Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Bliss
2. Juarez
3. Concertina
4. Glory Of The 80's
5. Lust
6. Suede
7. Josephine
8. Riot Poof
9. Datura
10. Spring Haze
11. 1000 Oceans

Disc 2:

1. Precious Things
2. Cruel
3. Cornflake Girl
4. Bells For Her
5. Girl
6. Cooling
7. Mr. Zebra
8. Cloud on My Tongue
9. Sugar
10. Little Earthquakes
11. Space Dog
12. Waitress
13. Purple People

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27056 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-21
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Live

Amazon.com
For many pop-music cynics, excess can be neatly summed up in three things: live albums, double-CD's, and Tori Amos records. Damned if To Venus and Back doesn't hit the trifecta. But perhaps Amos is just trying to prove what we've always suspected: that her muse possesses a sly, ironic wit and has been frantically trying to give us a wink while Tori whipped up her heady cocktail of quiet Sturm, desperate Drang, and angst in the panties. There's teasing moments on this double-dose of Tori's love affair with her own melodic and mystical dramaturgy to support that notion, even in the disc of powerful new studio recordings that inaugurates this set. Dubbing a song "Glory of the 80's" is burlesque enough, but yearning to have oneself cloned as Kim Carnes at its climax is simply inspired. Amos is to Kate Bush's distaff mysticism what Mark McGwire was to Roger Maris; she hasn't so much broken the mold as willfully hammered it into her own image. After Bush hit the snooze-bar on her career in the late `80s, Amos boldly stepped into the fray, building a body of work that demanded to be taken seriously, even while the thrift-store chic set were laughing up their tattered sleeves at her ambitious chutzpah. They're not laughing now; in fact, many may find Venus to be a deliciously guilty pleasure. Amos supporters have long maintained that the key to understanding her intrigue lies in her live performances. Disc two boldly states their case as Amos coos, whoops, and warbles through a hit-sprinkled set, her shrewd, sorely undervalued band hanging with every nuance and turn of phrase. Cynics are from Mars; Tori is from Venus--that's just the way her galaxy crumbles. Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

TWO SIDES OF TORI
Ambivalent, multifaced, dark and full of light , thats Tori Amos with "To Venus and back" one of her most admirable pieces of work, in this album Tori delighted fans with not only a full lenght album of then previously unreleased tracks such as "concertina" , "Juarez" , "glory of the 80s", "a thousand oceans" and "bliss" but she added an extra gift, with a bonus live cd were she recreates her now classics like "space dog" in an amazing way, "Mr. Zebra", "cloud in my tongue" (one of my alltime favorites)and "girl" among others, this were also the times were Tori developed her "friends" (songs)as she uses to call them, to make them more colorfull with the addition of drums, bass, percussions, and not only guitar and her Bosse or harpsichord as she used to do after the release of "under the pink", she is Tori Amos, more than prolific, always giving her fans an excess of information, a charming confussion in her lyrics and providing her fascinating personality for our free interpretation, To Venus and back is a basic in her discography.

HM

I love this album!
This is a very awesome album. The live cornflake girl and spacedog are out of this world. Tori is a Goddess.

Awesome!
God, I love both halves of this album. tori is a goddess. The live section is awesome, the original stuff is remarkable.... buy this.