So… what’s your verdict?
My 2 cents: this is one of the most interesting selection of covers I have ever heard, especially as I know many of the original songs very well. I particularly like her versions of I’m not in love and I don’t like Mondays, and especially Tom Waits’ Time - this comes close to being the best thing she has ever done. Only *Heart of Gold *is a bit over the top for me.
On a side note, I liked the gimmick that you can buy the CD in a variety of different cover pictures.
My wife has it, I’ve listened to it a few times. The song that mentions rattlesnakes is pretty good (can’t remember the title). I also like the cover of Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’, even though the only thing it has in common with the original is the lyrics.
Conceptually, I think the album is great. Tori is singing songs by men and giving them a new feminine voice. The cover of Eminem’s Bonnie & Clyde '97 is worth the price of the album itself.
Heart of Gold? Man, when I heard that Neil Young and Tori Amos were going to somehow come together… it was the best thing I’d heard since they made Star Wars pez. It was the first song I listened to after i brought the CD home. And I was sorely disappointed. Probably my least favorite cover on the album.
Time by Tom Waits is a pretty powerful song on its own. What Tori did with it… well, it didn’t seem as imaginative as a lot of the other covers. Beautifully sung, but not as re-imagined as most of the CD. (I still like the Tom Waits version better.)
I hear tell that Tori put out this CD kind of quickly in order to get out of her contract with Atlantic Records. Strange Little Girls is probably my least favorite of her albums, but supposedly the all new one she has up her sleeve for a new label is pretty rockin’. Of course, this is all just word-of-mouth rumors and such.
After hearing so many B-Side and bootleg covers from Tori, I was definitely looking forward to this album. I liked most of the covers, but a couple stood out for me…
97 Bonnie and Clyde just gave me a 4 hour case of the willies. She was so disturbing in that performance, I couldn’t handle listening to it. I still can’t. I burned a back-up copy and omit the song, and I use that now. What sort of coward am I? I ran away from a song…
I Don’t Like Mondays was just incredible. I had never heard the original (as my SO tells me, I lived under a rock for most of my life, I prove her correct daily) so I had no reference for this version, but after hearing the original version, I like this one better by far. One little hitch, I listen with headphones most of the time, and something in that sound bugs my eyes out. I begin to get an unstoppable left to right shift in my vision, so I can’t read or write when listening to it. Doesn’t happen in the car, at least.
I think that it’s quite an improvement over the studio disc of To Venus and Back, although I’m reserving judgement until the next disc of originals. I find the most compelling tracks on the disc to be " '97 Bonnie & Clyde" and “Heart of Gold” even though they’re definitely not my favorites by any means.
I really dig “Real Men”. I haven’t heard the original so I have to basis of comparison, but her cover really moves me. Very powerful.
The one song I don’t get much out of is “I’m Not In Love”; it reminds me too much of the stuff I didn’t like on the studio disc of To Venus and Back.
Overall though I’d say that Strange Little Girls reminds me most of Under the Pink for reasons I can’t really explain. Did anyone else get that impression?