you for a while

Perusing the Tori Amos tag on Technorati yesterday, as I am wont to do from time to time (to time, to time…) I happened upon a blogger who wasn’t too fond of Tori Amos’ version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” He referred to the song as “cringe-worthy” and emphasized his dislike for the manic red-headed songstress, using the phrase “schlock high school coffee shop poetry music.” To each his own, no animosity here (that’s even a pretty clever adjective combo there). Everyone is entitled to their opinion, Tori can be an acquired taste.

This blogger kindly linked to a youtube performance of Tori’s rendition…the one she performed shortly after the news of Kurt Cobain’s death struck its blow. Watching, I was captivated by how powerful of a tribute to Kurt Cobain her performance had been. Despite how anyone may feel about Tori’s style, voice, and writing all tributes deserve respect. To criticize a tribute song is just plain rude.

Tori’s rendition of Smells like Teen Spirit was not a cover. She performed this song for her fans in order to acknowledge their pain, their loss, and their grief. She also performed it to pay her own respects to a musician she admired. Not many people in this world (if any) can truly cover Spirit. It only made sense for someone to do it as a memoriam, and for someone to do it drastically different…which is exactly what Tori Amos did.

Let everyone bash Tori’s artistic capabilities to their heart’s content. But let’s leave this one alone.

I’ll end with Tori’s thoughts on the matter:

“I didn’t know him personally, I just know that a lot of people felt…through his music…he stood for something. He paved a way that now we are starving for. We had a really great visionary die. Smells Like Teen Spirit was really like an injection. It propelled people to choose what they wanted to do with themselves and their questioning. And it gave a generation some juice.”

Click here to watch Tori’s performance.

Filed under: China2Ny on September 22nd, 2007