Strange Little Girls contains 12 songs by men in which Tori Amos continues, as her fans will attest to, her long and hallowed tradition of playing cover songs. In her concerts and past CDs, she could be expected to cover anyone from Bruce Springsteen to Joni Mitchell to Led Zeppelin.

Now, Tori brings us more unexpected covers, from Slayer to Eminem.

Covering songs almost always earns an artist recognition or popularity, without always having to really reinvent the music. This can gain them easy radio play by virtue of familiarity. But Tori, of course, just has to be different. Usually she maintains an echo of the original song in her covers, and that echo’s all you’re going to get here. She changes the essence of these songs, and suits them to her voice, her person. This seems to hold especially true in Little Girls.

The album starts off with a Velvet Underground cover that isn’t particularly attention grabbing, but slow and contemplative. Then, Girls gets downright creepy. In one of her more interesting choices on the album, she covers Eminem’s “’97 Bonnie ‘ Clyde.” Amos is just as weird here as Eminem is frightening. There’s a beat in the background over which she voices the rapper’s lyrics in a creepy whisper.

Eminem is a potentially controversial choice for a cover, especially for a woman. And especially considering that “Bonnie ‘ Clyde” was the song that drew heat because of Eminem’s narrator describing the murder of his wife, though this choice could be a perfect example of what Tori intends to do on this album. That is, use these songs to give a voice to women who are often the subject of art and music, but don’t very often get a chance to speak.

The album picks up after this with the title track, “Strange Little Girl.” Here Tori reminds us, that although she can usually be found at the piano, her roots are in rock. And here too she reminds us of her bent towards electronic music that has characterized her most recent work.

With Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” she separates the chasm between original and cover even further. She doesn’t have Young’s aged persistence, but lends a fresh and youthful vitality to the song. The strong percussion and her passionate singing combine to make this song one of the most satisfying on the album. It’s not a slow persistence, but a confused and earnest insistence that defines “Heart.”

Her version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” breaks away from her electronic experimentation that would’ve gone hand in hand with the original. It’s a soft, piano-driven piece that focuses on the lyrics in a radically different interpretation of the song, which still works in its new form.

Tori, as usual, has her fair share of anguish and pain to get across. But, this album is unmistakably fun in that weird way she’s so good at achieving. Most of the fun in Girls lies in Tori’s change into lots of new characters. For each song, she gets into someone else’s head, and sings from their perspective. Even the liner notes are filled with photos of her in different outfits, hair and makeup for each song.

The covers are fun, but delve into some dark places. The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” for instance, punctuated with sound clips of both George Bushes and news reports of John Lennon’s death, speaks to the problem of violence and gun control. And though I’d hesitate to force this entire album under the heading of “political statement,” she undoubtedly touches upon these issues.

The album ends with a beautiful rendition of Joe Jackson’s “Real Men.” Here she offers us a classic Tori song: her voice and her piano, which is true about many of the songs on the album. Despite the experimentation she has made in recent albums and on certain songs here, Girls is more of a return to both her rock and piano beginnings.

It’s clear that Tori didn’t do this album for the easy familiarity of cover songs. Because, well, they’re not all that familiar. She reworks every song until it is entirely her own. Which means, fans of the originals may not like the album all that much. But Tori, whose following has reached cult status, has certainly pleased her fans with Strange Little Girls.