This is a little unlike Tori's other albums. There's much more percussion in this one. As usual the songs are deep and passionate, and a challenge to figure out, but I absolutely LOVE this cd. She keeps getting more amazing as she ages.

I have been a Tori fan since 1992 when I discovered "Little Earthquakes," and I have bought every album she's released since. And sadly, I must ask myself: Where did the Tori Amos I know go?

There are two very good songs on this CD, but mostly it suffers from self-indulgent crap. It seems like the only way to appreciate this album is to do some heavy drugs before giving it a spin, and even then I doubt it would have much value or resonance.

Also, 23 songs on one disk is way too long. Tori dillutes her own messages by throwing as much music on a CD as she can. It's like she's pushing as much as she can at the listener, desperate, hoping something will stick. Tori needs to focus and learn how to edit away the crap, since she won't let another producer produce her albums anymore. Sure, Tori's brilliant, but she's too brilliant for her own good, like Kate Bush and Prince.

If you are just discovering Tori, go with any album she's done except this one and "The Beekeeper." They are pretty bad. Go with "Little Earthquakes," "Boys for Pele," "Under The Pink," or "Scarlet's Walk" -- those are better albums and much more accessible!

I bought this CD on a trip to Washington D.C., so maybe I'm a bit predisposed to think of it as an amazing work of art. Any true Tori fan can remember getting a piece of material that inspired him or her to buy an album of hers in the past. For example, I watched the movie "Higher Learning," and in the score, the beautiful song "butterfly" moved me with its amazing and moody melancholy. I literally watched the same scenes in a very forgettable movie just to hear that song. So, I bought Tori's CDs out of sequence which I know is not at all common for Toriphiles. Surprisingly, I bought "Strange Little Girls first," which honestly, if you're gonna get into Tori, is not the most mainstream or newbie-friendly material she's had to date. But, with time, I kept listening... Somehow Tori's music eats at you slowly. It's sort of like watching a really intense movie and not exactly knowing how you feel about it - which brings me to my favorite CD, Boys for Pele - I hated it! I absolutely loathed that album. I could not, for the life of me, forgive myself for ever purchasing it - but something happened over time and upon repeat listens... Somehow, the amazing lyrics that are so incredibly hard to decipher began to make sense. The idea that her lyrics can be completely obscure is correct, but maybe the obscurity of her lyrics can provide an amazing result for the listener. You can put YOURSELF into her songs. She leaves so much open that you literally can relate to thoughts and words that you would have never put together so delicately on your own. Tori's CDs are not to be interpreted right away, but studied rather - like a really fine wine. Delving into a Tori CD is like reading a really good book. I think some of her former fans who are "throwing their arms up" with the "new" Tori need to understand that he or she may be suffering through the same emotional limitations that her previous works seemed to soothe. My Mom died - I turned to "Horses" and "Winter" and "The Beekeeper." My boyfriend broke up with me - I turned to "Hey Jupiter," "Caught a Lite Sneeze," and "A Sorta Fairytale." The point I'm trying to make is that her new material is not for the masses or hard-core fans - it's for those of us who have matured - just as she has. Emotions change over time, and although we find ourselves reverting to past loves, thoughts, scenes, images, regret, timelines, happiness, unhappiness - we have to remember that all of us change, grow, and eventually move on. Don't move on from Tori, though... just learn to love her in a different way. You know as well as I do that there are no artists in this entire world of overblown pop-induced hype that can hold a candle to Tori's amazing talent. NONE!
As for ADP, take this CD for what it is. Study the CD. Study the mythological influences behind Tori, Pip, Clyde, Santa, and Isabel. Just look at the CD! Tori is standing while holding a chicken and wearing a red wig! In the concert, she wears a sequined pant suit. She is obviously learning to make light of herself... This is her way of healing at this time. All of the pain, sorrow, and frustration that she found herself in during Little Earthquakes, Under the Pink, Boys for Pele, and Choirgirl - she has realized that the extent of her pain was limited to herself - she, the individual going through the torment. What I believe she has realized is that the world is more important - the idea of archetypes, religion, war - how can one limit oneself to be so self-centered. If anything, Tori has rediscovered what she wants her fans to hear! If you've watched YOUTUBE and you see Pip pull out the knife and gun at her show in Chicago while singing a rock version of "Me and a gun," you realize that these alter-egos are helping Tori destroy those figures that caused her pain in the past. To illustrate, while Tori was lying helpless in a car being raped at knifepoint, Pip would have made the guy wish he had never been born! I think you Toriphiles have gotten lazy! You have wanted Tori to release another version of Little Earthquakes, and the reality is that she is not going to! That was her life then. This is her life now! If you choose to walk away after years of being a fan because she hasn't written what you wanted to hear, maybe you should learn to play the piano and write some remake of Little Earthquakes yourself. If you can appreciate a good bottle of Chianti, then buy this CD. Buy all of her CDs, and you would be surprised by how much she really has to say... and how much you really have to learn.

As with most of tori's albums it took a few listens but it has made it's place. I actually like all the songs. Highlights are Teenage Hustling, Dragon, You Can Bring your dog, Secret Spell, Body and Soul, and Digital Ghost!

Listening to this album reminds me of another decent but not exactly first rate "America" titled album by another monumental talent: AMERICA EATS ITS YOUNG by Funkadelic. Both albums are lengthy affairs with a fair amount of 2nd rate (and even some 3rd rate) material but they both also have some major gems if you take the time to dig through the sprawl. One major problem with this album that I noticed right away is that the passion and ingenuity that marks Tori's greatest work is just largely absent (some of the material, while passable, just sounds like it could have been churned out by any Pop/Rock act of the day). But that also means that the songs here are less opaque and less distant, which may actually make the material easier to digest for some listeners. If Tori would have trimmed this effort down, she would have had a pretty strong piece of work on her hands here, but there is just a tedious amount of middling material on this album. Tori has an uncanny grasp of dynamics and a brilliantly effective grasp of accent, both of which she puts to extraordinary use in her best work, but you only see occasional traces of those special qualities on ADP. But at least the display of her skills as a craftsmen and a songsmith are still really strong, even when the material isn't. Tori uses standard piano, bass, drums and guitar on almost every track on this album. The fuller instrumentation actually works really well with the rockers, some of which rank among the best she's ever done, but the guitar and bass actually detracts from some of the ballads and mid-tempo numbers (one notable exception is "Father's Son", where the fuller instrumentation is used sparsely with brilliant effects, the fully orchestrated "Girl Disappearing" also works brilliantly as is). When this album was first released, there was a prerecorded live performance of "Almost Rosey" with just her on a piano featured right here on Amazon, and while it is a fine song as presented on the album, I actually think it was better in the performance where it was just her on her piano. Tori does a fine job with the fuller arrangements but she's often simply at her most gripping on the more spare numbers where she really allows herself room to breathe. The first track "Yo George" is a critique of our current President, and while I appreciate the sentiment, writers often seem to have difficulty avoiding being trite and cliché when writing directly political lyrics (lyrics from many 60's and 70's Rock and Soul acts notwithstanding) and Tori doesn't do so well with her stab at it here either. It's the first of many mini-song fragments that really fall short. But you can't go wrong with the next track "Big Wheel", which is a rich up tempo rocker with clever variations between the verse, both sections of the split chorus, and the rollicking bridge. The gorgeous uptempo ballad "Bouncing Off Clouds" that follows it is another major winner. From this point, the album isn't exactly consistent (mainly due to lackluster mini-song fragments), but it is full of major highlights all the way through "Almost Rosey". "Secret Spell" and "Beauty of Speed" are two of the best rockers that she's ever done (and "You Can Bring Your Dog" and "Code Red" are really strong too), and mid-tempo numbers such as "Mr. Bad Man" and "Almost Rosey" as well as slow ballads like "Girl Disappearing" and "Father's Son" are also really strong. The mid-tempo "Roosterspur Bridge" and the slow ballad "Digital Ghost" are also fine efforts. It's the song fragments in this section that make for the absolute lowest points: "Devils and Gods" is *somewhat* worthwhile, but "Yo George", "Fat Slut" and "Programmable Soda" are all really bad. That's the bad news. The good news is that all of the full songs in this run, with perhaps the exception of "Body and Soul", are all generally solid pieces of work. The end of this album is pretty shaky though. "Dark Side of the Sun" (whose socio-political lyrics are once again a little *too* obvious) is a decent effort overall, but it's sandwiched between two more incredibly banal song fragments: "Velvet Revolution" and "Posse Bonus". "Dragon" is at least partially redeemed by that gorgeous chorus. My initial reaction to this album was much like many of the Tori fans here who were highly disappointed, but I've learned not settle in on an opinion of an album by an artist with any mettle until I've had the chance to fully digest it. I'm glad that I continued to listen to this album. It's nowhere near as great as BOYS FOR PELE or UNDER THE PINK, she'll probably never reach those heights again, but most artists will never reach *those* heights in their entire lifetime. But, highlights like "Big Wheel", "Bouncing Off Clouds", "Mr. Bad Man", "Girl Disappearing", "Secret Spell", "Beauty of Speed", "Father's Son" and "Almost Rosey" make me really glad that I have this album in my collection.