The 1990s in 10 Albums: Boys for Pele (1996)
It’s gotta be big.
By the mid-1990s, the generally accepted marketing cycle for albums — from writing, to recording, to releasing, to touring, to downtime — had become 2 years for most acts; maybe 3 years for larger ones, with colossuses such as Metallica and U2 entitled to fuck around for 4–5 years. But, even in the early Internet age, mass media had allowed a strange thing to happen: 2 years was enough time for the ground to shift under anyone’s feet.
The Smashing Pumpkins epitomised this. Having released Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in October 1995 and sold millions, it wasn’t wholly unreasonable for them to assume, once they returned in June 1998, that they’d be greeted with triumph. Except they weren’t — sales slumped by 75%.
Similarly, Tori Amos never quite seemed to have the major moment she might’ve had as the second half of the 1990s arrived. From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998) seemed to arrive too late to truly capitalise on Arman van Helden’s remix of “Professional Widow”. And if any album was going to ride on the electronica wave early, it sure as fuck wasn’t going to be Boys for Pele.
In fairness, Amos was already rich and contented enough from her first two efforts, giving her the latitude to create — and I quote someone else here — her “most difficult/stark/piano-harpsichord-shrieking-catharsis LP”.
Most of this description is unfounded. Boys for Pele is difficult in its spartan arrangements, especially for those used to modern, often-cluttered production, but really, the one track which lives up to stereotype is “Professional Widow” — which has the misfortune to be the best-known track off the entire album. Opener “Horses” is much more of what you’re in for, although it is also meandering, the piano softening the effect comparing to “Widow”.
Boys for Pele is also the album where Amos’ accent and singing voice in general starts to get a little abstract — see, in “Horses”, the line “I can’t geaux/you said so”. But the shift isn’t all there yet — see also “Marianne”, which could’ve appeared on previous album Under the Pink. And the lyrical concerns also echo that previous album, in many respects. “Muhammad My Friend” is effectively the sequel to “God”, once again noting how religion diminishes and sidelines women.
Is Boys for Pele a classic? It certainly stands apart; every other Tori Amos album is an easier listen (plus or minus your tolerance for “Big Wheel”). In the second half, the spare arrangements start to run together a little; “In the Springtime of His Voodoo”, a song whose title isn’t nearly as wacky and offbeat as the actual song, is a welcome changeup. At over 70 minutes across 18 tracks, it was one of many albums signalling the 1990s as the CD Age — what would seem like indulgence across two slabs of vinyl became much less decadent when contained within one shiny plastic-coated metal doodad.
Yet this was also a crucial move away from potential formula for Amos. “Early Tori” is encapsulated in Under the Pink; to stay there would’ve been to be trapped there. In the 2000s, Tori Amos went through a lengthy valley in both sales and critical acclaim (The Beekeeper appears to have been the nadir, appropriately arriving in 2005). The sales haven’t returned — she remains a somewhat niche concern — but the acclaim has, and the roots of it are arguably here. Like PJ Harvey before her, Tori Amos made a good album, but as importantly in the long run, a necessary one.
