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Top
magazine
(a
free UK Tower Records publication) Tori herself has no time for “the little box that sits on
people’s desk which I call The Alien. So much information, so fast - oh hello?” A little white dog saunters past on the
windswept cliff in Cornwall where we’re sitting - Tori and her English engineer
husband have a house here. It stops, puts its head on one side and looks at
Tori quizzically, part intimacy, part challenge, part animal curiosity, which,
oddly, is exactly how Tori looks at journalists. But where were we? The Internet. Her
caution is understandable, judging by what TOP found on a quick trawl for Tori
sites: obsessional fan analyses of her lyrical take on literature,
masturbation, food. You’ve probably heard Tori described a thousand times as
‘kooky’, and at times she does appear the spoor of Kate Bush and Mozart adopted
by the Brothers Grimm, but all things considered she’s one of the most normal
and valuable artists the ‘90s has produced. Without Tori, safe to say there
would have been no Alanis Morissette, nor any of the candid, confessional ‘90s
“Chick Rock” singer-songwriters. Though she refuses to take the credit, the
influence of her ‘91 solo debut, Little Earthquakes (which followed her
failed heavy metal album in the ‘80s, Y Kant Tori Read) has been acknowledged
by them all, not least megastar Morissette, with whom she recently toured. Her record label told her, “Radio
won’t play you, they’re playing one female already”, but word of mouth built a
cult following, and next album, Under the Pink, sold millions. Girl rock
became a bigger force to reckon with than the then-dominant grunge, and the
acoustic piano was reinvented as sexy - as the live half of Tori’s latest, To
Venus and Back, attests. “Rhythm reminds you that you are sexual”, she says, “a woman”
- something she didn’t learn growing up as the daughter and granddaughter of
strict Southern Methodist preachers. Her mission in the next millenium
remains “to marry
the two Marys - Mary Magdalene and Mary the Divine Mother, whom I refuse to
call ‘the virgin’. The Christian church has a lot to answer for stripping the
Magdalene of her wisdom and Mother Mary of her sexuality. If I weren’t a
preacher’s daughter”,
she laughs, “I
could see myself starting the New Order of the Nazarenes...” |