Originally Posted by merman
Isn't "self indulgent" what she gets probably since Little Earthquakes?
She's come up with the shortest tracklist since Strange Little Girls, Scarlet's Walk was 18 tracks, The Beekeeper 19 tracks and one "b-side", and ADP had 23 tracks on the standard edition and, I think 3 "b-sides".
The concept also seems much more loose this time, more like a theme really. Of course, maybe she's going to speak up more on that topic in some time, but so far no mention of anything comparable with The Beekeeper's gardens system (actually the concept and system were pretty amazing on paper, it just didn't have that much effect on the listening experience), where she was probably the most elaborate to date, or American Doll Posse's five archetypal Dolls came up. I understood it that she's just challenging the concept and definition of "sin" in today's world, which is pretty interesting in itself.
May 19 seems so far away though it's really not... I'm hoping to get my hands on the deluxe edition on the day of the release, and not listening to a leak before that.
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this project is exciting and has potential for a couple reasons, although I'm trying to keep it down so as to not become disappointed potentially. This project occured in a way much similar as To Venus and Back, meaning it came out of spurts of creativity and happy accidents while she was supposed to finishing up work on other material. In the case of TVAB it was a b-sides rarities collection to finish up her record deal so she could move on and release new work, but that lead to random surprise creativity and some of her most experimental and amazing work. This time around, she was writing a lot of music on tour and they were putting together road footage montages for the eventual ADP tour DVD and suddenly all this music and ideas came to her, and that is where the visualettes came from. It is vague if they are actually footage from the road during the tour, or footage of the dolls, or what, but it kind of came out of left field I guess, and that is a good thing if you ask me.
Tori gets these huge concepts and works to have the albums tell these stories and sometimes they are so lofty it ends up holding her back. This time around there isn't any concept really, just a loose idea of "sin" and how it means many things and is conceptualized differently in different cultures. You could say Little Earthquakes is about the same thing and you wouldn't be stretching it too far. ADP, TBK, SW, SLG, they were all concept albums, the last time we had an album with a singular vague theme was From the Choirgirl Hotel really, and that was simply relating around miscarriages and the voices of the children who never were to be, etc. The same goes for all her earlier work, just kind of loose themes. So this is the first time in a long time she hasn't had a strong concept, so a lot of the ears with feet are super happy.
The title, I do agree, is a little indulgent. The photo is intriguing in a way, I mean at this point no one knows what to expect really. But I think the title coming from the name of a song is a good thing in the end, it shows that someone wasn't trying to hard to find a way to connect all the music in an umbrella category. The track length is a bit shorter and I'm not sure how I feel about that yet simply because 17 tracks can be just as long as the 23 on ADP, so there is no way to tell until the track lengths are revealed. I saw her live solo in Boston a few years back and she stretched out the songs and held out each note so long it almost became unenjoyable. When she is confined to following a set time structure with a band it can work out a lot better for her. So, at this current place and time, there is nothing but positive things to think about. Only a week to go to SXSW and we get to hear some new work, woo hoo!