Tori Amos

Tori Amos. The Beekeeper. Epic Records

Originally released: 2005

Tori Amos suffers from the same affliction as Prince and other freakishly talented musicians: Too smart and too foolish to take direction, she overreaches and ends up making music that's too abstract and oblique. On her eighth album, she does something much less expected: She squanders her gifts on a bland record. At its worst, The Beekeeper suggests a female John Mayer or Jack Johnson. Many of these underwritten, underproduced tunes sound as if Amos could have composed them in the supermarket express lane. Her duet with Irish folk singer Damien Rice, "The Power of Orange Knickers," is surprisingly direct and catchy, but the arrangement is startlingly sterile and dull.

Fortunately, Beekeeper rallies in the second half. The title track brings back the flattering electronic sounds we heard on 1998's From the Choirgirl Hotel, and "Original Sinsuality" hearkens back to the harrowing starkness of Little Earthquakes. The frustrating part: With some ruthless editing and remixing, this maddeningly uneven eighty-minute disc could have been her best in ages.

BARRY WALTERS (Posted Feb 24, 2005)

Track List

1 Parasol

2 Sweet The Sting

3 The Power Of Orange Kickers

4 Jamaica Inn

5 Barons Of Suburbia

6 Sleeps With Butterflies

7 General Joy

8 Mother Revolution

9 Ribbons Undone

10 Cars And Guitars

11 Witness

12 Origional Sinsuality

13 Ireland

14 The Beekeeper

15 Martha's Foolish Ginger

16 Hoochie Woman

17 Goodbye Pisces

18 Marys Of The Sea

19 Toast

20 Garland (Bonus Track)