop chamber music, both beautiful and ghostly in its nearly complete reliance on Amos's rolling Bosendorfer grand piano, chilling harpsichord (which she bangs like a courtly punk rocker), and acrobatic voice (as earthy as Joni Mitchell's and as otherworldly as Bjork's). Unfortunately, she takes us only halfway: her songs engage and challenge us to understand, but the imagery offers few clues to help us crack their frustrating opacity. Pele ends up as much a pretentious and self-indulgent trip as it is a synthesis of talent, imagination, and skewed vision. Still, there's reason to celebrate that an album as formalistically and thematically alien to pop audiences as Pele would win such quick success upon its original release. --Roni Sarig --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Boys for Pele
Average customer rating:

Notes on the Second Greatest Album of All Time

"Wit, fire, grace..."

Her lowest brings one of her highest

Music from the soul

MASTERPIECE!!!!

Boys for Pele
Tori Amos
Manufacturer: Atlantic / Wea
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music
Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music
General | Rock | Styles | Music
Heroes | Warner Brothers Records | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Under the Pink

From the Choirgirl Hotel

Little Earthquakes

To Venus and Back

Scarlet's Walk

ASIN: B000002J88
Release Date: 1996-01-23

Tracks:

Beauty Queen/Horses
Blood Roses
Father Lucifer
Professional Widow
Mr Zebra
Marianne
Caught A Lite Sneeze
Muhammad My Friend
Hey Jupiter
Way Down
Little Amsterdam
Talula
Not The Red Baron
Agent Orange
Doughnut Song
In The Springtime Of His Voodoo
Putting The Damage On
Twinkle

Amazon.com

Boys for Pele, the title of Tori Amos's epic third album, is as awkward and confusing as the music inside. Though it sounds like a recruitment slogan for Little League soccer, the name actually refers to the lost temples of feminine divinity. Pele, you see, is the Hawaiian volcano goddess; the boys, well, they're the sacrifices that quell the rumbling lady's rage. Attempting to regain fires stolen long ago, Pele rewrites the crucifixion to star a girl Jesus and in doing so conjures a forgotten matriarchal mythology. While Amos's characters--Jupiter, Muhammad, Lucifer--are male by name, the aural landscape into which they're thrown is as symbolically and expressionistically female as Georgia O'Keeffe's skull-and-roses paintings. Pele is a complex and formless--and often impenetrable--work of gothic-pop chamber music, both beautiful and ghostly in its nearly complete reliance on Amos's rolling Bosendorfer grand piano, chilling harpsichord (which she bangs like a courtly punk rocker), and acrobatic voice (as earthy as Joni Mitchell's and as otherworldly as Bjork's). Unfortunately, she takes us only halfway: her songs engage and challenge us to understand, but the imagery offers few clues to help us crack their frustrating opacity. Pele ends up as much a pretentious and self-indulgent trip as it is a synthesis of talent, imagination, and skewed vision. Still, there's reason to celebrate that an album as formalistically and thematically alien to pop audiences as Pele would win such quick success upon its original release. --Roni Sarig

Customer Reviews:

Notes on the Second Greatest Album of All Time.......2007-05-09

What can one say about "Boys for Pele" that hasn't been said before?

This is one CD that I have been through so many times - first on cassette in 1996, then on CD in 1998. After I lost that I remember burning it off a friends' copy and that was stolen. Then I downloaded the entire thing, burnt a copy of it. Somehow that got lost. I bought a used copy from a CD Warehouse in Florida in 2002 and I have no idea where that went. Today, I have it on my Ipod, so theres nothing left to lose.

This is most definitely one of my Top 10 Desert Island discs. It has a little bit of everything, but at the same time isn't really 'commercial' in the true sense of the word (though if you remember rightly, this did debut at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart back in '96, which is pretty darned good!).

The magic of this album lies in its deep lyrics, and very, very depressing instrumentation. It is a 'hard' album to get into, in that sense, but well worth the investment. I couldn't get into much of it upon first listen, except for 'Father Lucifer', which I thought was very timely and inspirational (apart from a killer tune). I also remember thinking when I first heard it, how similar it seemed to Fiona Apples' "Tidal" CD which came out around the same year. Both albums are similar in their instrumentation in some way, but this is much darker and more meaningful than Fiona's equally stellar debut.

Standout tracks are many. I particularly like replaying "In The Springtime of his Voodoo". In the beginning, I had a love-hate relationship with this CD. In many ways, this disc has the most 'personality' of all Amos' albums because it seems to be a living, breathing thing all of its' own (buy it and you'll know what I'm talking about). It always leaves me feeling as if there is a lot about it that I have not yet understood, and the multiple-meaning lyrics and subject matter will probably never be fully dissected or understood.

However, if you're into music as a passion and as something that life is built upon, then this disc is surely an indispensable part of your life. Personally, I rate this higher than The Beatles "White Album" and all those typical CDs you find littering Top 100 Best Album Ever lists. What is incomprehensible in this day and age is how few people still know of this album, and what an achievement it is.

Special mention must be made of the track "Caught a Lite Sneeze" - now this is one track I loved instantly and still finds repeat plays on my Ipod. Another favorite is 'Talula', and the underrated 'Muhammad my Friend'. Tori touches upon political, spiritual and socio-economic issues here, and in her standard fashion has some scathing things to say about all of these. However, the cohesive theme here is very much the Phoenix rising from the flames, which if you think about it, is something any human being can relate to in any stage of his life - which is exactly what makes this record so pertinent.

"Boys for Pele" also standardly receives praise from students of the piano - Tori has rarely sounded so adept at the instrument, and the multi-layered instrumentation that permeates this entire recording is definitely a high point. Coming as it did after the much shorter (yet coherent) "Under The Pink", this was the album that consolidated Tori Amos as a creative musical and lyrical genius. I recommend that you get it now, and discover (or rediscover) one of the most underrated treasures in the world of music.

A side note - Listening to this after listening to Toris' 2007 album "American Doll Posse" is somewhat overwhelming. The CD stands the test of time beautifully and is vintage Amos in the best way possible. It made me realize how much fire Tori had back in 1996 and how she kept pushing the envelope back then - her recent effort appears more tepid then, but I guess that only serves to highlight the beauty of this album.

Get this album if you're into songwriting and dark, haunting melodies. You'll realize how many singer-songwriters are posers, and how much talent Tori Amos brought to the genre.

Five Stars. An unmissable Album.

"Wit, fire, grace...".......2007-04-27

What does one mean when one says 'pretentious'? Perhaps some hear wickedness in music and recoil, take offense, cower back and scream - Pretentious! Contrary to some opinions there is no self-adulation to be found in a minute of this; I assure you of that... after all music since Wagner, from Schonberg to Staind, is for the most part precisely the sickness that Tori Amos heals. It is simply a lie, a call out to the most pathological senses in a human being; undeserving egotism, love of pity, a loss of sense in any sense of the word at all.

Tori Amos is not a being to be reasonably figured out, nor to be marveled at unfoundedly. Rather there is an understanding one worthy of her comes to with her work, and one must pay dearly for it! She shows no humility, because she does not need to; her most petty insecurities are transfigured within her to among the loftiest sentiments speakable. Especially this album is a departure from reality, so it seems - but more deeply it is a return to reality, a divine gust tearing through the art of lying, through Wall Street's modern life and times, through the parasitic decandence of a political ideal, through anything at all which stands because it convinces itself to do so. The power whose magic is powerlessness, the great contradiction of spirituality; these are embodied in an album so aptly steeped in myth.

She is not a master of arrangement, nor is she a fantastic pianist, but none of that matters at all (said by a worshipper of Beethoven and no other, may I add). And still she has the nerve to interject the wistful smile of Father Lucifer with a fugue, to violently, volcanically force together her most sinister howls and her most impassioned dedication to melody into the same song (Professional Widow) and follow this with a joke (Mr. Zebra), as though it flew by her completely unnoticed, as though we are meant to make nothing of it. Her voice is unparalleled in the history of music - this is certain - one must return to a piece written in the 11th century (Hildegard von Bingen's "Slice for St. Ursula") to find even an attempt to impart to immortality such transcendent mysticism through a voice alone. And no singer I have ever heard takes that opportunity. Never, having heard Vivaldi arias of unimaginable difficulty, having heard the ineffable flood of the songs of Schubert or the ethereal rivers of Sigur Ros, could I even conceive of any other voice that even approaches the realms of hers. The closest comparison I can think of, is to imagine a synergy of a true Flamenco singer (in Flamenco one sings as though one is possessed and drowning in heavenly fire) and a conjured mezzo-soprano from past centuries who moved every audience who heard her sing to crumble and weep on cue, with each caress of a note. In her world carrying a tune is a formality one respects when one feels like doing so; the inner spirits in her voice fly far above concord and discord, it is sheer transcendence of everything.

It is very easy to be confused by Boys for Pele, with its range from dangerous introversion to insatiable lust. It does not settle on a single mood for more than a few minutes; at times it finds itself disturbingly wicked, longing, comical, vulnerable, mystical, furious... but to be obfuscated by this is to be ignorant to the meanings of the album and of her art in general. And the one constant flow of it - its uncompromising honesty and genuninity - casts it off from mundane mortal shores and sails it into a world perhaps best described by Friedrich Nietzsche...

"light feet, wit, fire, grace; the dance of the stars; the great logic; the exuberant spirituality; the southern shivers of light; the smooth sea - perfection.-"

Her lowest brings one of her highest.......2007-01-17

Boys for Pele as many have said might not be the first one you want start out with if you are budding Tori Amos fan (or Ears With Feet), simply for the fact that some of these songs get down right ugly. But Tori has an amazing talent for showing beauty in ugliness, and in my opinion it has never been more apparant here. These are my favorites from Pele:

Blood Roses: I think the whole album contains the best lyrics from Tori, but this song in particular speaks a lot to me (you've cut out the flute from the throat of the loon at least when you cry now he can't even hear you) and as its first spot in this album, the harpischord is quite violent in its debut which fits painfully well with the song.

Father Lucifer: This is where the album first reaches a sense of happiness (even though it is only preparing for the darkness of Professional Widow) and a moment of elation is captured when Tori sings "Nothins' gonna stop me from flo-o-oating"

Marianne: The theme itself is wonderful as Tori pays tribute to a death of a loving young woman she knew in school who was thought to have commited suicide. The music is sweeping and sad and takes you away to what feels to be a completely different time.

Doughnut Song: What Pele means to me is a struggle to let somebody go that you've been dependant on for so long, and in the end to make peace with it. With Doughnut I feel that struggle the most, and that bittersweet poignancy of doing what you sometimes have to do.

[...]

Music from the soul.......2007-01-09

This album has been my friend for many years. I have gone through many copies, thank goodness for the I-Pod. Tori taps into emotions that are often felt, but not always expressed. From raw sexuality to bitter emotional pain she takes you on a trip rarely experienced with just one album. I wouldn't be able to survive with out it.

Jason McCarley
Salt Lake City, Utah

MASTERPIECE!!!!.......2006-10-27

This is her masterpiece. God, such a brave record! Totally unihibited and mind-blowing! Music never sounded so rich, emotional, crazy and wonderfully experimental (except Kate Bush's The Dreaming, another huge masterpiece)! The concept this time is finding your own fire and not stealing it from others like a draining vampire. Pele, the hawain goddess was her muse for this record and what a muse! Fantastic and brilliant!

Average customer rating:

A disappointing alternate version of a great album.
Great album ruined
AVOID THIS VERSION OF THE CULT ALBUM!!!
Putting the Damage on...

Boys for Pele
Tori Amos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Adult Alternative | Pop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000024IPL

Tracks:

Horses
Blood Roses
Father Lucifer
Professional Widow
Mr. Zebra
Marianne
Caught a Lite Sneeze
Muhammad My Friend
Hey Jupiter
Way Down
Little Amsterdam
Talula
Not the Red Baron
Agent Orange
Doughnut Song
In the Springtime of His Voodoo
Putting the Damage On
Twinkle

Album Description

Limited edition of 1996 album with mixes of two album tracks, 'Professional Widow' (Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix) & BT's 'Talula' (The Tornado Mix), replacing 'In The Springtime Of His Voodoo' and the original version of 'Talula'. 18 tracks total. EastWest release.

Customer Reviews:

A disappointing alternate version of a great album........2005-01-16

A very unnecessary release put out by Atlantic to showcase the success of Armand Van Helden's remix of "Professional Widow." The remix is placed after the original version of the song and largely breaks up the albums feel, and quite frankly, some of its integrity. And since "Pele" is a longer album, the remix displaces "In the Springtime of His Voodoo," further disturbing the album. The original release of "Boys for Pele" is a complex and often beautiful, though sometimes harsh, piece of work that asks the listener to look deeper. Bottom line: unless you're a serious collector, stick with the original release of the album - less money, less hassle, and a lot more of the piano songstress's intricately woven world.

Great album ruined.......2003-02-27

A 'special' version of a CD that is to be avoided at all costs. It was an attempt to cash in on the success of the remix of 'Professional Widow'. However anyone who bought this for the remix almost certainly hated the rest of the album, and anyone who bought the album as the whole would have hated having the remix slapped into the middle of it. The two styles (remix vs the rest) are so violently different it hurts.

If you want the album (and to me it rates 5 stars) get the regular version complete with 'In the Springtime of His Voodoo'. If you want the Professional Widow remix, buy the single. Just don't buy this triumph of commercial opportunism over musical taste.

AVOID THIS VERSION OF THE CULT ALBUM!!!.......2002-07-28

BUYERS BEWARE! This is not the original edition of Boys For Pele. Whoever substitutes original Tori songs for REMIXES should be crucified indeed. How dare they take out In The Springtime of His Voodoo to put on that Professional Widow remix???? Honestly, I am sure Tori was unaware of this, she'd have never allowed it. Look for the original album!

Putting the Damage on..........2000-08-14