Tori Amos – From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998) ‘Spark’
I have detailed the album selection method on the Introduction page, so I’ll skip it here. I’m quite pleased that this album came up, as I never got around to listening to Tori’s music in depth until now, although I’ve always been planning on it.
Today, the RYM 1998 yearly chart has “From the Choirgirl Hotel” at #53, with an average rating of 3.88 out of 5, from 1340 ratings. The album also stands at #2443 in the overall all-time albums chart. The RYM album page mentions the album release date – 4th of May, as well as a load of musical genres: Singer/Songwriter, Pop/Rock, Piano Rock, Art Pop, Electronic, Alternative Rock. The album features 12 tracks. This is the first Tori Amos album featuring a full live band and it is also the first album being recorded in her home studio.
The RYM artist page reveals that she was born in 1963 in the US, but she lives in the UK, owning a recording studio at her house in Cornwall. This is her fourth studio album, second by rating, following her debut “Little Earthquakes” from 1992.
Tori’s Wikipedia page reveals that “From the Choirgirl Hotel” received a Grammy nomination for the Best Alternative Music Album.
The album opens with Spark.
Spark was the first single from the album. By looking on the album’s last.fm page, Spark is clearly the most popular song on this album, with the highest number of listeners. It is also a song that always makes it into her live setlist, even after 12 years since the release. Which makes this song an essential Tori Amos listen.
I also recommend watching some live versions of Spark. They aren’t the highest quality, but they are worth watching for giving a new dimension to this amazing song. There’s the version from Live on Jools Holland and another one from the Live Show with David Letterman. And there’s this live performance, preceded by a short interview with Tori, where she explains the title of the album and touches a bit on the meaning of Spark.
Which brings me to the reality behind Spark and this whole album. Tori suffered a miscarriage at the end of 1996 and writing this album was her way of getting out of it, of moving on. “As I was going through the anger and the sorrow and the why, the songs started to come. Before I was even aware, they were coming to me in droves”, Tori mentions in an interview from ’98. If you didn’t pay attention to the lyrics yet, I recommend listening to the song with headphones on and closely following the lyrics. The song description on last.fm explains some of the lyrics in this song.
Details about the next songs will follow soon. For now, enjoy Spark…
