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March 4, 2005 > Arts & Entertainment > Rocker femmes return with varying success

Rocker femmes return with varying success

Marianne Faithfull: Before the Poison & Tori Amos: The Beekeeper

By Jonathan Schumann | Thresher Editorial Staff

Age has made Marianne Faithfull quite a badass. Her career has evolved from a prim, delicate ’60s vocalist to that woman who dated Mick Jagger in the ’70s to powerful, provocative singer/songwriter with her classic 1979 album Broken English. In the past decade, Faithfull’s work has been hit-or-miss, her best being 1999’s Vagabond Ways, with its catalog of fun, ironic and bittersweet ballads.

Her best until now, that is. Faithfull’s new album Before the Poison reverberates with a melancholy longing only she can deliver. Her voice, so distinctively gravelly and seductive, draws us in and refuses to let go as early as the first song, “The Mystery of Love,” one of five collaborations with indie goddess P.J. Harvey. As Faithfull sings, “Tell me have you changed your mind?/I am a fool/Because of you,” Harvey’s presence is strongly felt. The rough and unrefined sound recalls Harvey’s 2004 release Uh Huh Her.

Faithfull covers one of that album’s best songs, “No Child of Mine,” and manages to top the original. Another highlight is “In the Factory,” a song about idealized, impossible love. Our hearts break as Faithfull croons, “Did I have to pay such a heavy price?/How I loved you more than my own life/Just to be you and me/almost real almost free.”

Before the Poison also includes worthy collaborations with Nick Cave of the Bad Seeds, coming off the success of last year’s Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus, and film composer Jon Brion, whose work includes the scores for Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and I Heart Huckabees.

Before the Poison is a beautifully rendered exploration of lost love, destructive love and impossible love. While its aftertaste is certainly bittersweet, Faithfull’s soulful cynicism is distinctive, welcome and unparalleled.

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I have a semi-shocking confession. I have been a closet Tori Amos fan for years. This singer/songwriter’s obtuse, dark piano ballads have guided me through darker moments of years past. Her lyrics have always been a labyrinth of metaphor and allusion, and the great pleasure of every past album has been the search for meaning among the mystery.

In the last few years, Amos offered listeners two fascinating concept albums. 2001’s Strange Little Girls, an album of covers, tackled famous songs about women sung by men. Amos’ renditions of Tom Waits’ “Time,” Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and the Velvet Underground’s “New Age” successfully breathed life into the old standards while negotiating the shaky ground of sexual politics.

A more traditional concept album, 2002’s Scarlet’s Walk, followed a fictional character on a road trip across the United States. This album offered some of Amos at her most searing and accessible.

Her new album, The Beekeeper, seems most closely in line with Walk’s softer sound — but without any of that album’s deeper meaning or appeal. It is as if these songs have been stripped of Amos’ trademark rough edges and cryptic lyricism, leaving only a soft, gooey center. With an overwhelming 19 songs, the album features too many forgettable, defanged soft rock ballads to warrant much attention. Amid the rubble is the appealing single “Sleeps With Butterflies,” which has a dreamy, lackadaisical quality.

The only other song of merit is a duet with folk icon Damien Rice called “The Power of Orange Knickers.” Even here, with an appealing sound, Amos’ ridiculous lyrics strangle the potential. In the end, I yearned for Rice’s classic album O, which features the ubiquitous but excellent “Blower’s Daughter.”

Amos has never really faltered like this. Sure, her 1998 entry From the Choirgirl Hotel was a bit off the mark. But it is as if this rambling, unfocused, soft-core effort screams for career resuscitation.

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