Tori Amos 2: Under The Pink

Riding high on the success of her real debut, playing songs to adoring young females as well as frat boy jocks who thought she was pretty hot, Tori Amos had a ready-made audience for her next album. Under The Pink arrived while her debut still had legs; her confidence showed in her experimentation with different keyboards and rhythms, but everything sounded enough like Little Earthquakes without being a retread.

Accurate or not, “Pretty Good Year” is an apt way to start, a piano-and-vocal piece exploding with drums and strings for the bridge. The familiar setting is knocked askew with the offbeat meter and guitar squeals under “God”, the provocative first single. A heavily “prepared” piano is the only accompaniment for “Bells For Her”, and it does indeed suggest distant, ancient church bells. After that drifts off, “Past The Mission” starts as a jaunty song, turning to a more somber chorus with hints of murder in the lyrics and doom in the voice of Trent Reznor in the harmonies. “Baker Baker” is a mournful twist on the nursery rhyme, pleading to be made “whole again”. She can tug heart strings when she wants to, so while “The Wrong Band” and “The Waitress” provide dark humor, they’re not as effective.

Of course, trying to decode her lyrics can take up a lot of time, so the power of a tune like “Cornflake Girl” makes up for what you haven’t figured out yet. The second half of the song, devoted to an extended piano solo and a soulful choir of women, still stands neck hairs. (As for her assertion that she’d “never been a cornflake girl”, YouTube says otherwise.) The balance of the album is devoted to lengthier epics, beginning with the remembrance of sexual awakening in “Icicle”. It’s in the same spot as “Mother” from the first album, from its occasionally solo to a distinct Kate Bush moment every time she sings “I should have”. “Cloud On My Tongue” is almost as hushed, but a little shorter and more stirring. Something in the “doot-doot-DOO” rhythm of “Space Dog” always reminded us of Otto singing along to his headphones on The Simpsons, so the other musical motif works better (even with yet another shout-out to Neil Gaiman). Finally, “Yes, Anastasia” is a nine-and-a-half-minute epic touching on the life of the titular tsarina, but probably violence in general.

So in this case, more of the same was a comfort. Under The Pink made an excellent follow-up, and to her credit, her next albums would go further away from the “girl and her piano” stereotype. She would retain a strong following, but never really sounded like this again. (The backlog of extras from the sessions wasn’t as deep as those for the first album, but the eventual expanded version of the album added seven rarities, one remix, and a handful of live performances cheered on by her faithful.)

Tori Amos Under The Pink (1994)—4
2015 Deluxe Edition: same as 1994, plus 15 extra tracks

Tori Amos 1: Little Earthquakes

To this day it’s still mistaken for Kate Bush, but Little Earthquakes immediately established Tori Amos as a dominant talent, and one of the most revered artists of the ‘90s. Not that this happened overnight. This was actually her second album on the Atlantic label, having since convinced the industry powerhouse to delete and bury Y Kant Tori Read, her eponymous hair-metal debut most notable today for employing Matt Sorum a year before Slash saw him play with The Cult. Having decided, rightfully, that the image that album perpetuated wasn’t really her, she determined to follow her instincts and find her “real” sound.

It took a while, and several producers, but Little Earthquakes is the statement of a woman truly comfortable in her own skin, and would become a guru for thousands of young women (and, to be fair, men) aching to be the same. It was an appealing package: a classically schooled pianist, with frizzy red hair and a contextually direct performance style: she eschewed the stool for a bench, while she’d straddle, half facing the audience, almost daring them to ogle.

This presentation would be especially provocative whenever she performed “Me And A Gun”, a harrowing a cappella piece recounting her experience of being raped. This factoid was never ignored during the promotion of the album, but unfortunately it would be mistaken as the main theme of “Silent All These Years”, the excellent first single. It may have something to do with that, but the larger message is that of speaking up, and not letting your voice be silenced.

The determination not to be victimized needn’t be restricted to sexual assault, and both “Crucify” and “Girl” can be taken as feminist anthems at their most basic. “Precious Things”, with its horror movie arrangement, and the cabaret-style “Leather” are songs about relationships, partially informed by growing up with a minister father. Speaking of which, “Winter” would appear to be more directly about him, but again, it’s a plea for self-acceptance, and the way her emotion catches in her throat on the final chorus will do the same for the listener. The string arrangement is suitably dramatic without being overblown. Some timely comic relief comes with “Happy Phantom”, a vaudeville jig about avenging one’s tormentors from beyond the grave.

Because her style is opaque, and informed by pagan and other influences, the songs are easy to misinterpret. “Mother”, a lengthy solo piece, conjures images of childhood, possible abuse, and dancing lessons. The title track provides more of a sense of closure after “Me And A Gun”. So things like “China” and “Tear In Your Hand”, with their easy metaphors, rise above as excellent, catchy pop.

These interpretations will likely be scoffed at by more learned individuals; as a male there is no way I can begin to understand what it’s like to be female. But for whatever the reason, Little Earthquakes was worth all the work Tori Amos put into it, and it still triggers emotional reactions with every play. And its simple girl-and-her-piano sound was a welcome alternative in the early grunge era.

The cult of Tori grew fairly quickly and fervently, and new fans clamoring for anything else she’d done were left to trade bootleg copies of Y Kant Tori Read, or spend a little less on various CD singles, which sported rarities as bonus tracks (or what we used to call B-sides). Such gems as “Flying Dutchman”, “Upside Down”, and “Here In My Head” were in the running for the album proper, and she’d even play some of them at her shows. When Little Earthquakes came due for an expansion two decades later, many of these rarities—another album’s worth—were included on a bonus disc, along with five live recordings that demonstrate how she could spellbind a crowd. (Rearranged covers were also a hallmark of her shows and singles, but of the ones from this era, only “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, which Kurt Cobain himself appreciated, made it to the Deluxe Edition.)

Tori Amos Little Earthquakes (1992)—4
2015 Deluxe Edition: same as 1992, plus 18 extra tracks