Eventually, the lack of real control he had as a producer got to him. An incident involving someone at Atlantic foisting a drum machine and synthesizers onto the deliberately spare Tori Amos record he was working on became the last straw.

[nerd]
Whatever, Davitt Sigerson, we all know Little Earthquakes is all Eric Rosse's, production-wise; you're just the knob-twiddler. There's nothing in any account to indicate that you sincerely thought putting synths and drum machines on a track would be a bad thing, and your resume--Kiss, Oliva Newton-John--doesn't exactly indicate a distaste for drum machines and synths, know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with those and nothing wrong with those musicians, but just because Tori got cred after she and Eric figured out how to make it work with her and a piano doesn't mean your phone-it-in ass gets to take credit. Don't try and play it like you weren't one of the Atlantic assholes who got blindsided by grunge and couldn't see very far past Y kant Tori Read.
[/nerd]

Besides, the syths sound good on some of the tracks--Tori is a keyboardist, after all. (They don't sound good on "China," but "China" just kind of sucks regardless.) One of the great things about her is that she clearly doesn't care a whole lot about authenticity or purity, so I don't think she'd have the same ideological problems with those value-neutral instruments you seem to have. Of course, she could care a bit more about rockin', but that's a whole other subject.

Incidentally, this Tori FAQ has a good series of answers to a question I've always been interested in: what the hell is "Professional Widow" about? I like the first quote a lot, which reminds me to ask you folks to remind me to write a post about PJ Harvey and Patti Smith and Tori Amos dueling to the death with Kathleen Hanna and Ani DiFranco and Ari Up sometime.
posted by Mike B. at 5:15 PM 0 comments