On a tube. We got talking over my leather jacket. She was wearing some pointy shoes that were designed to look like trainers and a beret. Very lovely lady. We chatted clothes and music from Liverpool Street to Ladbroke Grove. Do you know what though, I didn't realise who she was for most of the conversation!!!

I even have a promo copy of the Y Kant Tori Read LP. I need to get out more 8-}

Y Kant Tori Read - The Big Picture

when she first emerged under her own name, had the first few albums, saw her live, I think at the Playhouse in Liverpool & I still have some early singles, 'Me & A Gun', 'China', 'Winter'. But it all amounted to too much of the same thing - darkness, misery, no light to balance the shade. To make a very lazy comparison with Joni Mitchell, for every 'Blue' she wrote a 'Carey', & unless I've edited my memories I don't think Tori ever managed the same feat.

Perhaps because Word lost themselves a few friends in the Tori Amos fan community with a pretty dreadful Jude Rogers article a few years ago in which she moaned about Tori being late and belittled the fans?

I gave her last-but-one album a good review.

Scarlett's Walk is one of the best things she's done. A proper concept album and a journey across America. Best place to start if you've never got beyond Cornflake Girl.

fan since little earthquakes came out and have seen her in concert a few times. I've always enjoyed most albums, but will probably always have a guilty pleasure about them.

Maybe some of her audience hasn't helped her cause critically and that she says everything comes from her "ether". She should probably get that looked at by a medical professional from time to time (just to be safe)

At one concert there was a girl dressed as a fairy.My daughter likes to do that also from time to time, but then my daughter is 2. This girl was about 20.

...in a club above a bar in Middlesbrough of all places. She was spellbindingly wonderful, needless to say. Changed my idea of what a piano could do as an instrument, and the singing the unaccompanied "Me and A Gun" to a club full of Teesside Poly oiks (albeit the *sensitive* ones) was about the bravest thing I've seen happen on a stage.

Stayed with her for about 6 albums, even joined the *extremely* Fortherington-Thomas-like Fan club (was called something like "Clouds in the sky") for a bit. Bought all the singles, in fact when I got rid of my CDs they are the only ones I kept.

Drifted off after that, but still have a soft spot when she appears on random play...

And anyone who can lyrically get from the Kennedy assassination to mooning David Cassidy surely deserves 4 minutes of your time.

..well..

Her and a piglet. And stuff.

Since then.. Well.. You have to say.. Or not.. possibly.

Loony.

Yikes...

Why someone once so beautiful should want to transform themself into looking like Alfred E Neuman from Mad Magazine is anyone's guess

.

Georgedivided makes a very valid point - Tori's music doesn't have much light and shade, she is quite intense and I wouldn't go to her for wild expressions of joy or to make a party complilation. Happily other artists are available for that, artists I wouldn't necessarily go to if I needed quiet comfort and reassurance which is where Tori often comes in.

From the small sample here it seems the reasons to be sneerful are based on image, behavior of fans and what comes out of her mouth when she isn't making music. Whether those things matter is probably a subject for a different thread and not one that particularly interests me. Thankfully, when I'm feeling a bit tatty or unhappy with the world I can find a healing quality in songs like Hey Jupiter and none of those things apply.

Horses for courses as ever. That'll do me.

Why why why?!

I can hardly bear to look at this.

For the record, I've always liked Tori & have never thought she was a "loony" but on this evidence she's succumbed to the tyranny of face-fillers & botox & I just can't believe she'd do this to her lovely face.

I saw the cover of her last CD and was amazed at how young Amos looked . I thought it may just be an over-use of Photoshop but then saw the above photo and realised. What's most shocking is Amos seemed the last person to seem to care about succumbing to having work done - it would be like Bjork suddenly getting a nip and tuck

which is so offputting. I could never love a Tori. She should change her name to Red Amos (although wasn't that a blues singer?)

Incidentally, is she hanging upside down in that photo?

Tori's lyric from "Silent all these years" - "Boy you better pray that I bleed real soon, How's that thought for you?" - is fantastic.

this thread would be just about the music which is the thing that interests me but perhaps any consideration of such intensely personal music must also deal with the artist's self image.

Like others I am astonished that Tori would feel it necessary to tamper with her face in this way. I have no idea why she would do this. It may indeed be just vanity but it is also possible that this comes from something deeper and sadder. Unhappiness may be at the centre of this, I can't know. With no further knowledge I'm left to fall back on the music, most of which is beautiful, fragile and wounded. Not much of it's funny.

I wish her well.