Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes [2LP] (remastered, first time on 2 LPs)

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 233/500!

Tori Amos became the voice of a generation of young girls when she delivered her first solo record in 1992. Each of the tracks on Little Earthquakes painted an evocative picture, and the album delivered five singles: "Crucify," "Silent All These Years," "Winter," "China," and "Me and A Gun." The album already received the deluxe treatment in 2006, and this 2-LP is the first time the tracks have been remastered for this format.

Notes are the same as those featured in the 2015 reissue, but the remastering was done lovingly by Jon Astley at Abbey Road Studios. In 2022, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the record, Z2 announced a graphic novel of the album, and Tori toured the US and Europe.

One of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, Tori Amos is as much a force to be reckoned with today as when she released her first solo album Little Earthquakes three decades ago. Eschewing the trends of the time, the prodigious chanteuse touched millions deeply with her arresting melodies, riveting stage presence and personal and honest lyrics.

With her haunting solo debut Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos carved the template for the female singer/songwriter movement of the '90s. Amos' delicate, prog rock piano work and confessional, poetically quirky lyrics invited close emotional connection, giving her a fanatical cult following and setting the stage for the Lilith Fair legions. But Little Earthquakes is no mere style-setter or feminine stereotype – its intimacy is uncompromising, intense, and often far from comforting. Amos' musings on major personal issues – religion, relationships, gender, childhood – were just as likely to encompass rage, sarcasm, and defiant independence as pain or tenderness; sometimes, it all happened in the same song... Though 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. Little Earthquakes is the most accessible work in Amos' catalog, and it's also the most influential and rewarding.

Here Tori Amos established herself as the poet laureate for a generation of battle-worn young women no longer satisfied with silence. From behind a piano that she wields like a machete aside her sharp, poignant reflections, Little Earthquakes is an incisive reflection on sexual assault, abuse, PTSD, and coming of age under the heavy veil of it all. At times thorny and confrontational, Amos' voice still remains a warm invitation to people, like her, learning how to diffuse their trauma and move forward as best they can.

Halsey and professional wrestler Mick Foley count themselves among a lengthy, diverse list of fans who say Amos changed their lives. Fostering such an inextricable bond with her audience, and so early in her career, resulted in a rare mutual trust that allowed the artist to take her music into strange and commercially perilous places, like the sojourn to hell and back that is her 1996 breakup album Boys for Pele and 2011's classical-inspired song cycle Night of Hunters. Even if Amos hadn't continually pushed the limits of her signature instrument and mainstream music itself over the course of the following decade, Little Earthquakes would still stand alongside Nevermind as an album that reshaped the pop-rock landscape. Thirty years later, the reverberations are still being felt.