THE TORI MANIFESTO

Three broadsides from the Amos oeuvre, by John Aizlewood.

THE GREAT SOUL-BARER Little Earthquakes

★★★★ (ATLANTIC, 1992)

After over a decade of struggle and rejection, Little Earthquakes was the vindication of Tori Amos. At one delirious sitting, it cast her as the pianopounding singer-songwriter with a waspish wit, willingness to share and an artful way with a pop song such as Silent All These Years, originally written for Al Stewart. She would never sound like this again.

THE GREAT DIVIDER

Tori Amos ★★★★ (ATLANTIC, 1996)

Her self-confessed attempt to make a record that was both contemporary and classical involved her learning a new instrument – the harpsichord – and drenching her first self-produced album in it. The results, from the spartan Father Lucifer to the stringsladen Marianne, were uncompromising but beguiling; it became her highest-charting album in the UK and US.

THE GREAT SORROW

Tori Amos ★★★★ (DECCA, 2017)

The elegant despair that courses through the politically charged Broken Arrow, or Benjamin where she berates the fossil-fuel lobby, and the marriage-examining Chocolate Song (“the silent evenings”), it all makes this album – recorded in the wake of her mother’s stroke – a sometimes harrowing listen. Yet there’s real, raw beauty with the pain, while Up The Creek is pop perfection.