Tori Amos

An eccentric musician whose highly individual songwriting and dynamic stage performances made her a platinum-selling artist throughout the 1990s, Tori Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina, on August 22, 1963. Already a seasoned live performer by her late teens, she moved to Los Angeles and formed the glam rock band Y Kant Tori Read in 1984. When the group's first major-label album flopped, she rebranded herself as a solo singer-songwriter and moved to the UK. This resulted in her striking breakthrough as a solo artist, Little Earthquakes, featuring highly personal and critically-lauded singles like "Silent All These Years" and "Me and a Gun." Over the years that followed, she continued to depict the extremes of her life—including relationship struggles and a series of miscarriages—while living in remote Cornwall and exploring new territory with each recording. She scored a Number 1 hit in the UK in 1996 with the Armand Van Helden dance remix of "Professional Widow," a song widely interpreted to be about Courtney Love. After pausing her career to start a family, she recorded a cover album, 2001's Strange Little Girls, during which she took songs written by men about women and reversed the perspective. This was followed by 2002's Scarlet's Walk, 2005's The Beekeeper, and 2007's American Doll Posse. Changing record labels several times along the way, she settled with Universal Republic in time for 2009's Abnormally Attracted to Sin. Her music took on a change in direction in 2011, when she released her first classical-inspired album Night of Hunters. The critically acclaimed album featured tracks based on works by Schubert, Debussy, Bach, and Chopin, and earned her the prestigious Klassik Ohne Grenzen Prize at the Echo Klassik Awards in 2012. 2012's Gold Dust, 2014's Unrepentant Geraldines, 2017's Native Invader, and 2021's Ocean to Ocean all charted within the Top 40 in the UK, with each release highlighting her intricate arrangements and ever-evolving songwriting style. A 2024 anniversary edition of Unrepentant Geraldines came out in 2024, along with the new EP White Telephone to God.