Richard Handal alerted me to a review of Tori's performance at the KROQ's Seventh Annual Acoustic Christmas concert from December 1996. It appeared in UCLA's The Daily Bruin on January 6, 1997. Click here to read it.

RILLOM was the first of many people to tell me about this good news. It shows that the readers of Rolling Stone do not agree with its critics! (Rolling Stone printed a strongly negative review of Boys For Pele early in 1996.) This appears in the January 23 1997 issue:

"Every year Rolling Stone does a Readers and Critics Award for the Best and Worst of the Year....well Ms. Tori finished SECOND in the Best Female Singer category - Readers Poll ! (Critics poll did not have that category). This is quite an accomplishment. (Joan Osborne came in first)."

There is an interview with Tori in the New York Post about RAINN From January 17. Among other things, Tori puts Howard Stern in his place for some insensitive comments he made about this subject.

2 small black & white photos of Tori appear in the January 11th  issue of Billboard Magazine. One photo shows Tori and Calvin Klein at the RAINN press conference in December 1996. The other photo says something about Tori appearing on a Spin Radio Network in late 1996, an appearance I know nothing about!

Take A Look At The Photos and Read The Captions.

Read the article.

The Radio 1 web site in the U.K. reported on some quotes from Tori concerning her fans and nerds. A while later, on January 8, 1997, the tabloid-like newspaper The Daily Mirror in the U.K. ran a small insulting article about Tori called TORI SNOB, which revealed how little they know about Tori and how easy it is for some people to misinterpret Tori's quotes.

Read the Radio1 quotes from Tori, the insulting article, and some great responses to that article from various Toriphiles.

There was an article at the LA Times web site in the Entertainment section from January 3rd about the top concert attractions of 1996. On the top 50 list, Tori was #30 with a gross of $10.1 million in the US. The article mentions her as well, saying, "The busiest pop performer of the Top 50 acts was Tori Amos, who stepped on stage 151 times, grossing $10.1 million." The group Kiss was first with a gross of $43.6 Million.

"Something made her very angry: a love gone mean, a promise unkept. So Tori Amos rendered her bitterness mythical. Wild imagination led her into ancient legend, intimate memory, and a dreamland where only she could read the signposts. She returned with a map: these songs, poetic in structure, ultra-vivid in tone, many rendered in the harpsichord's arcane language. A great leap in her expedition through uncharted areas of the feminine."

Ariel's Best Eight Albums (NSR #4: The Best of 1996) was posted to the rec.music.reviews newsgroup. Tori's Boys For Pele ranked #1! The article said (and this is a beautiful review):

"'I'm just coming out of the cell in my brain...'

If there are three things that 1996 will be known for in my mind, they are 1) it's the year I finally got my act together 2) it's the year I finally got my mind together and 3) it's the year Tori Amos released one of the best albums ever made. Really, #3 is, in many ways, responsible or at least partially responsible, for #s 1 and 2. Now, knowing that, I had, at one point, decided to try to be objective about this, and not name my favorite artist as the creator of the the best album of the year. So, I turned off my biases and listened again, and lo and behold, this was still the best of the year. I'm still not entirely sure it's not the best of the last decade or so.

As always, Tori's music is pure in it's sweetness, tainted in it's darkness, and awesome in it's beauty. As always, her voice is that of an angel, but an angel that has touched the dirt of the earth and come away just a little less than clean. And yet, it's different from her previous works. It carries with it a passion, and a pain, that not even Little Earthquakes can match - that Under The Pink can't compare to. To listen to this album is both agony and comfort. It is a genuine catharsis... the most painful kind. It will tear every piece of loneliness and hurt you have inside you from your soul, and make you look it right in the face, just before Tori whispers in your ear that yes, everything will be okay, and starts to stitch you up again. This album will change lives, break hearts, and heal souls.

The word "genius" is too often flung around in the music business, as in the film industry, often being attributed to anyone who can keep a tune, or write one. The word should not be used so frivilously. It should be saved for people who deserve it. And if that's not Tori Amos, I don't know who it is. And if this is not a masterpiece, I don't know what is."

The War Against Silence (#101, Jan 2, 97) is an article that appears in the rec.music.reviews newsgroup. In their Best of 96, Tori's Boys For Pele ranked #4. The comment was:

"Mythology for a private culture we can never be sure isn't also ours."

In the Melody Maker Reader's Poll, Tori ranked 10th in the Best Female Artist category!

"Tori received 2nd place in Best Live Act in the Alternative Press reader's poll (right behind Marylin Manson)."

In the "Best and Worst of 96" issue of Entertainment Weekly, in the Music section, Tori's In the Springtime of His Voodoo got voted for Worst Song Title. How rude!

Tori devotee Jose has this to say about some stuff that appeared in a Toronto newspaper (I don't know which one) and that were written by a Jane Stevenson:

"It seems that Tori is well received by Toronto music critics because this year she made two different lists. The first one was a "look back at those music makers (who) made news in 1996". Under the category of LOVABLE WEIRDOS: Beck and Tori Amos. She was also in today's paper in the entertainment section:

'Best Concerts of 1996... Without further ado, here are the Top 10 concerts that rocked-or at least rattled- Toronto in 1996.

1. Lenny Kravitz
2. k.d. Lang
3. Aretha Franklin
4. AC/DC
5. Bob Dylan
6. Rod Stewart
7. TORI AMOS, May 27, Massey Hall: The kooky but lovable Amos completely captivated her audience, whether playing piano or harpsichord (she sat in between the two on stage) and managed to make her "out -there" film images projected onto a large, triangular screen behind her seem perfectly acceptable in the 90's. Amos, a classically trained child prodigy, is a woman of distinct vision and style. May the years not change her into a cynic.

8. Sting w/ Sarah McLachlan
9. Neil Young w/ Oasis
10. Garth Brooks'

Wow!!! She's amongst some pretty huge acts! - but we already knew that. It's nice to have The Dew Drop Inn Tour confirmed as a truly amazing show, but it's too bad that the writer of both columns (Jane Stevenson) has to constantly refer to Tori as "kooky" or "a weirdo"."