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Little Earthquakes is the debut solo album of singer/songwriter Tori Amos, featuring the singles "Silent All These Years", "China", "Winter" and "Crucify".

Recording

Following the dissolution of her synth-pop band Y Kant Tori Read, Amos composed 12 songs, recorded them at Capitol Records in Los Angeles with Davitt Sigerson producing, and in June 1990 submitted them for copyright.

Amos approached Atlantic Records in December 1990 with a 10-track demo tape, some being newer songs but mostly ones from June. The track listing consisted of "Russia" (later to become "Take to the Sky"), "Mary", "Crucify", "Happy Phantom", "Leather", "Winter", "Sweet Dreams", "Song for Eric", "Learn to Fly" and "Flying Dutchman". Atlantic was unhappy with the songs, and in response Amos and her then boyfriend Eric Rosse recorded some new songs, including "Girl", "Precious Things", "Tear In Your Hand" and "Little Earthquakes", Take Me With You music was recorded during these sessions but tori recorded her vocals in 2006. This session was recorded on a limited budget in Rosse's home studio, using his 3M 24-track analog tape machine and a Yamaha CP-80 piano. Amos and Rosse also went to Stag Studios to use a Yamaha grand piano. During these sessions, Amos recalled the origins of the B-side "Thoughts":

" Girl was being recorded and I couldn't get a take. I was freaking out. Eric was in the booth playing air ball encouraging me to take a ten minute. Glued on the bench, I started this thing coming from nowhere singing nonsense into the mic. When I finished, Eric said, 'It's a take.' I said, 'What?' - he had left the machine running."

Satisfied with these recordings, Atlantic determined that the album Little Earthquakes with 13 tracks, removing "Learning to Fly" and adding four from the December recording session. Another song that Tori Amos recorded "Berlin Wall" has never been released, Along with learn to fly.

These two phases resulted in the original "final" 13-track version of the album, submitted in January 1991, as revealed in the liner notes for the A Piano: The Collection box set. The tracklist is very similar to the released version: "Crucify" / "Girl" / "Silent All These Years" / "Precious Things" / "Winter" / "Sweet Dreams" / "Little Earthquakes" / "Leather" / "Russia" / "Mother" / "Tear In Your Hand" / "Upside Down" / "Flying Dutchman". Of all 14 tracks recorded, only "Happy Phantom" was omitted at this point, but it would later appear on the released tracklist.

Amos moved to London to work with Ian Stanley; Atlantic thought Amos would have an easier time of achieving success, because of English appreciation for eccentric performers. Here she recorded what would become two of her early singles. "Me And A Gun" was the last song written for the album, while "China" was an early track, originally titled "Distance", that she wrote in 1987. During those sessions, she also recorded several songs that ended up as B-sides.

The second final version of the album, submitted in December 1991, was accepted by the record company. However, this was still revised before the final release; a 13-track promo cassette shows that the song "Little Earthquakes" was to appear after "Happy Phantom" on side one, with side two closing with "Flying Dutchman". The latter track was presumably dropped due to the physical restraints of the vinyl LP format.

Atlantic's European counterpart, East West, promoted the record extensively. Amos spent much of 1991 performing in small bars and clubs in London and playing for music executives and journalists, often in her own apartment. The "Me and a Gun" EP containing four tracks was released in October 1991, receiving considerable critical attention. The single was re-issued the following month with "Silent All These Years" as the lead composition, and it became her first chart entry at UK number 51 following Single of the Week support from BBC Radio 1 and a TV debut on the high-rated chat show of Jonathan Ross on the BBC. The back cover of the album contains pictures of phallus mushrooms, also known as stinkhorns.

3 Songs "Sugar," "The Pool" and "Here In My Head" were all written in 1992 after the album was released.

Release

When the album was finally released in the UK in January 1992, it reached number 14 and remained on the Top 75 charts (UK Albums Chart) for 23 weeks. A month later, it was released in the USA to breakthrough critical success and also announced itself as a chart mainstay, despite peaking outside the Top 50 on the Billboard 200. The accompanying singles (along with "Me and a Gun" and "Silent All These Years") were "China" (January 1992 UK), "Winter" (March 1992 UK/November 1992 US) and "Crucify" (May 1992 US/June 1992 UK), the US EP version of which featured covers of songs by artists including The Rolling Stones and Nirvana.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Melody Maker	favorable
NME	7/10
Pitchfork	(8.6/10)
PopMatters	(positive)
Q
Robert Christgau	C+
Rolling Stone	(print)
Rolling Stone	(online)
Slant Magazine

Reviews of the album were positive. Rolling Stone described Little Earthquakes as "an often pretty, subtly progressive song cycle that reflects darkly on sexual alienation and personal struggles", and that by the end of the album "we feel as though we've been through some peculiar therapy session, half-cleansed and half-stirred. That artful paradox is part of what makes Little Earthquakes a gripping debut."

In the UK where Amos was first promoted the album was also warmly received. Melody Maker stated that "essentially, Amos is concerned with an entirely new vocabulary of experience. She possesses a rare ability to explore a multiplicity of emotions and a broad range of perspectives within the same song... These songs of innocence and experience are cerebral soul music for the kind of people who mean to read TE Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom on their holiday but end up spending all their time exchanging bodily fluids with strangers." Q said that, "Guilt, misery and failed relationships thread their way through Little Earthquakes with occasional detours for childhood traumas transformed into adult inadequacies", and praised Amos's lyrics, describing them as "a granite-like hardness merges with a journalist's eye for detail and compassion and frailty". The review concluded, "Little Earthquakes is disturbing, funny and sexy by turms. Amos does all this with the unmistakable stamp of a potentially great songwriter. Where on earth can she go from here?" NME, however, was more reserved, saying, "It isn't easy getting to grips with Tori. Her memory-exorcising songs are mostly set against an icing sugar landscape of bare piano", and concluding, "Little Earthquakes is a sprawling, confusing journey through the gunk of a woman's soul... Sometimes it's magical and sometimes it's sickly and overwrought."

Accolades

In 1998, the UK's Q magazine readers voted Little Earthquakes the 66th greatest album of all time, and in 2002 the same magazine named it the fourth Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.

The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It is her only album to do so to date.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Tori Amos

B-sides

• "Mary" and "Sweet Dreams" were re-recorded in 2003 for the compilation Tales of a Librarian.

Personnel

• Tori Amos – acoustic & electric pianos and lead vocals on all tracks, background vocals on tracks 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 & 12, sampled strings on tracks 2 & 8
• Steve Caton – guitar on tracks 2, 4, 10 & 12, bass on track 2, background vocals on tracks 4 & 12
• John Chamberlain – mandolin on track 1
• Paulinho da Costa – percussion on tracks 1 & 6
• Jake Freeze – rat pedal on track 4, saw on track 12
• Stuart Gordon – violin on track 7
• Ed Green – drums on track 1
• Will Gregory – oboe on track 7
• Tina Gullickson – background vocals on track 1
• Chris Hughes – drums on track 7
• David Lord – string arrangement on track 7
• Will McGregor – bass on tracks 4, 10 & 12
• Carlo Nuccio – drums on tracks 4 & 10
• Philly – finger cymbal on track 3
• David Rhodes – guitar on track 7
• Eric Rosse – drum and keyboard programming on tracks 2, 4 & 12, background vocals on tracks 4 & 12, Irish war drum on track 5
• Jef Scott – bass on track 1, 8
• Mathew Seligman – bass on track 7
• Nancy Shanks – background vocals on tracks 1 & 12
• Phil Shenale – keyboard programming on track 6
• Eric Williams – ukulele on track 1, dulcimer on track 6
• Orchestra arranged and conducted by Nick Caro on tracks 3 & 5

Charts

Certifications

References

1. ^ http://www.yessaid.com/timeline7.html
2. ^ Campbell, Paul (1997). Tori Amos Collectibles. London, England: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-6174-3.
3. ^ "Interview with Eric Rosse". Keyboard. New York: New Bay Media. September 1992.
4. Amos, Tori (1992). Little Earthquakes. New York: Amsco Publications. ISBN 0-8256-1345-0.
5. http://www.hereinmyhead.com/collect/lost/a-e.html#d2
6. http://www.innerviews.org/inner/tori.html
7. http://www.yessaid.com/talk/1hereinmyhead.html
8. Huey, Steve. Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes > Review at AllMusic
9. ^ Wilde, Jon (January 4, 1992). "Review: Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Melody Maker. London, England: IPC Media: 29.
10. ^ Morton, Roger (January 11, 1992). "Review: Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". NME. London, England: IPC Media: 28.
11. Walters, Barry. "Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes / Under the Pink". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 16 April 2015. {{cite web}}: Text "Album Reviews" ignored (help)
12. Rauch, Stephen (January 29, 2003). "Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes". PopMatters. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
13. ^ Aizlewood, John (February 1992). "Review: Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Q (65). London, England: EMAP: 82.
14. "CG: Tori Amos". Robert Christgau.
15. ^ Woodard, Josef (April 2, 1992). "Review: Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Rolling Stone (327). New York City, USA: Wenner Media LLC: 46. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
16. Cinquemani, Sal (November 7, 2003). "Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes". Slant Magazine. Retrieved December 13, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
17. http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/qlistspage2.html#Women
18. "Little Earthquakes (Deluxe Edition)". Amazon.com. February 2014. Retrieved 2015-02-01.
19. "Australiancharts.com – Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Hung Medien.
20. "Tori Amos Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard.
21. "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH.
22. "Dutchcharts.nl – Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes" (in Dutch). Hung Medien.
23. "Charts.nz – Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Hung Medien.
24. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company.
25. "Tori Amos Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard.
26. "Canadian album certifications – Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Music Canada.
27. id MUST BE PROVIDED for UK CERTIFICATION.
28. "American album certifications – Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes". Recording Industry Association of America.

• Cite certification used for United Kingdom without ID
• Pages with empty short description
• Atlantic Records albums
• Tori Amos albums
• 1992 debut albums
• Songs with feminist themes
• Albums produced by Eric Rosse
• Albums produced by Ian Stanley