There is a review of The Boston Concert and an album review from the Boston Phoenix in the April 30 - May 7, 1998 issue.

There is a rather insulting album review in the Canadian newsweeklies Now in Toronto and Capital City in Ottawa. The review by Tim Perlich is the same in both publications. If you want to respond to this review, you can email the letters department at "Capital City" at letters@capitalcity.net, and you can email the Now newspaper at letters@now.com. Many thanks to Mic, Brian Wong, and Glen Philip Hansman.

TORI AMOS "From the Choirgirl Hotel" -- review by Tim Perlich Rating: ** (2 stars)

Beneath the marketable layers of Tori Amos' phony quirkiness, there lies a misguided Kate Bush piano-bar tribute with neither the genuine artistic compulsion nor the compositional chops to rise above a comical Gowan level of faux-classical pretentiousness. She's never been shy about parlaying personal tragedy into a sales hook and with From The Choirgirl Hotel (out Tuesday), Amos capitalizes on her recent miscarriage to develop a song cycle about the miracles of life and loss. The big news is that Amos has moved away from the dull piano/voice concept - which she never had the charisma to pull off for more than the length of a single - and benefits >from the broader sonic palette offered by a hired combo. Now if she could only lose some of that hey-nonny-nonny rhythmic frivolity, calculated lyrical obliqueness and excessive vocal decoration, she might come up with something worth hearing.

I have added to my page of Toronto Reviews a review of Tori's April 28, 1998 club show at the Phoenix in Toronto, Canada from by John Sakamoto that appears on the excellent Jam! web site.

There is a Choirgirl Album Review in the April 29, 1998 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

There is an article on The Village Voice web site called "Y Tori Can Groove" from April 28, 1998.

An article called, "This time Tori Amos is bringing a band to Detroit " appeared in the April 28, 1998 edition of the Detroit Free Press.

Read the Detroit Free Press Article.

Read the concert review.

Read the concert review.

The 26th April 1998 issue of NME Magazine in the U.K. reviewed "Spark." Thanks to Skecksi and David Brook for alerting me to this.

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering, 'Am I allowed to like Tori Amos?' As a journalist I can confirm that any woman who suckles a pig on her album sleeve and paints herself gold in public must be walking a dangerously uncool aesthetic tightrope, for which she deserves our eternal respect. 'Spark' is a better reason, though, starting off typically windswept and wuthering, but then getting all insomniac, prickly and panicked as it contemplates the fact "She's addicted to nicotine patches". God I know what she's going through.

- Johnny Cigarettes

Steve Williams reports that The Sacramento (California) Bee has a column in the Time & Money section of their Sunday paper called "2-Minute Know-It-All", which is partially composed of quotes from celebrities. The April 26, 1998 edition included a quote from Tori from a recent article in the New York Times:

"I saw the girls being like a singing group, because they're very independent, but they hang out together. They have their own solar systems, they have their own family trees, but I did see them having margaritas by the pool. Sometimes they let me sing with them."

Read the concert review.

Read the concert review.

Read the concert review.

"Tori Amos, the music therapy".

Half-angel, half-devil. What could be more natural for the daughter of a methodist preacher from North Carolina? Yet, if you listen carefully to the lyrics she sing with a voice that weavers between Rickie Lee Jones and Kate Bush, her straightforward way of tackling sexuality and violence makes you jump. Insubordinate and rebelious as a child, Tori Amos took refuge at a very early age in music, to get away from the puritan shackles her father was imposing her. With songs like "Crucify" or "Little Earthquake" (sic.), she makes records as you would write an autobiography. A rape attempt had inspired one of her first lyrics, "Me and a Gun". As for her last album, "from the choirgirl hotel", it is wholly marked by the depression that followed the failure of a pregnancy last year. "I got away from that traumatism thanks to music. I prefer sitting at a piano than on a couch to do my psychoanalysis".

"At the age of 3, I was playing the piano, at 4, I was composing and at 5 I decided I would be a rock star."

Jon Vena wrote a review of Tori's club show in New York on April 23, 1998 that appeared on the SonicNet Web Site in the Music News Of The World section on April 24, 1998.

You can read this review on the Dent.

Nick Raafe has sent me an article that appears in the April 24, 1998 edition of the Boston Globe newspaper. The article is called, "ONCE AGAIN, TORI AMOS FINDS HEALING THROUGH MUSIC."

Read the Boston Globe article.

Many thanks to Amy Hanauer, Michael Solomon, Rebecca Aniela Siegel and Bill Williams for making me aware of the fact that there is a major article on Tori in the April 23, 1998 edition of the New York Times. The article is titled, "AT LUNCH WITH TORI AMOS: Disclosing Intimacies, Enjoying the Shock Value." Read it online at the New York Times web site, or right here on the Dent in my Articles section. You can also see a nice photo that appeared with the article.

Read the New York Times Article and see the photo.

Toriphile Amy Hanauer and ToriPyro sent me an article on Tori that appeared in the Long Island (New York) newspaper Newsday on April 23, 1998 in the NightBeat EXTRA section. This article has the title, "TORI'S EXORCISE TAPES: Tori Amos, out with a new record, is expert at translating her traumas into music." It is mainly a series of quotes from other interviews and general info about the new album.

Read the article and see a photo from it.

The April 23-29, 1998 issue of Now newspaper in Toronto, Canada (a weekly) contained a small article about Tori's North American Sneak Preview Club Tour. (Thanks Michael Dillon for the article and Brian Wong for the photo.)

Vocal Tori Amos
Clubs hand this week's hottest-ticket-in-town award directly to Tori Amos, whose Phoenix show Tuesday sold out in a heartbeat. Not a shocker, given the cultish devotion the U.S. born, UK based singer inspires in her fans. Amos' fluttering soprano and virtuoso piano playing, filtered through her own loopy pop compositions, are a big part of the appeal, but what really gives Amos the leg up is her unflinching willingness to use the most painful aspects of her personal life for material. Newly married and out hyping her forthcoming From the Choirgirl Hotel disc, Amos - a confessed road pig - is sure to return to a bigger venue soon.

Alberto e Leda sent me an article on Tori that appeared in the April 23, 1998 issue of the Italian magazine 'Musica'.

Read the article in Musica.

This one is from UK Ceefax, BBC, Pp564.

It's a direct cut 'n' paste from my teletext decoder, so when you see the mis-spelling, it's how it was originally.

"TORI AMOS - PARK (Eastwest)
Don't dust down your dancing shoes before you take a jaunt down to Dr Pop's Record Emporium - this is definitely NOT Professional Widow II.

The Cornflake Girl goes through the emotions on a passionate, piano-fuelled lament, with shades of Kate Bush and Madonna and a teensy slice of Meat Loaf"

And from pp.482 on Channel 4

"TORI AMOS Spark -- More nerve-jangling obsessional pop full of quirky piano, paranoid vocals and fuzzy breakbeats. " (3 out of 5)

from pp.143 on Channel 4 (Gossip page)

"Tori Amos reckons the Spice Girls got inspiration from classic literature and ancient mythology. OK, Tori... "

and finally, from Pp144...

"TORI AMOS Spark
More weird psycho-warblings from the Princess of Kook. Spark features Ms Amos's trademark high pitched warble of distress, quirky piano and this time, some fuzzy breakbeats. A Kate Bush for the 90s we're afraid. ** out of *****"

Read the concert review.

Kim Rygiel tells me that there is an article and picture of Tori in the April 1998 issue of the french magazine RAGE, number 35. If anyone has more details, scans of the photo, or the article translated into English, please let me know!

Toriphiles Kim Rygiel and Whygee tell me that Tori appears in a 4 page article in the April 1998 issue Keyboard magazine in France (issue #120.) This is not the same as Keyboard Magazine in the U.S. The article includes an interview and has several photos. If anyone has more details, scans of the photos, or the article translated into English, please let me know!

French Toriphile Tristan Alzial tells me about Tori appearing in the French magazine Multimedia Keyboard, which may or may not be the same thing as Keyboard Magazine. Tristan describes the issue:

there's a 3-page interview, with 3 photos. I can't give you the translation or whatever, as I didn't buy it, but I can tell you the article was much more technical than what we're used to.

Tori told about how she worked on the songs : she wrote them using both the piano and the synth.; she tells how they worked on the sound : they used it as they would have used light; she tells about the kinds of reverbs she used, about the structure of some songs (in "Spark", she says the bars constantly change, from 10/4 to 7/4, etc...), and so on...

She also talks about her relationship with her pianos - the one she uses at home in the US, and the one for the studio, and there's something like "The more important is how you use the sustain pedal. And some people play the keyboard alright in their songs, but when it comes to play a full bass line or whatever,..." - that's no actual quote, but that's what she meant. I understood it as "Ok, lots of people do play the piano, but their playing is not really complex or thought about" - was that an expression of self-consciousness? I understood it as such...

She explains why she definitely prefers B–sendorfers : they're really much better than any other piano in the basses and the mediums, their sound is clearer, and she gets her sound engineer with her everywhere she goes, because he can always work the best out of the piano for her.

That's all I can remember of what I read right now. She did mention her miscarriage, but she did it by herself, the interviewer had only asked the regular "Where did the inspiration come from?" question. She didn't tell anything like the ghost story she told during the chat or whatever, I don't even think she mentioned religion. That was really more technical.

Many thanks to Katherine Ewald, Alex, Toripyro and Sharon Gordon for telling me about a Tori article/interview that appeared in the April 17, 1998 issue of the New York Post in the Entertainment section. The article has the title "TORI AMOS PREACHES TO GIRLS IN THE CHOIR." You can read the article online at the New York Post web site.

Read the New York Post article at the Dent.

Amos hides to hear the earth

It really isn't difficult to catch the lyrics and meaning of Tori Amos' piano-driven music, but the singer-songwriter (right) can be a smidge more difficult to follow when she's _talking_.

Case in point: During a recent interview to chat up her April 20 concert at the Roxy, we innocently asked where she's living, and Amos told us, "I'm a nomad -- Tuscany, the West Country in England and two secret hideaways. I have to hide away. Sometimes, in some cities, crowds are so thick that I can't hear what the earth's saying and what's going on underneath all these buildings and concrete. It's hard to get close to the pulse of the earth.

"Sometimes it's exhilarating and sometimes it's depressing, [like a] nut case sitting next to you. I'm a nature girl, I don't like to be that far away from having birds sing, even if they're crapping all over me."

And no, we're not making this up. Ticket information: 404-249-6400.

The April 17, 1998 issue of USA Today on page 7E contains a small column under the headline "BAD verse: Lame lyrics from singers who should know better." They then print the lyrics to "Cruel", which appears on the new album. They also include the photo you see here. (Many thanks to Sue for being the first to tell me and Richard Handal, for sending me the photo.) All I can do about this one is quote Richard Handal who says, "Is there, like, a *reason* that nastiness, bad vibes, and making fun of people in general now all count as high entertainment? I, for one, am sick to death of it."

SonicNet had an article called "Tori Amos Tells Story Of Choirgirl Hotel" that they posted on April 15, 1998 that summarized the chat that Tori did at Yahoo on April 13th. You can read this at the SonicNet web site.

Yahoo! Chat web site

Read the Chat Transcript.

The Times web site

Read The Article/Interview And See The Photos.

Read the rest of this New York Post Article.

The April 11, 1998 issue of the British magazine Music Week contained an article about Tori and the new album, as well as a good review of the single "Spark." The online version of Music Week is called Dotmusic, and I have been pointing to the online version of the article for a while now. The review of Spark is also available online at the Dotmusic web site. The article includes three pictures: one being a small album cover, the second is a tiny portrait photo of Tori, and the third is shown to the right. Click on the small photo to see a larger version, which shows Tori's entire body.

You can also read the article and Spark review here on The Dent.

The following review of "Spark" appears in the April 11, 1998 issue of Billboard Magazine (Thanks Jordy Keith):

"Spark'' (4:05) Atlantic

The timing for an Amos release has never been better, as the mainstream has apparently caught up to the singer/songwriter's quirky brand of pop music. She meets fans halfway with this first single from the imminent, much-anticipated new album, ``from the choirgirl hotel,'' by infusing the song's complex, piano-driven structure with a sticky chorus and ample use of scratchy angst-rock guitars. Amos continues to explore the far regions of her vocal range, yelping and ranting at whim. However, she counters that with welcome softer nuances that serve the song well. Add an insinuating, tribalistic midtempo drum, and you have what could be a major pop breakthrough for this eternal critical darling.

On April 11, 1998, a small article on Tori appeared in the Weekend Section of the Miami Herald newspaper on page 23G. It includes a photo of Tori in a white tanktop, all dirty on the mattress... one of the BFP pics. And the photo caption says, "Tori Amos plugs in.."

Tori Amos isn't your usual pop star --- her last CD featured an inside photo of her suckling a pig, after all --- so why would she launch a new album in a traditional way?

Amos previews her latest, from the choirgirl hotel (due May 5) with a "Sneak Preview '98 'plugged' " performance at Fort Lauderdale's Chili Pepper nightclub April 18. It's her first show with a band in a long time, and she wanted to kick off the album in a special way, says Atlantic, her label.

Tickets, at $27.50 a pop, went on sale to brisk business. At press time, some remained (you have to buy them in person at Sunrise Musical Theatre, cash only). But if you miss out this time, Amos will return to South Florida this summer as part of her regular concert tour, Atlantic says.

As for from the choirgirl hotel, pre-release buzz suggested it was a musical departure in that Amos' piano would be secondary to a full-band sound. True, to a point. The first single, Spark, is piano-driven, but adds tribalistic drums and scratchy guitars. The most appealing track is the melodious Playboy Mommy, featuring the most identifiable Amos melody of the bunch.

There is a really interesting article at Sonicnet's Music News Of The World for April 10, 1998. It has the headline, "Tori Amos Straddling Sound Spectrum On Upcoming LP: Piano crooner writes tunes ranging from her classic ballads to operatic style pieces." The article takes a detailed look at the content and lyrics of her new album. Informative and interesting.

Read The Article At Sonicnet.

dki, the smiley one tells me that the Wed, April 8, 1998 edition of The Metro Times in Detroit reported on the people standing in line for club tour tickets at St. Andrews during the weekend of April 4th. The report was in the "fly on the wall" section by Casey Coston.

Read the article here on my site or online at the Metro Times Detroit web site.

Led Zeppelin - Box Set
Marvin Gaye - Greatest Hits
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
The Beatles - White Album
Janis Joplin - Pearl
Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love
The Cure - Mixed Up
Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden
The Pretenders - Pretenders
Stevie Wonder - Inner Visions

About Hound Of Love Tori says: she says, "I love the second side of this album. I was in Los Angeles when I heard this record for the first time. I was hanging out in the rock chick scene. Thigh-high boots, gigantic amounts of hairspray, and everything. I had encountered nothing but rejection for months, nobody liked my piano stuff. And I was in a band that did something completely different. Then I found this record, and put it on, listened to side one, liked it OK, listened to side two, listened to side two again, and again, and again and again (sings): "You can't hear me, you can't hear what I'm saying, you didn't hear me come in, you won't hear me leaving." This turned me inside out. It changed my life. I decided to leave the man with whom I shared an apartment; I left the man I was living with because of this record."

The photo above shows Tori holding up "Pearl" and "Inner Visions" in her hand. I would like to thank Toriphile Doron for telling me about this photo. I found the photo on a Kate Bush News & Information web site in the news section. I strongly recommend this site for all Kate Bush fans.

March 27, 1998 - Toriphile Jordy Keith has made me aware of an exciting article from Billboard Magazine that she discovered on America Online. The article appears in the April 4, 1998 issue of Billboard. The article is called "Tori Amos Isn't Alone In Her "hotel" Atlantic Album Features Full Band Sound" by Paul Verna. The version of the article in the magazine is longer than the version you can read on AOL. The article talks about Tori's new album and tour, future promotional plans and magazine appearances, and contains some interesting quotes from Tori.

Read this article from Billboard Magazine.

Ears With Feet Jeffrey tells me that the April 1998 issue of ICE Magazine contains a front page story that says the following about Tori's new album, "from the choirgirl hotel":

"A source closely involved in the project tells ICE that Amos' fourth full-length effort is 'a great departure from her last record. She's used a rock band and made a hard-hard hitting pop record. You could draw a comparison with the sound you hear on Radiohead's OK Computer-that's the sort of thing she's going for. It really pushes the boundaries of recording technique'".

Q Magazine in the April 1998 issue dropped some tidbits about Tori's upcoming 1998 album and also was the first official source to confirm that Tori Amos has married her sound engineer Mark Hawley! They also show a photo of Tori that they say is a preview of the artwork that will appear on the new album. The photo was made using a photocopier! I also include another photo that appeared in the back of the magazine that is in an advertisement for Tori's Plugged '98 tour in the U.K.

Read The Article From Q Magazine.