Tori keeps going farther and farther out there and I, for one, am willing to risk the loss of gravitational pull to follow her. On this 1996 release, Tori, with her moody piano, abstract yet tortured lyrics studded with pop culture references, otherworldly voice, and unsettling album photos (that suckling pig is something...) takes us far past the comfort zone; but I feel it is for our own good.
Blood Roses is a disturbing configuration of chicken flesh, human flesh, twisted relationships and sex in front of a lovely backdrop of harpsicord, harmonium organ and delgany church bells.
Father Lucifer implies that she has found no peace about her Christian upbringing. Other songs touch on, well, I don't really know what they touch on but they sure sound nice...
Boys for Pele is the third studio album by American singer and song-writer Tori Amos. Preceded by the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze", by three weeks, the album was released on 22 January 1996, in the United Kingdom and on 23 January, in the United States. Despite the album being Amos’ least accessible material to radio to date, Boys for Pele debuted at # 2 on both the Billboard 200 and the UK Top 40, making it her biggest simultaneous transatlantic debut, her first Billboard top 10 debut, and the highest-charting US debut of her career to date.
Boys for Pele was recorded in rural Ireland and Louisiana and features 18 songs that incorporate harpsichord, clavichord, harmonium, gospel choirs, brass bands and full orchestras. Amos wrote all of the tracks, and for the first time, she served as the producer for her own album. For Amos, the album was a step into a different direction, in terms of singing, songwriting, and recording, and is experimental in comparison to her previous work.
Origin
During the recording of her previous album, Under the Pink (1994), Amos' longtime professional and romantic relationship with Eric Rosse, who co-produced a considerable amount of her pre-Pele work, disintegrated. That loss, combined with a few subsequent encounters with men during the Under the Pink promotional tour, forced Amos to re-evaluate her relationship with men and masculinity. Amos explained, "In my relationships with men, I was always musician enough, but not woman enough, I always met men in my life as a musician, and there would be magic, adoration. But then it would wear off. All of us want to be adored, even for five minutes a day, and nothing these men gave me was ever enough."
Songs began appearing in fragments, often while on stage during the Under the Pink tour. After a trip to Hawaii and learning about legendary volcano goddess Pele, the album began taking shape and the songs represented stealing fire from the men in her life as well as a journey to finding her own fire as a woman. From there, Amos explained, the songs just came. "Sometimes the fury of it would make me step back, I began to live these songs as we separated. The vampire in me came out. You're an emotional vampire, with blood in the corner of your mouth, and you put on matching lipstick so no one knows."
Along this journey, Amos, who has openly discussed her experiences with hallucinogenic drugs, particularly in relation to Boys for Pele, took drugs with a South American shaman and visited the devil. Such experiences led her to write the track "Father Lucifer."
The album would ultimately consist of 14 full-length songs and four short "interludes". As Amos was finding "parts and pieces of myself that I had never claimed" on this journey, the 14 primary songs represent the number of body parts of the Egyptian god Osiris that his wife, the goddess Isis, had to find to put his body back together in Egyptian mythology. The arrangement of the songs on the album reflects the progression Amos intended to achieve on the double vinyl LP of the album; each of the four sides of the album on vinyl would open with an interlude track that leads into the rest of the three or four songs on each side. The vinyl release is the only occurrence when the interludes ("Beauty Queen," "Mr. Zebra," "Way Down," and "Agent Orange") are not numbered and when "Beauty Queen" and "Horses" are not combined into one track.
Production
Boys for Pele is Amos' first self-produced album, a trend that would continue for a decade through Midwinter Graces (2009). Considering the album deals with the role of women in religion and relationships, particularly with Eric Rosse who served as producer for her previous two albums, it is fitting that Amos chose to have complete control over producing Boys for Pele, as a "bid for independence". Of her first self-produced album, Amos said, "I was at the point I could not answer to anybody. I'd been answering my whole life to some patriarchal figure."
Theme and lyrical content
Two underlying currents run through Boys for Pele: exploring the role of women in both patriarchal religion and relationships. Amos had previously written songs in a religious and/or theological context ("Crucify" from Little Earthquakes (1992), "God" from Under the Pink), but her viewpoint takes a particularly feminist slant on this album. "The feminine part of God has been circumcised out of all religions... God (is) a patriarchal force, a very masculine energy, with the feminine having been subservient, either being the mother, the lover, the virgin, but never the equal, never to have the whole." "Muhammad My Friend", the eight track on the album, best represents this aspect of the album's theme with the line, "It's time to tell the world/We both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem."
Amos derived the album's title from the Hawaiian volcano goddess, Pele, with the "boys" representing the men in her life. "First I wanted to sacrifice all these guys to the volcano goddess and roast them like marshmallows, then I decided they gave me a really wonderful gift," Amos said of the title. Amos herself has described the album as a novel, as a "story of the descent of a woman to gain her passion and gain her compassion," chronicling a woman's self-discovery in a male-dominated world, looking for fragments of herself and being suppressed. Songs such as "Blood Roses," "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Hey Jupiter," "Doughnut Song" and "Putting the Damage On" deal directly with the aftermath of a break-up and a woman's reflection on the failed relationship.
"Blood Roses", which Amos had initially intended to serve as the opening track to the album, finds the singer scorned over a failed relationship, belting out lines such as, "can't forget the things you never said" and "I've shaved every place where you've been boy". Regarding "Caught a Lite Sneeze", Amos says, "the whole current is doing anything so that you don't have to face yourself. Nothing is enough"; her previous relationships with men being the song's backbone with lines like, "boys on my left side, boys on my right side, boys in the middle and you're not here, I need a big loan from the girl zone."
Recording
Amos had initially planned to record the entire album in the American South because "there's a hiddenness about the South, and I wanted to go back there because it was similar to how I felt in my relationships with men," but the bulk of the record was recorded in a church in County Wicklow, Ireland, as well as in New Orleans, Louisiana. Given her religious upbringing, Amos was drawn to record in a church, not in anger, but "with the intention of wholeness and of bringing a fragmented woman back to freedom."
Amos chose to record the album in a church because it was about searching for an energy current,
about claiming the passionate aspect of womanhood that the church teaches is wrong, “the idea of speaking my truth, no censorship, in a place that did not honor anyone's truth unless it was the church's truth,” “so I figured if I was going to claim my womanhood, my passion, and sing this record - which, for me, was claiming fragments that I had suppressed for a long time - then I was going to go back to a church, back to the old world, to do it.”
Aside from the symbolic reasons to record in a church, the decision was also a technical one to augment the acoustics of the music. Amos' sound engineer came up with the idea of enclosing Amos and her instruments in a box, along with a makeshift Leslie cabinet. Due to the logistics of the space, Amos stood to perform on the harpsichord and piano. The time it took for her to turn around accounts for the break in music heard in "Caught a Lite Sneeze" when switching between instruments. Amos can be heard entering the box at the beginning of the first track, "Beauty Queen", and the Leslie effect is made obvious as it is switched on and off during different parts of "Horses", itself a continuous piano piece, allowing for a clear comparison in the piano's sound with and without the cabinet.
Marketing and promotion
In late 1995, Atlantic released a promotional-only CD in Germany and America simply titled "Tori Amos", under catalog number PRCD-6535-2. "New Music from Tori Amos..." appeared on the front cover, and upon opening the jewel case, "...is coming soon" appears on the back of the insert. The release is a 9-track promotional compilation of Amos’ singles from her first two solo albums, meant for radio stations to play to generate interest in the forthcoming album. The track "Precious Things" is mislabeled as "These Precious Things" on both the CD and the back cover whilst "Crucify (Remix)" is listed when in fact the album version features. The cover photo features Amos in a green tank top sporting an armband tattoo and lying on a camouflage blanket.
The album’s first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze", was released commercially and to radio stations on 2 January 1996, a full three weeks prior to the album’s release. This is a marketing tactic often used to build anticipation for a forthcoming album, and a sticker accompanying the US single blatantly acknowledged this: "Hear the first new music from Tori in over 2 years!"
From the start, Amos’ marketing team has made use of the Internet to market and promote new music. Since the Internet was more sophisticated in early 1996 when Boys for Pele was released than it had been two years earlier upon the release of Under the Pink, it was an essential marketing tool for promoting the album. Some reviews provided links to the Atlantic homepage or to Amos’ homepage to listen to audio clips from the album, while others provided telephone numbers to call to listen to audio clips. "Caught a Lite Sneeze", was groundbreaking in that it was one of the first songs ever to have its worldwide release on the Internet as a free download.
Reception
Aside from the overall praise of the album's expanded instrumentation, and warm reception to the acoustics that recording the album in a church afforded, reaction to the album was polarized particularly with regard to the lyrics. Boys for Pele is more lyrically dense than Amos' two previous albums, taking poetic obscurity to new heights. Some critics praised its ultra-personal lyrics while others panned its overt and excessive self-indulgence and "ozone-layer lyrics" described as unfathomable, impenetrable, and personally opaque. One scathing review suggested skipping the album, instead reading something "a little bit more intelligible--like maybe Gravity's Rainbow written in Greek", while Rolling Stone went as far to bluntly say that most of the album's lyrics are "ultimately mystifying and, well, bad".
One reviewer observed that Amos' unfettered creativity from serving as her own producer cost the album its accessibility. For Amos, it's not about making radio-friendly music with universal lyrics, she explained, "a song is only part lyrics and, for me anyway, more than 50% music, easy. There's so much subtext in the music that's part of the story."
B-sides
The writing process and recording session for Boys for Pele is one of Amos' most prolific. Between the songs that were included on the album, included as B-sides, and included in later compilations, Amos composed and recorded approximately 35 songs during this time.
The chart on the left lists only the songs that were released as B-sides on singles from Boys for Pele.
Many songs written and recorded for Boys for Pele were released in conjunction with subsequent albums or have yet to be released. Three such songs, "Cooling", "Never Seen Blue" and "Beulah Land", were recorded for inclusion on Boys for Pele, but were kept off the album, later released as B-sides on the "Spark" (1998) and "Jackie's Strength" (1998) singles.
Other songs were partially written during the Boys for Pele era and finished and released later: "Snow Cherries from France" appears on the Tales of a Librarian (2003) compilation, her final release with Atlantic; "Apollo's Frock" appears on Scarlet's Hidden Treasures (2004); and "Walk to Dublin", which was left off the album after disagreements over the musical structure of the song between Amos and her label, then revisited again during the From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998) recording sessions, was not released until A Piano: The Collection (2006).
Another song, "To the Fair Motormaids of Japan", was also recorded during the Boys for Pele recording sessions, but has yet to be released.
The Hey Jupiter EP includes live performances of some of Amos' previously-released B-sides, including a cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" . Amos covered "Famous Blue Raincoat" for the Leonard Cohen tribute album, Tower of Song: The Songs of Leonard Cohen and "I'm on Fire," "Landslide," and "Over the Rainbow" on VH1 Crossroads.
Remixes, reissues and sales
The album debuted at # 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 102,000 copies in its first week, and going on to achieve RIAA Gold certification in the US by early March. The album debuted at # 2 in the UK as well, making it the highest-charting transatlantic debut of any of Amos' albums. Prior to its release, the album achieved BPI Silver certification in the UK, followed by BPI Gold certification in March. By May, US sales were already nearing Platinum certification status when "Talula," the album's second US single, which also appeared in the Steven Spielberg film Twister, was released and accompanied by a sticker that read, "From Tori's new album Boys for Pele - 900,000 and climbing!". Dance remixes of "Professional Widow" were released in July and by the end of the month the single reached # 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts in the US, the UK Dance Chart, and the Official UK Singles Chart. The successful releases of "Talula" and subsequently "Professional Widow" surged albums sales enough that Boys for Pele achieved RIAA Platinum certification in August, the day after the US release of the Hey Jupiter EP.
The success of remixes from this album lead to the album being reissued in both the US and the UK. In the US, the original version of "Talula" was replaced by "Talula (The Tornado Mix)," which incorporates a minor dance beat. In the UK, "Talula (The Tornado Mix)" replaced the original version of the song and a remix of "Professional Widow" was added to the album, immediately following the original version of the song. As a result of the extra "Professional Widow" track, the song "In the Springtime of His Voodoo" was removed completely.
"In the Springtime of His Voodoo" was also remixed and released as a dance single, but was a much smaller club success. Interest in the album resurfaced when Amos sang vocals on "Blue Skies", another club and dance hit by dance music artist BT that reached # 1 on the Hot Dance/Club Play chart exactly one year after the release of Boys for Pele.
Boys for Pele remained on the Billboard 200 for 29 weeks throughout 1996, before falling off the chart in mid September. According to Billboard Magazine, the album ranked # 100 on the Year-End Album Charts of 1996 in the U.S. in December. To date, Boys for Pele is Amos' third-best selling album in the U.S.
Chart performance
Album
Singles
∞ - Denotes position on Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles
¤ - Denotes sales position on Billboard 200 for Hey Jupiter EP
ψ - Denotes position of "Hey Jupiter/Professional Widow" double A-side single
Acclaim
Despite receiving mixed reviews upon its release, Boys for Pele has gone on to become a strong-selling album and to be cited as having been critically underrated. The album was nominated for a Grammy in 1996 for Best Alternative Album.
In 2008, The Guardian listed Boys for Pele on its list of 1,000 Albums To Hear Before You Die.
Boys for Pele has also been selected as the subject of a 33⅓ book, a series of books written about important and/or seminal music albums. The book is being written by Elizabeth Merrick and set for release in 2008.
(*) designates readers' or listeners' lists.
Personnel
Musicians
* Tori Amos – Vocals, Bösendorfer piano, Harmonium organ, clavichord, Harpsichord
* George Porter, Jr. – Bass
* Steve Caton – Guitar, Electric Guitar, Mandolin, swells
* Manu Katché – Drums
Additional musicians
* Marcel van Limbeek – Delgany Church Bells
* James Watson – Trumpet, Brass conductor
* The Black Dyke Mills Band – Brass
* The Sinfonia of London – Strings
* Philip Shenale – string arrangement
* Peter Willison – string orchestrator and conductor
* Alan Friedman – drum programming
* Clarence J. Johnson III – Soprano Sax, Tenor Sax
* Mino Cinelu – percussion
* Darrly Lewis - persussion
* Mark Mullins – Trombone, Horns
* Craig Klein – Sousaphone
* Michael Deegan – Bagpipes
* Bernard Quinn – Bagpipes
* Nancy Shanks – Additional vocals
Production
* Tori Amos – record producer
* Mark Hawley – mixer
* Marcel van Limbeek – mixer
* Rob van Tuin – mixer
* Bob Ludwig – mastering
* Cindy Palmano – artwork, photography, art direction
* Paddy Cramsie – graphic design
* Paul Chessell – graphic design
Release history
∞ Denotes reissue
References
Category:Tori Amos albums
Category:1996 albums
Category:Songs with feminist themes
Category:Atlantic Records albums
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This text has been derived from Boys for Pele on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0Artist/Band Information
Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. She 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. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date.
As of 2005, Amos had sold 12 million albums worldwide. She has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards.
Early life
Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina. When she was two, 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, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. 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. At the age of 14 she began playing at piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos 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. At age 21, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit of the D.C. area.
Atlantic years (1986–2001)
Y Kant Tori Read
In 1986, 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 by ear, but was never successful at sight reading.David Wallechinsky & Amy Wallace: The New Book of Lists. Canongate, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84195-719-7. In addition to 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. Following several phases of writing and recording, during which Amos has since asserted that the band lost their musical edge and direction due to interference from record executives, in July 1988, the Y Kant Tori Read's self-titled debut album was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, has stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, it is now out of print and Amos has expressed no interest in reissuing it. Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, 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.
Solo career
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. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault.
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. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at #12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at #54 on the same chart.
Tori Amos piano.jpgthumbAmos performing on her Dew Drop Inn tour in 1996.
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, 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, 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.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into a state-of-the-art recording studio, Martian Engineering Studios. Amos enlisted principal band mates Steve Caton on guitars, Jon Evans on bass, and Matt Chamberlain on drums, with whom Amos would record her next two studio albums and embark on world tours.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums as Amos's trademark acoustic piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica, dance music, vocal washes and sonic landscapes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood, and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. While not her highest chart debut, debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
Motherhood inspired Amos to produce a cover album, recording songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to show a woman's perspective. That idea grew into Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001, one year after giving birth to her daughter. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic 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.
Epic Records years (2002–07)
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut, demonstrating that Amos' fan base remained intact through the label change. However, Scarlet's Walk is Amos' last album to date to reach certified gold status. Note: User must define search parameters, i.e. "Tori Amos".
Tori-amos-closeup-0b.jpgthumbAmos in Berlin in 2007.
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. 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 released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received mixed reviews, some of which stated that the albums suffered from being too long. 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. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. American Doll Posse, another concept album, was fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature.The interview with Paul Tingen regarding American Doll Posse can be found here Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15 year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
Universal Republic years (2008–present)
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo-album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio-album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it the Amos' seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, was a "personal album", not a conceptual one. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, entitled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album "From Russia With Love" in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on 3 September 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 were produced. It is currently unknown as to whether the album will receive a mass release.
Currently, Amos is writing the music for Samuel Adamson's musical adaptation of the George MacDonald story The Light Princess for the Royal National Theatre, which is expected to debut in 2012, as well as on her own new project.
Discography
To date, Amos has released eleven studio albums throughout her solo career, nine of which were self-produced.
* Little Earthquakes (1992)
* Under The Pink (1994)
* Boys For Pele (1996)
* From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
* To Venus and Back (1999)
* Strange Little Girls (2001)
* Scarlet's Walk (2002)
* The Beekeeper (2005)
* American Doll Posse (2007)
* Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
* Midwinter Graces (2009)
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 has 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-70 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 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. 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 and equipment 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, 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 and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
; 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. 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", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", 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, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. 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. 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.
; Sinful Attraction Tour : For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on 10 July 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on 10 October 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on 12 November 2009 and ended in Brisbane on 24 November 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Award nominations
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers entitled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Other publications include Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996). Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic criticism.
Personal life
Amos is the third child of Rev. Dr. Edison and Mary Ellen Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in 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.
Early in her professional career, 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". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009.
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 survivor 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.
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their only child, a daughter named Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley, was born on September 5, 2000. They divide their time between Sewall's Point in Florida and Cornwall in England.
Notes and references
This text has been derived from Tori Amos on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
