strange little girl.

exhibit a: witchcraft, torment, conflicted tori - 90's win


i dug out a copy of the 2001 tori amos cover album 'strange little girls' at the radio station tonight. found myself drawn to playing the title track, cover of the 1982 single originally performed by the stranglers. as i frantically googled research, so i could sound half way articulate and composed during my on-air break, i learned that amos actually made a music video for this single, and it slowly came back to me. i was a freshman in college, at the university of wisconsin river-falls. i had a bad hackjob lesbian haircut, and wore all too many bright plaid pants. an unmentionable 19 day stint with an eyebrow piercing. way too much blue mascara. garbage and veruca salt posters, rip outs rather, from spin magazine, taped to my bulletin board poster wall in my concrete wall dorm room. but my real heroine/rock goddess of the time, was of course none other than myra ellen amos.

this got me thinking about my former vhs copy of her greatest hit music videos that i had picked up at laurie's planet of sound, long before the days that i had trashed my vcr to move into yuppie lakeview. the collection was pretty decent, but did not include any of her work post boys for pele. not that this is discounting much, although songs from the choirgirl hotel and to venus and back were noteworthy releases, as well as the aforementioned said covers record above.

but there was something about her videos, the kitschy 90's angsty cheese. the cringeworthy epitome of my awkward youth. thinking that smeared black eyeliner, red, tossled hair and razor sharp passive female aggression would make a difference, be the voice for all womenkind done wrong. to that, 29 year old me in 2012, retorts a loud LOLZ. tori, you reek of 90's camp. i find myself drawn/stuck to the 90's, as much as i try to stray and move on, somehow similar to the generation above me who still jams to van halen and def leppard. nirvana/tori amos/pixies, hell even a handful of songs by juliana hatfield, stone temple pilots, smashing pumpkins - still stick with me. this past weekend i even copied my old POE (lolz) cds, as well as green day's dookie, to my husband's encouragment to my iPod.

angsty cheese or not, i liked amos more when she was troubled. a colleague at the radio station tonight overheard a track i was playing from rotation by nas, which featured the late amy winehouse. 'i miss her,' she sighed. i turned around, 'but why though? sure, she had a nice voice, but her drug problem was worse. say she stayed alive and conquered her addiction to alcohol/drugs, then what?' and i thought about it, what would kurt cobain be doing if were still alive today? or jimmi hendrix, bradley nowel (now im just throwing random iconography rock dudes out there who i dont even particularly care for, just to prove a point). would these musician idols still be conquering their craft? or would they be overweight, bloated, used to bes, lucky to have a gig at ribfest in chicago some 15 years after their prime, still milking that dollar to put food on their tables? (ala poison, motley crue, or fuck it, even 10,000 maniacs who i just saw an advertisement on the metra bridge for playing some douchey street fest at damen/roscoe in september). the point is - noone's interested if there's no conflict. tori amos eventually got over her conflict with religion, moved on from her rape, and evolved from her miscarriage - to eventually marry a man, have his baby, and name her future albums after spiderwebs, beecatchers and other boringass adult contemporary bullshit. give me the writhing, church masturbation and bewitching tortured howls of little earthquakes anyday. i can't, won't and flat out refuse to listen to her new material.

reason being? happy people are boring. pop culture, and hell, even general fans of music, want torment. they want conflict. they want anger, sadness, lack of hope. that, or they just wanna hear about getting wasted, laid and whatever other bullshit chris brown or phonyass shitnugget bands like fun are spewing about.

so tori, she has quite the collection of music videos. and they're all pretty terrible. but i fucking welcome them on tuesday nights when i'm curled up in bed next to an obese cat named beans, patiently waiting for my sick husband to come home to bed. i guess this is as pg-13 as my personal torment gets these days, but at least i can cringe, reminiscing on tori's former days of awespiring agony.

'i got a bowling ball in my stomach, a desert in my mouth. figures that my courage would choose to sell out now.' - you tell 'em, homegirl.

exhibit b: here, tori gets bullied by a matchbox wolf and rocks her 'alt' little girl hair-do


exhibit c: one of my fave tori tracks, we find miss amos blindfolded and hogtied in the woods. will she survive?


exhibit d: tori looks bangin' in her club gear. but did she try to kill this little girl with ADHD by igniting her collection of aquanet and locking the doors?


exhibit e: tori takes her fascination with salvador deli, pick-up trucks, merry go rounds and raisin bran. torment? angst? just awesome, duh.


exhibit f: best powerpoint bathtub intro to any music video OF ALL TIME.


exhibit g: as in god save us all, this is what happens when someone becomes 'happy'.