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118-510: Little Earthquakes is the debut solo album by the American singer-songwriter Tori Amos , featuring the singles " Silent All These Years ", " China ", " Winter " and " Crucify ". After Atlantic Records rejected the first version of the album, Amos began working on a second version with her then-boyfriend Eric Rosse . The album was first released in the UK on January 6, 1992, where it peaked at number 14 in

236-648: A B-side , "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, and was considering the stage name "Sammy Jaye " at the time, but permanently adopted "Tori" after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine , a tree native to the West Coast. By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of

354-493: A "sonic novel", the album explores Amos' 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 at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos' last album to date to reach certified gold status from

472-616: A 10-track demo tape, some being newer songs but mostly ones from June. The track listing consisted of "Russia" (later to become "Take to the Sky"), "Mary", "Crucify", "Happy Phantom", "Leather", "Winter", "Sweet Dreams", "Song for Eric", "Learn to Fly" and "Flying Dutchman". Atlantic was unhappy with the songs, and in response Amos and her then boyfriend Eric Rosse recorded some new songs, including "Girl", "Precious Things", "Tear in Your Hand", "Mother" and "Little Earthquakes". The song "Take Me with You"

590-883: A Gun", disregarding the other songs as lesser versions of Kate Bush. In the United Kingdom, where Amos was first promoted, the album was also warmly received. Jon Wilde of Melody Maker stated that Amos "possesses a rare ability to explore a multiplicity of emotions and a broad range of perspectives within the same song", describing the album's songs as "cerebral soul music for the kind of people who mean to read TE Lawrence 's Seven Pillars of Wisdom on their holidays but end up spending all their time exchanging bodily fluids with strangers." In Q , John Aizlewood wrote that "Guilt, misery and failed relationships thread their way through Little Earthquakes with occasional detours for childhood traumas transformed into adult inadequacies" and praised Amos's lyrics, concluding: " Little Earthquakes

708-569: A Top 10 new entry one week, followed by a dramatic decline the next, with most of these releases exiting the Top 75 completely. The majority of these acts would be indie and rock bands like the Wombats , Sea Power and Maxïmo Park , who would market their album to the type of people who would want to own the release via a physical format rather than streaming it. The first number one on the UK Albums Chart

826-478: A backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" (which she did not write), which was used in the film China O'Brien . In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good. Amos recorded the vocals for the song in 1988, for $ 150; she was unaware for several years that the song had actually been heard in a film. Other than the appearance in the film itself, "Distant Storm" has never been commercially issued in any format. Despite

944-519: A blend of memoir, criticism, and aesthetic theory in order to argue that the aesthetics of disgust are useful of thinking in a broader way about women's experience of all art forms. Amos released her second memoir, called Resistance: A Songwriter's Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on May 5, 2020. Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes (2022) by Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman is an official graphic novel celebrating 30 years of Tori Amos' breakout album Little Earthquakes . UK Albums Chart To qualify for

1062-662: A brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced. In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters , featuring variations on

1180-456: A consecutive run of 70 weeks from November 1958 to March 1960, and had further runs at the top in 1960 and 1961, making a non-consecutive total of 115 weeks. The youngest artist to top the chart is Neil Reid , whose debut album topped the chart in 1972 when he was only 12 years old, while the youngest female artist is Billie Eilish who was 17 years old when she debuted at the top with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? . The record for

1298-483: 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 did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as

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1416-496: A digital download. Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album , taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls , released in September 2001. The album is Amos' first concept album , with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that

1534-469: A full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop / rock group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as

1652-640: A live album, Diving Deep Live , on December 6, 2024. The album will consist of recordings from her 2022-23 tour in support of Ocean to Ocean and be released on double vinyl and CD respectively. Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) illustrated by Herb Leonhard, and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996) by Kalen Rogers. Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper , Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject

1770-410: A male artist and solo act to do so. The first female solo artist to have the UK's year-end best seller was Barbra Streisand in 1982, with Love Songs . The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the decade-end chart was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in the 1960s – they became the first group to achieve this. James Blunt 's Back to Bedlam , in

1888-550: A new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music". September 2013 saw the launch of Amos' musical project adaptation of George MacDonald 's The Light Princess , along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott . It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig , were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at

2006-467: A new chart record for the most weeks spent inside the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart for a girl group album. As of 2022, it had spent 69 weeks in the Top 40. To date, Little Mix are the girl group with the most Top 5 albums, with seven as of 2021. In July 2021, ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits was officially recognised by the Official Charts Company as the first album to spend over 1000 weeks on

2124-401: A result of the industry's decline. Amos released two more albums with Epic , The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. 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

2242-477: 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' solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos' 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and

2360-512: A retrospective review, AllMusic critic Steve Huey said that Amos "carved the template for the female singer/songwriter movement of the '90s" with Little Earthquakes , and that while "her subsequent albums were often very strong, Amos would never bare her soul quite so directly (or comprehensibly) as she did here, nor with such consistently focused results." Slant Magazine ' s Sal Cinquemani deemed it Amos's most focused and accessible recording, which "almost immediately sparked cult interest in

2478-598: A selection of popular tracks performed by session artists in the style of a recent hit (and unconnected with the BBC series of Top of the Pops albums, which would follow in the 1990s). This decision was soon overturned, with these anonymous cover albums being taken out the chart again. On the Official Albums Chart Top 50 for the week ending 18 August 1973, all the compilations listed as 'various artists' albums were taken out of

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2596-588: A solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion. Her charting singles include " Crucify ", " Silent All These Years ", " God ", " Cornflake Girl ", " Caught a Lite Sneeze ", " Professional Widow ", " Spark ", " 1000 Oceans ", " Flavor " and " A Sorta Fairytale ", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She

2714-511: A solo artist of any gender) with 23 weeks, 11 of which were consecutive (which is also a record for a female artist). The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the year-end chart was With the Beatles by The Beatles in 1963 – they became the first group to achieve this feat. Elton John 's Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player in 1973, marks the first album by

2832-433: A stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them 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 Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk , another concept album. Described as

2950-488: 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. 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

3068-571: A theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach , Chopin , Debussy , Granados , Satie and Schubert , on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group . Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet . To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with

3186-427: A total of 66 weeks and most top ten albums by any artist, charting 53 releases. Until this same month, he also held the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist in a tie with Robbie Williams , however when Williams' XXV album reached the top on 16 September 2022, the former Take That star broke this record with 14 number ones albums to Presley's 13 chart toppers, with Williams moving into second place in

3304-425: A unique expression of the architecture of color-and-light. ... I started visiting this world when I was three, listening to a piece by Béla Bartók ; I visited a configuration that day that wasn't on this earth. ... It was euphoric. At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Institute . She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she

3422-560: Is Amos' interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records. Image 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 Neil Gaiman , Carla Speed McNeil, Mark Buckingham, C.B. Cebulski, Nikki Cook, Hope Larson, John Ney Reiber, Ryan Kelly, Pia Guerra , David Mack , and Leah Moore . Tori Amos: In

3540-411: Is based on the traditional nursery rhyme Sales figures based on certification alone. Shipments figures based on certification alone. Tori Amos Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos ; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won

3658-446: Is disturbing, funny and sexy by turns. Amos does all this with the unmistakable stamp of a potentially great songwriter. Where on earth can she go from here?" Roger Morton of NME was more reserved in his praise, summarizing Little Earthquakes as "a sprawling, confusing journey through the gunk of a woman's soul   ... Sometimes it's magical and sometimes it's sickly and overwrought". In 1998, Q readers voted Little Earthquakes

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3776-403: Is divided by 1000 and added to the pure sales of the album. This calculation was designed to ensure that the chart rundown continues to reflect the popularity of the albums themselves, rather than just the performance of one or two smash hit singles. The final number one album on the UK Albums Chart to be based purely on sales alone was Smoke + Mirrors by Imagine Dragons . On 1 March 2015, In

3894-615: Is listed on VH1 's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71. Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (née Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born on August 22, 1963 at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina , during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C., and was named Myra Ellen Amos. Some of Amos's ancestors were Confederate soldiers. In her memoir, Piece by Piece , she talks about

4012-412: Is more than thirty-five years, I've never seen the same light creature in my life. Obviously similar chord progressions follow similar light patterns, but try to imagine the best kaleidoscope ever—after the initial excitement, you start to focus on each element's stunning original detail. For instance, the sound of the words with the sound of the chord progression combined with the rhythm manifests itself in

4130-738: The Melody Maker chart from 8 November 1958 to March 1960; the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969; and the Official Albums Chart from 1969 on. For eight weeks in February and March 1971 no Official Albums Chart was compiled due to a postal strike – for this period, the OCC uses the chart compiled by Melody Maker instead. In the 1970s the new album chart was revealed at 12:45 pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 1 , and then moved to 6:05 pm (later 6:30 pm) on Wednesday evenings during

4248-899: The Evening Standard Award . Craig won the Best Musical Performance category. Amos' 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines , was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, " Trouble's Lament ", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney , Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of

4366-594: 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 No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper , Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse , before inviting

4484-610: The Gold Dust Orchestral Tour , with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House . According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of

4602-625: The Metropole Orchestra . The album, titled Gold Dust , was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon. On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she said she intended to use to develop new artists. In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories . She also stated in an interview that

4720-495: The Now That's What I Call Music series was launched by EMI/Virgin, followed by CBS/WEA's rival Hits Album series a year later and Chrysalis/MCA's Out Now! in 1985. From this point in the 1980s, every regular edition of Now That's What I Call Music topped the albums chart (apart from Now 4 which was kept of the number one spot by the first ever Hits Album ), with these albums from the three major-label joint-ventures joined in

4838-599: The Peter Powell and Bruno Brookes shows. In October 1987 it moved to Monday lunchtimes, during the Gary Davies show, and from April to October 1993 it briefly had its show from 7:00–8:00 pm on Sunday evenings, introduced by Lynn Parsons . Since October 1993 it has been included in The Official Chart show from 4:00–5:45 pm on Fridays (previously from 4:00–7:00 pm on Sundays). A weekly 'Album Chart' show

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4956-562: The RIAA . 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

5074-447: The "cryptic exhortations, poetic imagery, surrealist wit and brutal directness" that would define Amos's subsequent work. Barry Walters remarked on the lasting influence of Little Earthquakes and its 1994 follow-up Under the Pink in his review for Pitchfork , citing various acts who "all wear their sensitivities as strengths as she did." "With its lack of standard rock and pop clichés of

5192-404: The 2000s, marks the first album by a male artist and solo act to do it. Blunt was the only performer in history to top the decade chart with a debut album. The first female solo artist to achieve this feat was Adele in the 2010s, with 21 . Dua Lipa 's Future Nostalgia holds the record for having the lowest one-week sales while at the top of the chart in the modern era, when it was number one

5310-457: The 2022 and 2023 tour, Amos was joined by Jon Evans and the drummer Ash Soan. She appeared at the EPIX original docuseries Women Who Rock which premiered on July 10, 2022. In 2023, Amos and Trevor Horn covered Kendrick Lamar 's " Swimming Pools (Drank) ". She also released a remix dance single titled "Tequila," produced by Paul Woolford . On November 1, 2024, Amos announced the release of

5428-404: The 3,889 downloaded copies it sold out of 51,510 sales. Also on 16 September 2022, Columbia became the first record label to take the Top 3 chart positions with three different acts with releases by Robbie Williams, Ozzy Osbourne and Harry Styles occupying number 1, 2 and 3 (with parent company Sony Music also having the number 4 with a re-issue of Manic Street Preachers' Know Your Enemy ). In

5546-501: The 66th greatest album of all time, and in 2002 the same magazine named it the fourth greatest album of all time by a female artist. It was also voted number 73 in the third edition of Colin Larkin 's All Time Top 1000 Albums in 2000, and was ranked number 233 in the 2020 version of Rolling Stone ' s " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time " list. Little Earthquakes was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . In

5664-456: The Albums Chart, but this total does not include 2014's Gold – 40th Anniversary Edition (which like Queen's The Platinum Collection is a 3-CD set also including More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits and The Golden B-sides ) or additional weeks inside the Top 100 missing from the OCC's database before February 1994 (as with the singles chart, Music Week only published the Top 75 as this

5782-455: The British album charts than any other musical act, followed by the Beatles , Elvis Presley , U2 and ABBA . By most weeks at number one, the Beatles lead with a total of 176 weeks, and the most number one albums of all with 16, followed by The Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams with 14 number ones each. Similar to the situation regarding Elvis Presley's record-breaking tally of number ones on

5900-513: The British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single " Silent All These Years ". Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under

6018-482: The Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos' continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos' 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

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6136-406: The December recording session. Amos moved to London to work with Ian Stanley (formerly of Tears for Fears ); Atlantic thought Amos would have an easier time of achieving success in the United Kingdom, because of that market's appreciation for eccentric performers. Here she recorded what would become two of her early singles. " Me and a Gun " was the last song written for the album, while "China"

6254-655: The Lonely Hour by Sam Smith became the first album to top the new streaming-incorporated Official Albums Chart. The weekly Top 75 UK Albums Chart (albums described as hits in the case of British Hit Singles & Albums or The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums) were published in Music Week magazine until 2021. In 2018 Future (publisher of 'Louder Sound' publications such as Metal Hammer and Classic Rock ) acquired Music Week publisher NewBay Media. Future decided that

6372-466: The Official Albums Chart, the album must be the correct length and price. It must be more than three tracks or 20 minutes long and not be classed as a budget album. A budget album costs between £0.50 and £3.75. Full details of the rules can be found on the OCC website. According to the canon of the OCC, the official British albums chart was the Record Mirror chart from 22 July 1956 to 1 November 1958;

6490-485: The Pink . The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 , a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994. Her third solo album, Boys for Pele , was released in January 1996. Prior to its release,

6608-411: The Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos. On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015. On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader , accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from

6726-545: The Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos' career, discography, and recording process. Sing Us a Song, Piano Woman: Female Fans and the Music of Tori Amos (2013) by Adrienne Trier-Bieniek explores the ways women are represented in pop culture and the many-layered relationships female fans build with feminist musicians in general and with Tori Amos in particular. Tori Amos' Boys for Pele (2018) by Amy Gentry uses

6844-806: The Top 100 albums chart and given their own Top 20 chart (found in Music Week and Record Mirror ), with the main albums chart reformatted as a top 75 (as far as hit albums are concerned) to equal the singles chart. As of 2022, the OCC publishes the Official Compilations Chart Top 100 on their website, which as well as listing the chart places of all the various Now That's What I Call Music! , Hits Albums and Ministry of Sound Annuals that have been released, now include Motion Picture Cast Recordings such as The Greatest Showman or A Star Is Born and Original Broadway/West End cast albums such as Hamilton , all three of which were included in

6962-427: The UK. In February 2015, it was announced that due to the falling sales of albums and rise in popularity of audio streaming, the Official Albums Chart would begin including streaming data from March 2015. Under the revised methodology, the Official Charts Company takes the 12 most streamed tracks from one album, with the top-two songs being down-weighted in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams

7080-449: The US EP version of which featured covers of songs by artists including The Rolling Stones and Nirvana . Reviews of Little Earthquakes were generally positive. Los Angeles Times critic Jean Rosenbluth praised it as a considerable improvement over Amos's previous work in Y Kant Tori Read, calling the album "a quixotic, compelling record that mixes the smart sensuality of Kate Bush with

7198-420: The album Be Here Now by Oasis is a controversial second place, this is due to the fact its release date was irregular, being released on a Thursday instead of the usual Monday. The record was released on 21 August 1997 and sold around 813,000 in its first seven days, which surpasses the current claimant to the title, though this topic is still highly contested. In September 2020, The Rolling Stones became

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7316-593: The album included a second disc containing thirteen b-sides and five live performances which had previously been released on the CD singles for the album in 1991 and 1992. This release however did not include the covers of " Angie " by The Rolling Stones and " Thank You " by Led Zeppelin which were released as b-sides to "Winter" in the United Kingdom and "Crucify" in the United States. All tracks are written by Tori Amos , except " Smells Like Teen Spirit " written by Kurt Cobain , Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl . "Humpty Dumpty"

7434-518: The album's 30th anniversary, was published by Z2 Comics in 2022 – contributors included Amos, Neil Gaiman , Margaret Atwood , Marc Andreyko , Annie Zaleski , Derek McCulloch , Leah Moore , Kelly Sue DeConnick , Neil Kleid , Lar DeSouza , Colleen Doran , and David W. Mack . The book was edited by Amos's friend Rantz Hoseley, who edited a previous graphic novel inspired by Amos's music, Comic Book Tattoo ( Image Comics , 2008). All tracks are written by Tori Amos The 2015 double-CD reissue of

7552-546: The album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos' most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release. 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 , UK converted into

7670-531: The album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek", and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale . Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations. Native Invader obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On November 9, 2020, Amos announced

7788-551: The all-time number 1 album record holders just two behind The Beatles. As of October 2023, The Rolling Stones join Williams in joint second place for overall artists with most number ones when they released their 14th No.1 album Hackney Diamonds . With Williams and Presley, the record was broken on a technicality, as many Presley's albums have been kept off the top spot by movie soundtracks, while with Williams such albums are now in their own chart. Taylor Swift and Madonna tie for

7906-469: The band's eponymous debut album, Y Kant Tori Read , was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli , stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots." 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

8024-400: The band's tenth number one album, Voyage . With that album, ABBA also became the artist with the longest gap between number one studio albums, with 40 years (since The Visitors in 1981). The longest number one by a group is Simon and Garfunkel 's Bridge Over Troubled Water which was number one for 33 weeks (13 of which were consecutive). The longest consecutive number one by a group

8142-412: The best-selling studio album in UK chart history. Queen's Greatest Hits has sold over 7 million copies (including downloads and equivalent streams) as of July 2022. ABBA's Gold has sold over 6 million, and Sgt. Pepper has sold in excess of 5.4 million copies. The longest-running number one album, both consecutively and non-consecutively, is the soundtrack of the film South Pacific . It had

8260-532: The chart, but those billed as 'official soundtracks' (to films such as A Clockwork Orange and Cabaret ) were kept in. As the Ronco-released tie-in to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day was listed as a various artist album and not as a soundtrack, it disappeared from the chart after its seventh week at number one alongside EMI's former number one Pure Gold and Phillip's 20 Original Chart Hits . In 1983,

8378-404: The charts by many albums from all the regular compilation specialists like K-Tel, Telstar and Stylus. As the amount of compilations in the chart were keeping out artists from reaching number one or charting at all, it was decided that all the various artist albums would be removed from the Official Albums Chart Top 100. In January 1989, all the various artist compilation albums were removed from

8496-846: The charts. It was well received by critics and listeners. In the US, the album reached the top 60 of the Billboard 200 . It is frequently regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time; it was voted number 73 in Colin Larkin 's All Time Top 1000 Albums and ranked number 233 on Rolling Stone ' s 500 greatest albums of all time . Following the dissolution of her synth-pop band Y Kant Tori Read , Amos composed 12 songs, recorded them at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with Davitt Sigerson producing, and in June 1990 submitted them for copyright. Amos approached Atlantic Records in December 1990 with

8614-534: The day and reliance on acoustic piano and an excellent (if unconventional) voice," wrote J. C. Maçek III of Spectrum Culture , " Little Earthquakes sounds as unique today as it did in 1992." In a roundtable interview with The Hollywood Reporter , singer Justin Timberlake expressed his immense admiration for Little Earthquakes . Timberlake said, "That album changed my life. So [expletive] good." Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes , an official graphic novel celebrating

8732-762: The disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read , Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, 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. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering

8850-680: The end of the album "we feel as though we've been through some peculiar therapy session, half-cleansed and half-stirred. That artful paradox is part of what makes Little Earthquakes a gripping debut." His original rating of three and a half stars out of five in the 1992 print version of the magazine was later rounded up to four stars out of five on Rolling Stone ' s website. Among negative assessments, Stephanie Zacharek commented in Entertainment Weekly that Amos's songs "are too self-consciously weird" to be enjoyable, while The Village Voice ' s Robert Christgau praised only "Me and

8968-737: The experience of these Confederate ancestors, Margaret Little and Grandaddy Calvin Rice, during the American Civil War , and says that they had become "all worked up" by "the preacher", and that like other farmers were scared of "losin' everythin' to them greedy Yankees". Amos wrote that she believed her great-grandmother "was just defending her home at a certain point". When she was two years old, her family relocated to Baltimore , Maryland, where her father had moved his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From

9086-488: The first British female solo artist to have a number-one album in the UK with Never for Ever , as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number 1. In August 2014 she became the first female artist to have eight albums in the Official UK Top 40 Albums Chart simultaneously, (altogether she had eleven albums in the Top 50 in one week). She is currently in fourth place for artists having

9204-548: The first act to have reached number one in the album chart during six different decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s and 2020s). For solo artists, Elvis Presley was the first artist to score UK number-one albums in five different decades (the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s and 2010s). In 2020, Bruce Springsteen became the first solo artist to score UK number-one albums in five consecutive decades (the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s) with his twelfth number-one album Letter to You . Just two weeks later, Kylie Minogue became

9322-463: The first artist to chart with an album released in a NFT format when Close to Home debuted at number 2 (with Steps beating the rapper to number one and becoming the first mixed-gender British act to get chart topping albums in four consecutive decades). A week later, Will of the People by Muse became the first NFT-listed album to top the charts, with the limited edition NFT listed as part of

9440-452: The first female solo artist to have UK number-one albums in five different decades (all consecutively, the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s), with her eighth UK number-one album Disco . In November 2021, ABBA became the third group (after The Rolling Stones and The Beatles) to score a UK number one album in five different decades (in ABBA's case, the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s) with

9558-580: The first single, " Caught a Lite Sneeze " became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release. The album was recorded in a church in Delgany , County Wicklow , Ireland , with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord , harmonium , and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite

9676-458: The group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum , bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988,

9794-403: The label to listen to it. American Doll Posse , another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos'. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released

9912-531: The main album chart or excluded. In August 1971, the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) allowed low-priced budget albums to chart as well as standard compilations. This decision gave a number one to Music For Pleasure's Hot Hits 6 , which went straight in at the top of the chart and was joined at number 6 by a new entry for Hallmark's Top of the Pops Volume 18 , another album featuring

10030-480: The main artist albums chart before 2020. In addition to the main Compilations chart, all the 'Motion Picture Cast Recordings' and cast albums get their own Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50, but are still classed as artist albums as far as the singles chart is concerned with, for example, only three tracks from early 2022 chart topper Encanto (a Disney soundtrack which sold 13,855 units to be at number one for

10148-552: The most number one albums by a female artist in the UK, with 12 each, though in Madonna's case this includes the Evita film soundtrack which was a cast recording and not strictly a Madonna album as she does not perform on every track (of the album's 31 tracks, she performs on 22 songs but only on 8 songs by herself). Swift also holds the record for the most consecutive number one albums by a female artist with 9, just one behind Eminem who holds

10266-523: The most simultaneous UK Top 40 albums, behind Elvis Presley and David Bowie who both tie for the most simultaneous Top 40 albums (twelve each, both immediately following their deaths in 1977 and 2016 respectively), and The Beatles who had eleven in 2009 when remastered versions of their albums were released. The fastest selling album (first chart week sales) is 25 by Adele . Released in November 2015, it sold over 800,000 copies in its first week. However,

10384-399: The most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world." The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015, via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in

10502-543: The oldest artist to top the charts is Vera Lynn , who was 92 years old when she was at number one with We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn , released in 2009 (though the album only contains material she recorded between 1936 and 1959). Lynn, who died in 2020 at the age of 103, also leads the list for the oldest artist to have a chart album, when the 2017 release of Vera Lynn 100 , released to mark her 100th birthday (though again, this only contains material she recorded decades earlier), peaked at number 3. Currently,

10620-447: The oldest living male artist to have the topped the UK albums chart is Tom Jones , who reached the top in 2021 with new studio album Surrounded By Time at the age of 80, while 95 year old Tony Bennett charted at number 6 on the chart of 8–14 October 2021 with his Lady Gaga duets album Love For Sale , becoming recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to release an album of new material. In 1980, Kate Bush became

10738-455: The physical restraints of the vinyl LP format. Atlantic's European counterpart, East West , promoted the record extensively. Amos spent much of 1991 performing in small bars and clubs in London and playing for music executives and journalists, often in her own apartment. The Me and a Gun EP containing four tracks was released in October 1991, receiving considerable critical attention. The single

10856-407: The previous 66 years of the chart, this occurrence where one label has had the Top 3 has only happened twice before with Parlophone taking the Top 3 positions in 1964 with two albums by The Beatles and Stay With The Hollies and K-Tel having three TV-advertised compilations at number 1, 2 and 3 on the chart of 31 December 1972. The fastest-selling debut albums (first-week sales): Sam Smith holds

10974-506: The provocative impenetrability of Mary Margaret O'Hara ." Josef Woodward of Rolling Stone wrote that "Amos shares common ground with artfolk songstresses like Kate Bush and Jane Siberry " and described her "quivery vibrato-laden holler – akin to Siouxsie Sioux 's". The song "Leather" was pictured as a " Kurt Weill -meets- Queen cabaret act". He described the album as "an often pretty, subtly progressive song cycle that reflects darkly on sexual alienation and personal struggles", and that by

11092-407: The publication would go monthly from March 2021, and so a bespoke monthly Official Albums Chart Top 75 (similar to album charts used by Top of the Pops in the early 1990s and Absolute 80s on Sundays) started to be published from this date alongside monthly singles charts and specialist/genre charts. By 2022, the weekly album chart had started to regularly feature a pattern of acts getting

11210-467: The raw pain in   ... 'Me and a Gun'", while in Record Collector , Nicola Rayner noted how Amos's piano-based music stood out amid the rise of the guitar-oriented grunge and Britpop scenes in the early 1990s. Mojo ' s John Bungey said that the "remarkable, idiosyncratic" album showcased "a singular creative force from the outset"; according to Alex Ramon of PopMatters , it established

11328-429: The record for most weeks spent in the Top 10 by a debut album with In the Lonely Hour , with 76, surpassing a record previously held by Emeli Sandé . Over more than sixty years of compiling album sales, the various chart compiling firms have had a problem with the success of multi-artist compilation albums, with these albums (mostly TV-advertised collections featuring a number of hits) either being allowed to chart in

11446-411: The record for the most consecutive number one albums in Official Albums Chart history with 10. Adele is the female solo artist with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 37 weeks. Spice Girls are the female group with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 18 weeks (15 of which were for their debut album Spice ). In March 2018, Little Mix 's fourth studio album Glory Days , set

11564-457: The record for the steepest drop from number one when their album Anxiety Replacement Therapy fell out of the Top 200 altogether with second week sales of 880 copies. This occurrence of number one albums dropping out of the top 100 in their second week of release prompted an article in The Guardian newspaper wondering whether the UK album chart was broken. On 26 August 2022, Aitch became

11682-507: The release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic . On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean , which

11800-631: 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 with Universal Republic Records . Abnormally Attracted to Sin , Amos' tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic,

11918-613: 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 , titled 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

12036-401: The singer, and has, over time, undoubtedly become a soundtrack (at least in part) to the lives of many anguished teens and adults." Reviewing the album's 2015 remastered edition for Rolling Stone , Jessica Machado wrote that "the pop charts had never heard a female voice quite like the one on Little Earthquakes , from the sharp mix of desire and frustration in 'Precious Things'   ... to

12154-480: The singles chart , The Official Charts Company has classed re-issues of The Beatles' Abbey Road , and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and Goats Head Soup , as brand new hits/number 1s due to the amount of bonus material available, formats released and the fact that the issuing record label had changed. As of September 2022, Elvis Presley is still the male solo artist with the most weeks at number one with

12272-538: The state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios. From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back , released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos' trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos' own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From

12390-473: The tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her. In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the Washington, D.C. area. In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read , named for her difficulty with sight-reading . In addition to Amos,

12508-425: The time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia : The song appears as light filament once I've cracked it. As long as I've been doing this, which

12626-579: The week beginning 15 May 2020 with sales of only 7,317, while in 2021 You Me At Six ( Suckapunch ) and Ben Howard ( Collections from the Whiteout ) became the first artists to have a number one album exit the Top 100 with only one week on the chart (though when The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums did their list of number one albums with the fewest weeks on the chart, it was based on the Top 75 countdown and featured acts such as Little Angels with their 1993 album Jam ). In 2023, The Lottery Winners made

12744-455: Was Songs for Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra for the week ending 22 July 1956. As of the week ending 21 November 2024, the UK Albums Chart has had 1381 different number one albums. The current number one album is Together at Home by From Zero and Linkin Park . The most successful artists in the charts depend on the criteria used. As of February 2016, Queen albums have spent more time on

12862-416: Was an early track, originally titled "Distance", that she wrote in 1987. The second final version of the album was accepted by the record company. However, this was still revised before the final release; a 13-track promo cassette shows that the song "Little Earthquakes" was to appear after "Happy Phantom" on side one, with side two closing with "Flying Dutchman". The latter track was presumably dropped due to

12980-596: Was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, 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. In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland , where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars , chaperoned by her father. Amos won

13098-527: Was finally released in the UK in January 1992, it reached number 14 and remained on the Top 75 charts ( UK Albums Chart ) for 23 weeks. A month later, it was released in the United States to breakthrough critical success and also announced itself as a chart mainstay, despite peaking outside the Top 50 on the Billboard 200 . The accompanying singles (along with "Me and a Gun" and "Silent All These Years") were "China" (January 1992 UK), "Winter" (March 1992 UK/November 1992 US) and "Crucify" (May 1992 US/June 1992 UK),

13216-495: Was licensed out to BBC Radio 2 and presented by Simon Mayo , until it ended on 2 April 2007. Though album sales tend to produce more revenue and, over time, act as a greater measure of an artist's success, this chart receives less media attention than the UK Singles Chart , because overall sales of an album are more important than its peak position. 2005 saw a record number of artist album sales with 126.2 million sold in

13334-455: Was re-issued the following month with " Silent All These Years " as the lead composition, and it became her first chart entry in the UK at number 51 following Single of the Week support from BBC Radio 1 and a TV debut on the high-rated chat show of Jonathan Ross on Channel 4 . The back cover of the album contains pictures of Phallus impudicus mushrooms, also known as stinkhorns. When the album

13452-506: Was recorded during these sessions, but not released until 2006 (with re-recorded vocals.) This session was recorded on a limited budget in Rosse's home studio, using his 3M 24-track analog tape machine and a Yamaha CP-80 piano. Amos and Rosse also went to Stag Studios to use a Yamaha grand piano. Satisfied with these recordings, Atlantic determined that the album Little Earthquakes would have 13 tracks, removing "Learn to Fly" and adding four from

13570-461: Was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos' seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin , admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces , her first seasonal album, in November of

13688-755: Was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos embarked on a European and United States tour in support of the album in 2022, and continued to support the album in 2023 with a European Tour in March and April and additional US dates in June and July . Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans were featured on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces . For

13806-406: Was the Beatles' Please Please Me , which held the top spot for a straight 30 weeks. The longest number one by a male solo artist was Elvis Presley with G.I. Blues which stayed at the top for 22 weeks (his Blue Hawaii album was also the longest consecutive number one album for a male artist with 17 weeks). Adele 's album 21 has the most weeks at number one by a female solo artist (and by

13924-441: Was the public chart for store owners to use in their record shops with the Top 150 Artist Albums Chart being for industry insiders/ChartsPlus subscribers). For many years, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the best-selling album in UK chart history, but is now in third place after being supplanted by Queen's Greatest Hits and then also by ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits . However, Sgt. Pepper still remains

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