Apr 18th 07

Tori Amos and her posse to arrive May 1

Tori Amos - American Doll Posse Album CoverTori Amos, likely my favorite musician in existence, has reinvented her music and look yet again on her 9th studio album, American Doll Posse. The “posse” actually consists of five female personalities — Santa, Clyde, Isabel, Tori, and Pip — all played by Tori herself, and each has her own few songs on the album. Tori explained the origin of the girls in an interview with WE tv: “Once I began to recognize that there were many different musical styles, structurally, I could hear that the songs were not just coming from the voice of one woman.” In an audio clip on her MySpace page that exemplifies Tori’s somewhat eccentric, and fantastic, sense of humor, Tori informs us that the “they will all be going on tour.” “We’re out shopping right now,” she says, “and I can’t keep ahold of a’one of them.”

You can purchase her first single, “Big Wheel”, from the iTunes Music Store, and listen to “Big Wheel” and, my favorite so far, “Bouncing Off Clouds” on her MySpace page as well. Both songs are fantastic and have me extremely pumped for the album’s release on May 1.

Specific details regarding the girls in the posse have already been revealed, and each girl maintains her own blog. I love how the blogs are maintained across a variety of blogware websites, greatly enhancing the illusion of various and distinct personalities. For example, on Blogger there’s Clyde, an appreciator of art that applies how one might examine a work of art to her relationships: “When I meet a person I try and see not their mask, with its defenses, but what’s underneath.” Isabel’s blog, on the other hand, because she is a photographer, exists on TagWorld. So far, Isabel is my favorite member of the posse, described as the “most outwardly political of the bunch.” She opens the album with a short, yet sharp, political number titled “Yo George” that is, of course, directed towards our Commander-in-Chief (ha), President George Bush. You can listen to it on Tori’s site, but here are the lyrics to give you a sense of where Isabel stands:

I salute to you, Commander, and I sneeze
‘Cause I have now an allergy to your policies, it seems
Where have we gone wrong, America?
Mr. Lincoln, we can’t seem to find you anywhere
Out of the millions, from the deserts to the mountains
Over prairies to the shores
Is this just the madness of King George? Yo George
Is this just the madness of King George? Yo George
Well, you have the whole nation on all fours

As I said, the album is out May 1. Get it.