Taking a break from recording own songs Amos revamps men's tunes with chilling effect

There is a little secret that album full of covers or live albums are usually made to fulfill contractual obligation to one’s record deal. Not in the case of Tori Amos, one of the most original and intriguing female artist to appear on the music scene in the past decade.

In the world full of boy-groups and quasi-girl-power 'bands', designer hip-hop and tailored R’n’B, Tori Amos has always stood alone, like a giant of musical individualism. Over ten years of creating five idiosyncratic albums she’s helped spawn Alanis Morrisette as much as Nelly Furtado, the feisty nu-women. Now, Amos has taken a side-step – to refocus her career – with the ‘Strange Little Girls’ album of covers.

The new assemblage of songs are all written by men but performed by Tori as a diverse set of characters. (To make her intention clear, they all are depicted on the artwork.) This one for an array of songs that stretch from Velvet Underground’s ‘New Age’ (1969 vintage) to Eminem’s ’97’ Bonnie & Clyde’ (1999), from The Beatles’ ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’ (1968) to the Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ (1986). Other artists who ‘provide’ songwriting are Depeche Mode, 10cc, The Stranglers, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Boomtown Rats…

This is nothing new, Amos has been doing covers for a long time and has performed Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ long before Kelis as well as dissecting Led Zeppelin opuses to turn them into songs stamped with her own personality. She’s now extended the process of pulling apart and reconstructing it in a dark, complementary but never compromising fashion. Definitely on top form, still as ‘mad’ as only she can be, entertaining like true showbiz should be, as eccentric as the best British import...

To hear the known songs in a completely different, often dirsturbing, light in a setting of 'romantic' split-personality, look no further than this strange little woman.

8.5/10