Music Banter - View Single Post - Six Musicians With Pasts They Hope You'll Forget

Predator · 01-29-2008, 10:58 PM

Same as above

Quote:

#3.
Tori Amos

Tori Amos tends to appeal to a breed of music fan that can most accurately be described as "devoted" (although "infatuated," "rabid" and "monomaniacal lunatics" are other terms that spring to mind). Her record company could scrape the stinking filth from the bottom of her trash can, slap a picture of Tori on the front, and it would still manage to sell by the truckload (the unkind would suggest they did this in 2005 and called it The Beekeeper).

Unfortunately for Tori, her legion of obsessed stalkers were not so fanatical about her debut as lead singer of a tragic '80s synth-pop band.

Became famous because...
Although it's generally not a good idea to suggest that several Tori Amos songs sound like they could have been pulled straight from a '80s Kate Bush record (the mere suggestion of which is likely to result in legions of frenzied Tori fans demanding our testicles), she has managed to find a similar niche market for spacey, oddball, somewhat bizarre music, marketed toward spacey, oddball, somewhat bizarre people. The fact that a considerable percentage of her songs fall clearly on the wrong side of the line between mildly eccentric and completely bat**** insane ("The Power Of Orange Knickers", anyone?) only seems to add to her popularity.

Became famous despite...

If there was ever a recording that needed to be hidden in a sealed, underground vault to prevent future generations learning of its existence, the self-titled, first, last and only album by Y Kant Tori Read is it. This regrettable error of judgment also featured drummer Matt Sorum (the only member of Guns N' Roses who could actually make a pop band seem less cool) and managed sales figures that even the most complimentary of observers would struggle to describe as abysmal.

We all know the '80s was a tragic era for fashion, but there are surely few more regrettable jacket photos than the Pirates of the Caribbean meets dominatrix meets five-dollar whore shot of Tori that graces the cover of this recording. Clearly the majority of the music-buying public had a similar opinion, treating the album with such staggering indifference that Atlantic Records chose to abandon all promotion for the band about three seconds after it was released.

Unfortunately, Tori had just been signed to a massive six album deal (by an executive we suspect went on to a career washing car windows at intersections), leaving her record company stuck with the unenviable task of reinventing her as a serious artist (or, at the very least, an artist that didn't bear a frightening resemblance to a medieval hooker).