As soon as Tori Amos released her debut solo LP – 1992’s Little Earthquakes – she drew comparisons to the queen of progressive/art pop-rock, Kate Bush. However, in a 1998 interview with Q magazine, to promote her fourth studio record, From The Choirgirl Hotel, Amos admitted that although she was “blown away” by Bush’s music, she wasn’t directly influenced by it.
“I was shocked, because the last thing you want to hear is that you sound like someone else,” Amos said. “But I could hear a resonance in the voice where you’d think we were distantly related or something.”
Her revelation is surprising given how much of her early work, from Crucify and Little Earthquakes to Cornflake Girl and Father Lucifer, is profoundly original and multifaceted – yet also reminiscent of Bush’s fondness for exploring womanhood beneath elaborately quirky instrumentation, meaningfully metaphorical lyricism and theatrical singing.
The same holds true for From The Choirgirl Hotel, which found Amos expanding her creative range with electronica and lusher arrangements in the wake of 1996’s commercially successful but critically-mixed Boys for Pele. Once again self-produced, Choirgirl Hotel faired about as well with reviewers and consumers as its predecessor.
She taps into the interlocking vocals and instrumentation of Gentle Giant, Echolyn, Renaissance and Anathema
That said, its gorgeously expansive palette, tighter focus and deeply personal subject matter – featuring contemplations on miscarriages, fluid sexuality and religious repression – make it a contender for Amos' finest and most progressive statement.
The album even kicks off with arguably her most prog song, Spark. Inspired by said miscarriages, its abstractly confessional reflections (‘She’s convinced she could hold back a glacier / But she couldn’t keep Baby alive’ and ‘How many fates turn around in the overtime? / Ballerinas have fins that you’ll never find’) play into prog’s penchant for figurative songwriting.
Likewise, its various rhythmic shifts and style change-ups tap into the interlocking vocals and instrumentation of, say, Gentle Giant, Echolyn, Renaissance and Anathema.
Those touches continue across other standouts, including the heavenly harmonies and pulsating beats of Raspberry Swirl; the erratically symphonic and tribal IEEE; the dynamically baroque She’s Your Cocaine; and the surrealist collages and arresting shifts at the heart of Hotel.
In the truest sense of the term, these pieces see Amos progressing through bold musical and thematic movements confidently and adventurously, blending her beloved characteristics with those of past, present and future prog rock icons such as King Crimson, Genesis, Porcupine Tree and Major Parkinson.
From The Choirgirl Hotel is a wonderful journey from start to finish, but those pieces in particular plant it firmly within the prog realm.
