at the moment:
Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos
this album is to credit for imparting me with an understanding and love for a land I had never taken an interest in. As an American we can get so caught up with what it means to be an American, as a social and political creature, and we talk about this land, America, as being only 300 years old, but when you start to talk about the land, and the inherent spirit in this place we all live but take for granted, it is taken into another realm entirely. I've always loved Native American culture and tradition, but this album was something entirely different, it was the history of the land we call America presented in sonic form and told through the story of a fictional character named Scarlet. It is such a difficult work to digest, I admittedly liked it least out of all her works when it was released (which is ironic given that A Sorta Fairytale, the lead-in single, was a radio success and what caught my attention in the first place). However, once I really started to think about the music, the lyrics, the story, and I read the accompanying A Scarlet Story (which explains the story of Scarlet as she travels through all 50 states), it started to unfold for me. So many of the songs on this album are so devastatingly beautiful, it just hard to resist.
top picks: A Sorta Fairytale, Your Cloud, I Can't See New York, Taxi Ride, Pancake, Virginia, Gold Dust.