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Despite the disappointing reaction to ''Y Kant Tori Read'', Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, who in 1989 wanted a new record by March 1990. When she presented them with her initial recordings, they were rejected on the grounds that such piano-based music would not sell in an early-'90s market of ], ], ], and ]. Extensively reworked and expanded with the help of ], ], Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, the record ended up full of raw, emotive songs recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and her sexual assault. The Atlantic executives changed their minds upon hearing the updated version, with the plan to promote her as an heir to ] and ], or alternatively as a female version of ]. Expecting the traditionally more open-minded UK market to warm to Amos and to create a "buzz" with which to return to the US, Atlantic relocated Amos to England in early 1991 to play small clubs in preparation for the launch of the new album, which was released under the title '']''. This album established Amos as a gay icon: on the 2008 ranking of Out magazine, it was ranked as the 54th most gay album of all time, and 2nd on a similar ranking by PerezHilton.com. Despite the disappointing reaction to ''Y Kant Tori Read'', Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, who in 1989 wanted a new record by March 1990. When she presented them with her initial recordings, they were rejected on the grounds that such piano-based music would not sell in an early-'90s market of ], ], ], and ]. Extensively reworked and expanded with the help of ], ], Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, the record ended up full of raw, emotive songs recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and her sexual assault. The Atlantic executives changed their minds upon hearing the updated version, with the plan to promote her as an heir to ] and ], or alternatively as a female version of ]. Expecting the traditionally more open-minded UK market to warm to Amos and to create a "buzz" with which to return to the US, Atlantic relocated Amos to England in early 1991 to play small clubs in preparation for the launch of the new album, which was released under the title '']''. This album established Amos as a gay icon: on the 2008 ranking of Out magazine, it was ranked as the 54th most gay album of all time, and 2nd on a similar ranking by PerezHilton.com.


During this period, Amos befriended author ], who became a fan after she referenced him in the song "Tear In Your Hand" and also in print interviews.<ref>{{cite book |title=Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography | first=Kalen |last=Rogers |pages=p.46 |isbn=0825614481}}</ref> Although created before the two met, the character ] from Gaiman's '']'' series (or even her sister ]) is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that "they steal shamelessly from each other".<ref>{{cite book |title=Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography | first=Kalen |last=Rogers |pages=p.48 |isbn=0825614481}}</ref> Gaiman would go on to become a long-time friend and collaborator. His 2006 tribute album from Ferret Records has an Amos lyric for its title ('']'') and contains the Amos track "Sister Named Desire". Amos would also write the introduction to the trade paperback collection of Gaiman's '']''. During this period, Amos befriended author ], who became a fan after she referenced him in the song "Tear In Your Hand" and also in print interviews.<ref>{{cite book |title=Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography | first=Kalen |last=Rogers |pages=p.46 |isbn=0825614481}}</ref> Although created before the two met, the character ] from Gaiman's '']'' series (or even her sister ]) is inspired by Amos<ref>Reed, S. Alexander. "Through Every Mirror in the World: Lacan's Mirror Stage as Mutual Reference in the Works of Neil Gaiman and Tori Amos." ''ImageTexT'' 4.1. </ref>; Gaiman has stated that "they steal shamelessly from each other".<ref>{{cite book |title=Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography | first=Kalen |last=Rogers |pages=p.48 |isbn=0825614481}}</ref> Gaiman would go on to become a long-time friend and collaborator. His 2006 tribute album from Ferret Records has an Amos lyric for its title ('']'') and contains the Amos track "Sister Named Desire". Amos would also write the introduction to the trade paperback collection of Gaiman's '']''.


After touring throughout 1992 in support of ''Little Earthquakes'', Amos traveled to ] with personal and professional partner ] in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, '']''. Amos continued to write about the events in her own life on her second album, while also drawing inspiration elsewhere from the works of ] and ], the ] of ], and the ]n princess ].{{Fact|date=April 2008}} Musically, Amos drew from the style of classical composers she had studied during her childhood, and put more focus on her solo piano rather than band instrumentation. The musical complexity drawn from her classical background is particularly evident in such tracks as "Icicle" and the sweeping, nine-and-a-half minute, "Yes, Anastasia". ''Under the Pink'' features the contribution of vocals on "Past the Mission" by ] of ]. After touring throughout 1992 in support of ''Little Earthquakes'', Amos traveled to ] with personal and professional partner ] in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, '']''. Amos continued to write about the events in her own life on her second album, while also drawing inspiration elsewhere from the works of ] and ], the ] of ], and the ]n princess ].{{Fact|date=April 2008}} Musically, Amos drew from the style of classical composers she had studied during her childhood, and put more focus on her solo piano rather than band instrumentation. The musical complexity drawn from her classical background is particularly evident in such tracks as "Icicle" and the sweeping, nine-and-a-half minute, "Yes, Anastasia". ''Under the Pink'' features the contribution of vocals on "Past the Mission" by ] of ].
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*1992 &mdash; Breakthrough Video (for "]", nomination). *1992 &mdash; Breakthrough Video (for "]", nomination).


==Academic criticism==


S. Alexander Reed has written about the ] relationships between ] and Amos's work. Reed does close readings of several of Amos's allusions to Gaiman, noting that they happen at points in the songs where the musical motifs of the song begin expanding out of their initial forms, disrupting the established pattern of the song. He reads this disruption in terms of psychoanalyst ]'s idea of the ], arguing that the mutual referentiality serves to create an ideal vision of the reader-as-fan that the actual reader encounters and misrecognizes as themselves, thus drawing the reader into the role of the devoted (and paying) fan.<ref>Reed, S. Alexander. "Through Every Mirror in the World: Lacan's Mirror Stage as Mutual Reference in the Works of Neil Gaiman and Tori Amos." ''ImageTexT'' 4.1. </ref>

Lori Burns and Alyssa Woods study Amos's covers of existing songs, specifically ]'s ] and ]'s ] as a process of "Signifyin(g)" the songs so as "making a personal claim" on the existing song. In the case of "Strange Fruit," Burns argues that where Holiday's version serves to bear witness to a traumatic racial event (the lynching of a black man), Amos, by choosing to prolong the emotional climax of the song so as to "linger in her outcry," recasts the event not as a witness but as a an act of memory and retelling, freed from the constraints of emotion that the act of witnessing implies. In her version of "97 Bonnie and Clyde, on the other hand, is mixed so as to create a sense of intimacy with the listener, as Amos takes on the perspective of the murdered woman in the song, as opposed to the murderer who narrates Eminem's original. Burns and Woods claim that this process of reappropriation and explicit engagement with the earlier recordings creates a sense of authenticity in Amos's recording, allowing her to maintain an artistic presence even in songs that fall outside of the usual confessional structure of pop music. <ref>Burns, Lori and Alyssa Woods. "Authenticity, Appropriation, Signification: Tori Amos on Gender, Race, and Violence in Covers of Billie Holiday and Eminem." Music Theory Online, 10.2 (1994). .</ref>


==In popular culture==<!-- This is just a title I used as a place holder. If anyone can come up with a better one, please feel free to change it. --> ==In popular culture==<!-- This is just a title I used as a place holder. If anyone can come up with a better one, please feel free to change it. -->

Revision as of 19:07, 10 December 2008

Tori Amos
Musical artist

Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos on August 22, 1963) is a ten-time Grammy Award-nominated American pianist and singer-songwriter of dual British and American citizenship. She is married to English sound engineer Mark Hawley, with whom she has one child, Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley, born on September 5, 2000.

Amos was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. She is known for her emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of subjects including sexuality, religion and personal tragedy. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", and "A Sorta Fairytale".

Amos had sold 12 million records worldwide as of 2005 and has also enjoyed a large cult following. Having a history of making eccentric and at times ribald comments during concerts and interviews, she has earned a reputation for being highly idiosyncratic. As a social commentator and sometimes activist, some of the topics she has been most vocal about include feminism, religion, and sexuality.

Early years (1963–1985)

File:ToriAmos-BTM.jpg
An early image of Amos (presumably 1980) from VH1's Behind the Music.

Amos was the third child of Rev. Dr. Edison and Mary Ellen Amos, born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their home in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.. Her maternal grandparents were of mixed European and Eastern Cherokee ancestry; of particular importance to her as a child was her grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance to her as a young child, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity. When Amos was 2, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began to play the piano. By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and at nine started to add lyrics to her pieces.

In 1968, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music at the age of 5. Her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music. Two years later, she began studying at Montgomery College and began playing at piano bars, chaperoned by her father, who was sending tapes of songs she had written to record companies.

She first came to local notice by winning a county Teen Talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother Mike Amos for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song won the contest and became her first single, released as a 7" single pressed locally for family and friends during 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Prior to this period she performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her it suited her.

Y Kant Tori Read (1985–88)

At age 21, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit of the East Coast. While there she managed to get several acting jobs, including a Kellogg's Just Right cereal commercial. In 1985, after playing in a bar one night, she gave a ride home to a regular customer at the establishment who sexually assaulted her, an experience that would later be revisited in her song "Me and a Gun".

That same year, Amos formed a music group, Y Kant Tori Read, the name of which was a reference to her days at the Peabody conservatory, where she was able to play songs on her piano simply after hearing them once, but was never able to get the hang of reading and playing from sheet music. Besides Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all her subsequent albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. A year later, Atlantic Records gave Amos a six-record contract. In 1987 she appeared in the courtroom soap opera Trial by Jury as a female defendant. In July 1988, the band's debut album Y Kant Tori Read was released and was not received well, leaving Amos dejected and humiliated. After the flop, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien; in the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good. It was the only song recorded by the band, and its only commercial release was in the film.

Although Amos often voices embarrassment concerning Y Kant Tori Read, she has performed various songs from the album live in concert. The album is now out of print, and Amos has expressed no interest in reissuing it.

Solo career

Debut and rising fame (1990–96)

Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, who in 1989 wanted a new record by March 1990. When she presented them with her initial recordings, they were rejected on the grounds that such piano-based music would not sell in an early-'90s market of grunge, rock, rap, and dance music. Extensively reworked and expanded with the help of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, the record ended up full of raw, emotive songs recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and her sexual assault. The Atlantic executives changed their minds upon hearing the updated version, with the plan to promote her as an heir to Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, or alternatively as a female version of Elton John. Expecting the traditionally more open-minded UK market to warm to Amos and to create a "buzz" with which to return to the US, Atlantic relocated Amos to England in early 1991 to play small clubs in preparation for the launch of the new album, which was released under the title Little Earthquakes. This album established Amos as a gay icon: on the 2008 ranking of Out magazine, it was ranked as the 54th most gay album of all time, and 2nd on a similar ranking by PerezHilton.com.

During this period, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referenced him in the song "Tear In Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series (or even her sister Death) is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that "they steal shamelessly from each other". Gaiman would go on to become a long-time friend and collaborator. His 2006 tribute album from Ferret Records has an Amos lyric for its title (Where's Neil When You Need Him?) and contains the Amos track "Sister Named Desire". Amos would also write the introduction to the trade paperback collection of Gaiman's Death: The High Cost of Living.

After touring throughout 1992 in support of Little Earthquakes, Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. Amos continued to write about the events in her own life on her second album, while also drawing inspiration elsewhere from the works of Georgia O'Keeffe and Salvador Dalí, the literature of Alice Walker, and the Russian princess Anastasia Romanov. Musically, Amos drew from the style of classical composers she had studied during her childhood, and put more focus on her solo piano rather than band instrumentation. The musical complexity drawn from her classical background is particularly evident in such tracks as "Icicle" and the sweeping, nine-and-a-half minute, "Yes, Anastasia". Under the Pink features the contribution of vocals on "Past the Mission" by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

In June 1994, Amos co-founded RAINN, The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center. Amos, herself a victim of sexual assault, was seen as unlocking the silence of her assault through her music; thus "Unlock the Silence" went on to become a year-long campaign for RAINN when Amos became a national spokesperson for the organization. By the summer of 2006, RAINN had received its one millionth caller and the organization's success has led to it ranking in "America’s 100 Best Charities" by Worth, and one of the "Top 10 Best Charities" by Marie Claire. RAINN has played an active role in urging Congress to fund programs relating to sexual assault, including getting legislation passed for requiring sex offender registries in all states, and most recently to calling on Congress to investigate allegations of misconduct by contractors in Iraq.

While Amos was achieving success in different aspects of her career, her personal and professional relationship with Eric Rosse ended during this time, which served as the stimulus for her third solo album, Boys for Pele. The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, Ireland, with Amos taking advantage of the church recording setting to create an album ripe with baroque influences, lending it a darker sound and style. She added harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord to her keyboard repertoire, and also included such anomalies as a gospel choir, bagpipes, church bells, and drum programming.

The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release in January 1996, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching # 2 on both the Billboard 200 and the UK Top 40 upon its release at the height of her fame.

Later in 1996, Amos began her own vanity label called Igloo, internal to Atlantic Records. Her first signing was the band Pet, headed by lead singer Lisa Papineau. Their self-titled debut album, for which Amos served as executive producer, included the song "Lil' Boots," which was also featured on the soundtrack for The Crow: City of Angels. Record sales were meager and the subsidiary label was quickly dissolved.

Miscarriages and marriage (1996–99)

Amos performing on her Dew Drop Inn tour in 1996.

While on tour to promote Boys for Pele, Amos and her sound engineer Mark Hawley began a romantic relationship. As the year-long tour drew to a close, Amos discovered she was pregnant. She initially planned to take the next year away from the limelight and the recording studio in order to focus on her pregnancy and motherhood, however, Amos miscarried two days before Christmas 1996 at three months, plunging her into new emotional depths. In early 1997, shortly after the miscarriage, Amos performed a televised concert called "The Concert for RAINN", which coincided with "National RAINN Day" as well as introduced a year-long campaign in collaboration with Calvin Klein eye wear, the proceeds of which were collected for RAINN. During the concert many cable and network television stations aired Amos's public service announcement about the organization. Another noteworthy aspect of this concert is that it includes a duet with Amos's friend Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool.

Although Amos had planned to take time off from writing and recording in preparation for her pregnancy, she unexpectedly began writing new material while recovering from her miscarriage at her second home in Florida. She suffered a second miscarriage in May 1997, this time earlier in the pregnancy, before returning to Cornwall, England, where she settled with Hawley. Fueled by Amos's desire to have her own recording studio, they converted the barn of their new home into a state-of-the-art recording studio, Martian Engineering Studios. With a roster of new songs written and a studio at her immediate disposal, Amos spent the latter part of the year recording new songs that would become her fourth solo album, From the Choirgirl Hotel, the studio's inaugural recording.

Following Amos and Hawley's marriage on February 22, 1998, Atlantic released From the Choirgirl Hotel, in May 1998. The underlying theme of the album deals with her miscarriages, interspersed with elements of her marriage and other personal events. The lyrics "She's convinced she could hold back a glacier, but she couldn't keep baby alive/doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere" from the album's lead single, "Spark", and "Then the baby came before I found/the magic how to keep her happy" from the song "Playboy Mommy" showcase the impact that miscarrying had on Amos. Inspired by the freedom of having her own recording studio, the album varies greatly from previous albums, with the acoustic piano-based sound found on Little Earthquakes (1992), Under the Pink (1994) and Boys for Pele (1996) being largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica, jazz and some styles of dance music.

Album reviews were mostly favourable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality (it was voted among the best albums of the year by Q magazine) and the album, while not her highest chart debut, is Amos's best-selling debut, selling 153,000 copies in its first week.

Amos's first tour with a full band proved successful and precipitated the decision to make her next project a double album. It would comprise live material recorded on tour as well as b-sides, and be bolstered by two to three new unreleased compositions. Amos was surprised to find herself instead creating entirely new songs. As a result, the project mutated into a set of new songs instead the planned collection of b-sides. This mixed compilation of live and new studio material was released in a two-disc format in September 1999 under the title To Venus and Back.

The album was supported by a short tour, "The Five and a Half Weeks Tour", which Amos co-headlined with Alanis Morissette. It commenced a month prior to the release of To Venus and Back. Amos and the band continued on with the To Dallas and Back tour, which was followed by a short solo tour, but promotional plans were cut when Amos suffered her third miscarriage, again at three months, on November 11, 1999. Amos would later reveal that Atlantic allowed her only two days to recuperate before pushing her back into a promotional schedule, one reason that caused her eventual split from the record label in 2002.

Personal and professional transitions (2000–05)

After releasing two albums and embarking on two tours in rapid succession, Amos took a break from both touring and recording in 2000 to devote to another pregnancy. Amos became a mother, giving birth to her daughter, Natashya, in September 2000. Inspired by the songs she heard on the radio while looking after her daughter at her second home in Florida, Amos hatched the idea to produce a covers album, recording songs written by men about women and turning them around to suit the female perspective. That idea grew into the covers album Strange Little Girls, which was released in September 2001. The unique album garnered substantial press attention, as did the artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal in Piece by Piece that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic Records without giving them new original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.

With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to another major label, Epic in early 2002. In October, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, her first album under the new label. Described as a "sonic novel", the 18-track album proved to be a landmark for a variety of reasons. Stylistically, Amos put drums and bass guitar at the forefront, using her piano playing as an accent rather than a highlight. Thematically, the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, and her cross-country trip in 2001 following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny, but the political nature of the album is often tempered by the classic production and songwriting style, recalling the likes of Fleetwood Mac.

Following her debut with Epic, Amos still owed Atlantic a retrospective hits package. Given the option to be involved in the project, Amos elected to take a central role in the production of the collection. In November 2003 Tales of a Librarian was released, which Amos described as a "sonic autobiography", a title derived from her dislike of the term "greatest hits". Amos revisited the mixing of many of her own favorite songs from her career, focusing on those she thought were not fully realized in their original recordings and those that she felt explained her life story. Recording under the premise that a librarian is a "chronicler", Amos pieced together the compilation album, adding two new songs and two re-recorded B-sides. The songs are arranged in accordance with the Dewey Decimal System, extending the librarian theme of the album. Shortly after the release of Tales of a Librarian, Amos made her first film appearance in Mona Lisa Smile as a big-band singer and contributed two songs to the film's soundtrack.

Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group, a company devoted to helping musicians in various ways during a time when the music industry is changing. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline. Amos would later hint in interviews that during the creation of her next album, those in charge at the label following the aforementioned merger were interested "only in making money", the effects of which on the album have not been disclosed.

Amos performing on her Summer of Sin tour in 2005.

Amos's next album, The Beekeeper, was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. Many fans and critics, however, have argued that the concept is unclear and confusing. The album's debut at # 5 on the Billboard 200 in February 2005 is a milestone for Amos, placing her in an elite group of women to have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. In conjunction with the album, Amos released an autobiography co-authored by rock music journalist Ann Powers entitled Piece by Piece, which delves deeply into Amos's interest in mythology and religion and explores her songwriting process as well as telling the story of her progression into fame. Later that year Amos released a series of live "official bootlegs" recorded during her promotional tours in support of The Beekeeper in response to fans paying for low-quality bootlegs. A website was established at toriamosbootlegs.com where hard copies of the releases were made exclusively available. In December, all six two-disc sets were issued as a 12-disc box set entitled The Original Bootlegs.

Summations and "jumping ship" (2005–)

Amos performing as Pip in concert on July 13, 2007 on her American Doll Posse tour.

During 2005, Amos negotiated a contract with the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino to release reissues and compilations. The first release of the deal was the two-disc DVD set.Fade To Red: The Video Collection in February 2006, which contained most of Amos's solo music videos as well as behind-the-scenes footage and commentary. The contract continued in September 2006 with the release of the five-disc box set A Piano: The Collection, celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career. The set includes various album songs, singles, remixes, alternate mixes, demos and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions. The collection is packaged to resemble a piano keyboard with extensive liner notes (including Amos's commentary) and a hardcover book. While the contents of the box set are extensive, many B-sides and rarities do not appear in this collection.

In several interviews while promoting A Piano, Amos revealed details about her ninth studio album. The thematic nature of and the concepts behind the next album were revealed in an interview early in 2007, with Amos stating she was "jumping ship" from her previous work and that A Piano was the summation of her previous work and the end of an era. The album, recorded with new microphones, pianos, and a Yamaha CS80 synth keyboard, was released under the title American Doll Posse on May 1, 2007, in the US. The "Posse", a group of girls who are used as a theme of alter-egos in the album,consists of Amos in five guises. In conjunction with the tour, Amos released the Legs & Boots series, complete shows from the North American leg of her American Doll Posse tour available for download. A total of 27 shows were recorded as part of the Legs & Boots series.

In May 2008, Amos announced that she had negotiated an end to her contract with Epic Records and that she would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In December of the same year, Amos signed a partnership deal with Universal Republic Records for her tenth studio album to be released in spring/summer 2009. Also in 2008, Amos was one of the contributors to Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna's book Cherry Bomb, and released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment. Other concurrent projects, Amos writing the music for Samuel Adamson's musical adaptation of the George MacDonald story The Light Princess for the Royal National Theatre and recording a duet with David Byrne, former lead singer of Talking Heads, for his album Here Lies Love, are expected to debut sometime in 2009.

Discography

Main article: Tori Amos discography

To date, Amos has released nine studio albums throughout her solo career, seven of which were self-produced. Additionally, Amos has released over 30 singles, over 60 B-sides, and has contributed to nine film soundtracks, including Higher Learning (1995), Great Expectations (1998) and Mission: Impossible II (2000) among others.

Tours

Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976, and under her professional name as early as 1991, remains one of the most active touring artists in the world, having performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.

Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-80 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a pianino during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder, Colorado. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
Five and a Half Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America-only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, Colorado, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa, Florida and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, Florida, featuring 124 concerts.
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time band mates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, her organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles, CA. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.

Award nominations

Grammy Awards

  • 1995 — Best Alternative Music Album (for Under The Pink, nomination).
  • 1997 — Best Alternative Music Album (for Boys For Pele, nomination).
  • 1999 — Best Alternative Music Album (for From the Choirgirl Hotel, nomination).
  • 1999 — Female Rock Vocal Performance (for "Raspberry Swirl", nomination).
  • 2000 — Best Alternative Music Album (for To Venus and Back, nomination).
  • 2000 — Female Rock Vocal Performance (for "Bliss", nomination).
  • 2002 — Best Alternative Music Album (for Strange Little Girls, nomination).
  • 2002 — Female Rock Vocal Performance (for "Strange Little Girl", nomination).
  • 2004 — Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Packaging (for Scarlet's Walk, nomination).
  • 2004 — Best Dance Remix (for "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas", nomination).

MTV Video Music Awards


In popular culture

In July 2008 Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo, a 480-page book containing 51 graphic stories, each based on or inspired by an Amos song. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore. It includes an introduction by longtime friend Neil Gaiman, creator of The Sandman series.

Notes and references

  1. http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/soprano/famous-sopranos.html
  2. "Piece By Piece Press Release". Retrieved 2007-10-08.
  3. Amos, Tori (2005). Tori Amos: Piece by Piece. New York: Broadway Books. p. 20. ISBN 978-0767916776. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. Rogers, Kalen (1994). Tori Amos All These Years: The Authorized Biography. Omnibus. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-0825614484.
  5. David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace: The New Book of Lists. Canongate, 2005. ISBN 1-84195-719-4.
  6. "VH1 Before They Were Stars". Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  7. "Soundtracks for China O'Brien at imdb.com". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
  8. "Y Kant Tori Read quotes at hereinmyhead.com". Retrieved 2008-04-09.
  9. Rogers, Kalen. Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography. pp. p.46. ISBN 0825614481. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  10. Reed, S. Alexander. "Through Every Mirror in the World: Lacan's Mirror Stage as Mutual Reference in the Works of Neil Gaiman and Tori Amos." ImageTexT 4.1.
  11. Rogers, Kalen. Tori Amos: All These Years: The Authorized Biography. pp. p.48. ISBN 0825614481. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  12. "RAINN Commemorates One Million Callers to the National Sexual Assault Hotline". RAINN. 2006-09-06. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  13. "Marie Claire Names RAINN one of Best Charities". RAINN. 2006-06-02. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  14. "RAINN and Christina Ricci Push Congress to Fund Sexual Assault Services Programs". RAINN. 2007-04. Retrieved 2008-05-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. "All 50 States Now Included in National Sex Offender Public Registry". RAINN. 2006-07-05. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  16. "RAINN Calls on Congress to Investigate Allegations of Misconduct by KBR in Iraq". RAINN. 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  17. "The Billboard 200 - Chart Listing For The Week Of Feb 10 1996". Billboard. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  18. "everyhit.com". Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  19. "Tori Amos - Inside her Martian Engineering Studio". SoundOnSound.com. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
  20. "Garth Boxes In Billboard 200's Top Slot". Billboard. 1998-05-14. Retrieved 2008-06-01. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  21. Ali, Lorraine (2006). Tori Amos - A Piano: The Collection. Rhino. p. 12.
  22. Amos, Tori (2005). Tori Amos: Piece by Piece. New York: Broadway Books. p. 168. ISBN 978-0767916776. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  23. Amos, Tori (2005). Tori Amos: Piece by Piece. New York: Broadway Books. pp. 314–315. ISBN 978-0767916776. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  24. "Tori Amos - Tales of a Librarian". yessaid.com. Retrieved 2006-11-12.
  25. "Tori Amos Announces New Business Venture". Billboard. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  26. "The Record Industry's Decline". RollingStone. Retrieved 2007-12-26.
  27. "'O' Puts Omarion On Top". Retrieved 2008-08-10.
  28. "Tori Amos To Release New Album American Doll Posse; To Launch World Tour in May 2007". Retrieved 2008-08-10.
  29. The Dent: Six live bootleg recordings are to be officially released by Tori this year!
  30. Robertson, Jessica. Tori Amos Straps on Her High Heels. Retrieved on April 22, 2007.
  31. The interview with Paul Tingen regarding American Doll Posse can be found here
  32. Sound on Sound interview preview. Retrieved April 22, 2007
  33. Goodman, Elizabeth. Tori Amos Plans New Record, World Tour, Buy Britney’s Hair, And More. Retrieved on April 22, 2007.
  34. "Tori Amos kicks up her "Legs and Boots"". Retrieved 2007-10-17.
  35. "Ask Billboard - TORI AMOS GETS GRAPHIC". Billboard. Retrieved 2008-05-31. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  36. "Tori Amos Splits With Epic, Goes Indie". Billboard. 2008-06-02. Retrieved 2008-08-03. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  37. "Tori Signs With Universal Republic Records For Upcoming 2009 Album". Undented.com. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  38. "Tori Amos Inks New Deal, Eyes Spring/Summer Release". spinner.com. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
  39. http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2507/1
  40. Living Like Rock Star
  41. Cherry Bomb: Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna's Ultimate How-To for Budding Rock Chicks
  42. "News: Tori Connected With Byrne's "Here Lies Love"? (2008-03-24)". Undented.com. Retrieved 2008-08-09.
  43. "Watch Out for..." Mail Online. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  44. The Dent: Read the article and see scans from a Tori/Ben Folds article in Keyboard Magazine
  45. Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes tour 1992
  46. Undented

External links

Tori Amos
Studio albums
Compilations
Live albums
EPs
Singles
Other songs
Videos
Tours
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