Tori Amos
Strange Little Girls
Atlantic Records

Since Tori Amos' breakthrough 10 years ago with Little Earthquakes, the emotionally exposed artist hasn't shied from using her well-placed deep breaths and piano to take on a man. Favorite victims have been God and her father. Yet, she has never accepted the challenge so blatantly as on Strange Little Girls, where 12 male musicians find themselves sentenced to Amos' interpretation.

The album is composed entirely of covers originally written and sung by artists such as Eminem ("'97 Bonnie and Clyde"), Neil Young ("Heart of Gold"), Tom Waits ("Time") and Slayer ("Raining Blood"). Amos sings the songs sans lyrical alteration. Yet, with her poignant musical and vocal renderings, the songs begin to tell a different story #&151; the stories of the 12 female characters hidden within the originals. "Its power is showing you, without in most cases changing a word, a secret the song might have had," Amos said in a Village Voice interview.

"The intent wasn't just to take the opposite viewpoint," Amos explained in a Washington Post interview, "But when I started crawling underneath the song-mothers' thoughts and into the shadows, then it started to become, 'Mmm, okay: This is how men say things and what a woman hears.'"

Most sickening and memorable is her soft, eerily whispered rendition of Eminem's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde," a song so blatantly misogynistic that Amos' theme culminates in this song. Amos plays the part of a wife, freshly murdered by her husband, listening to him explain to their daughter that Momma's "taking a little nap in the trunk" and that smell is because "Dada musta hit a skunk." The quick pulls of stringed instruments arranged by John Philip Shenale make your hair stand up as if you are watching the daughter begin to walk down a dark hallway leading to the bad guy you know is waiting.

As the album progresses, Amos' task is to bring out messages more subtle than Eminem's. With Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence," Amos, whose lyrics often read more like poetry, sings slowly and deliberately, "words are meaningless ... words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm." Martin Gore's song suddenly takes on added creepiness as the words seem more like those of a controlling lover. Amos' choice to cover this song complements her 1991 hit "Silent all These Years," where she details the pain of being silenced.

Even John Lennon and Paul McCartney do not escape Amos' scrutiny in "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." Amos takes more musical liberty and expertly samples voices throughout. We hear comments from President Bush father and son on gun control. Amos' more literal interpretation — in contrast with the phallic original — may be her way of allowing a woman to wield a "gun." Robert Geldof's "I Don't Like Mondays," the track preceding "Happiness," starts the theme. On that song, Amos creates the character of a female police officer cornering '70s-era school shooter Brenda Spencer. Put together with the sighs, deep breaths and drawn-out vocalization of the words "happiness" and "warm" in the Beatles' song, it takes Amos' literal interpretation not so far from the sex-centered original, and this time she makes sure her listener knows who's on top.

The original male artists aren't exactly being covered as a musical nod. But the album is not all critique either. For instance, Amos brings out the reflective, sorrowful melody of Tom Waits' "Time" in a way that can only be described as beautiful. Amos' interpretation, which plays off the loss of love, sharply contrasts the selfish, uncaring lyrics of songs like "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young (which follows on the album) and "I'm Not in Love" by Graham Gouldman.

The music in "Heart of Gold" may remind you of 1998's From the Choirgirl Hotel, an album where Amos experimented more with rock and electronica. This is probably not a real crowd pleaser, complete with distortion and electric guitar. Yet the mildly grating music forms a great contrast with the saintly concept of having a heart of gold. It works well as a snub to such gold-hearted myths.

The album has some great musical moments with songs from Amos' more rock-centered side as well as her reflective side. Most important, the performance art intrigue of such a fascinating project is not to be missed.

— Paula Carter (pccarter8@hotmail.com)