Little Earthquakes

First five or six songs are incredible, on form for a 4 but it loses a bit of steam after that for me (at least on first listen). I am a fan of her sound though and can definitely see it growing on me!

I have to admit to being the kind of teenage boy in the 90s who avoided Tori Amos like the plague. But, you know what, this album isn't half bad. On the surface it seems kinda cheese ball, but in this case I think it's a byproduct of the era and not sincerely-held cheese, if that makes sense.

Tori had a lot of comparisons to Kate Bush when she was first around, but if it's a crime to like Kate we would all be in prison, right? This is an album that reeks of Tori herself, dark, honest, melodic and absolutely stunning.

Much like her eventual contemporaries like Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Ani DiFranco, and PJ Harvey (all of whom I adore), Tori Amos came out the gate absolutely fully formed and has only gotten better with age. This album is absolute ass kicking, deeply personal, and thoroughly exquisite all at the same time.

Not that interesting to me. I could've gone without hearing this. 2/5

I loved this album as an angsty teen - 14-year-old me really thought she'd been silent all these years. I hadn't listened to Little Earthquakes in a long time, and while I found a couple of tracks a bit overwrought this time around, angsty 40something me really enjoyed revisiting it.

Little Earthquakes was definitely a really darn good album. This album gave me a lot of the same vibes that Fiona Apple's Tidal gave despite that album coming out a whole 4 years after this one. This album still hits a lot of the same beats Tidal did with similar sounding vocals and also heavily relying on the piano in nearly all the songs. Said piano was easily the best part of the whole album as it could be really beautiful at points in the songs that did use it. The vocals were a bit more hit or miss but were mostly hits when Amos did her typical singing style and didn't try anything too weird. This is a quite a nice surprise of an album.
Best Song: Winter
Worst Song: Me and a Gun

Long time fan of this album and of the rest of Tori's first four albums (she got a little too straightforward and repetitive on later albums for my taste). I've also seen her live a couple of times - her voice is as amazing in person as on the recording, as is her piano playing. I know a lot of people compare her to Kate Bush, but Tori has a much harder edge. Overall, this album is an absolute roller coaster of emotions, lyrically and musically. Relistening to it from the vantage point of 33 years since its release (I became a fan the year it came out), it still hits me in the gut and gives me chills. Some of it hits me in different ways than back then - for example, Winter brought tears to my eyes now that I have a daughter (it's written for her father and sung from the vantage point of a daughter reaching different phases of her life). Then there's all the heartache and pain Tori pours into the album. There's almost no point in giving specific examples - the album is filled with it. And of course, there are no words that can do justice for Me and a Gun. An amazing album, start to finish. Favorite tracks: Crucify, Silent All These Years, Precious Things, Winter, China (yeah, schmaltz and all), Tear in Your Hand, Little Earthquakes.

Well, I’m pretty sure I’m at a 5 – I just need to figure out exactly why, because my brain hasn’t quite cracked it.

It’s definitely because of the lyricism; it’s both wonderfully & painfully vivid, even in its more flowery and verbose moments. It’s certainly from her vocals, which project the same confidence as someone like Kate Bush, and sound lovely throughout the whole thing. It’s… partially from the instrumentation, which is really nice, if a bit too attached to the piano on a few tracks, in a way that made the 57 minute runtime start to get a little homogeneous. Altogether, I think it’s a lovely album, beautiful through the honesty of its pain, and one of the finest examples of a singer-songwriter we’ve gotten so far. Everything about this screams a 5 to me, and I’m pretty damn sure it is one, because I certainly enjoyed it as if it were one.

Why, then, am I sort of struggling to justify giving it a 5? Is it because it’s sort of like an Oscar bait film, where you feel like you have almost no choice but to come to that conclusion, or is this actually standing on its own merits, and I’m just sort of paranoid about it? Is it because we just got “Exile in Guyville”, which is sort of an antithesis to this album in a lot of ways, or am I just burnt out on two albums with similar, yet different thematic views of femininity & portraying confidence as back to back, hour long experiences? Those are both sort of true, to some degree, but I think my brain has finally cracked why I’m struggling, & I’m not sure how valid it is.

I think I’m struggling to give this a 5 because I’m feeling woefully ignorant to a lot of the subject matter & themes this album tackles, due to a lack of personal experience. I’m empathetic towards an incredible amount of this album, especially so on “Me and a Gun”, which is horrifyingly portrayed, yet wonderfully performed, enhanced by the choice to go fully acapella on it. However, I’m just not able to feel a lot of these tracks, at least not with the emotional pain that Tori Amos used to write & perform them. That’s no fault of her own, and it shouldn’t play a factor into my rating at all (& it won’t!), but I can’t help but feel like I’m giving this a 5 more so out of an emotional connection to her strife, as opposed to a full appreciation for the actual musical qualities of the album. Whether or not that’s actually true is basically dependent on how I approach these tracks in the future, but I think this is an album that needs a few plays to fully grab the depth of, both vocally, instrumentally, lyrically, and tonally. I’ll certainly replay it a few times, because it’s a deeply touching album, and I’m sure that I missed a few things along the way.

I will give this a 5, because I did enjoy it a lot – it would be weird to drop it down to a 4 just on sole account of “did I actually like the musical parts of this album that much”, because I do think the emotional weight of this album goes hand in hand with the musical parts, in a way that’s oddly intertwined, yet separately impactful. It is easy to sort of ignore the instrumentals and focus on the stories, but the stories themselves are enhanced by the power of the instrumentals behind them. They work together brilliantly, but it is easy to get lost in one opposed to the other the longer the album goes, and that’s probably my only real “knock” on the album. If your big issue is reconciling the emotional impact with the musical impact though, then you’ve made one hell of an album. It’s worth a 5, and it’s worth a lot of listens. I’m very glad I finally listened to Tori Amos.

I also need a hug, probably.

This started off strong, but over an hour of runtime it became a bit of ear fatigue with little variation. Still pleasant, and stuck the landing with Little Earthquakes, but could have been more engaging. 2.6/5 -> 3/5

I was honestly bored. It's not bad, it's just not for me.

I'm often not the biggest singer-songwriter fan but this album is very good. Her voice is fantastic and the lyrics hit a lot of very powerful topics. Instrumentation is varied and complements her voice well.

I know I've heard of Tori Amos as a singer-songwriter before. This past year, I heard "Cornflake Girl" from her second album, and I feel like I've listened to "Crucify" on FM radio somewhere. This will be my first full listen to an album of hers, where this was her breakout solo album after the dissolution of her synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read. I can comfortably say Little Earthquakes is a remarkable record.

My first thought from my listen was Kate Bush, having heard Hounds of Love earlier on this journey. Tori's mezzo-soprano was just as elegant and whimsical as Kate's voice, and her piano-driven compositions are on par with the latter's work. Sure, it's not full-blown synth pomp like Hounds of Love was in places, but the overall quiet storm sound suits Tori well for these songs that demand deeper reflection. Whether it's the struggle to overcome self-hatred on "Crucify", the desire for self-expression on "Silent All These Years", the sexual awakening amidst a Christian upbringing on "Precious Things", the meditation on death on "Happy Phantom", the lost love of "China", or the personal account of a time when Tori was raped on "Me and a Gun", these songs evoke the listener to think critically about her words, and the music behind her strikingly fits the tone of the subject matter.

This was an exceptional debut from an artist who proved she had a voice for this world, and I am glad to have enjoyed it.

Pretty pleasant.

Low 4/5

Sounded a lit like Kate Bush, but I might like this one a little bit more.

I did not like this. There were a couple moments I liked. The dissonant piano on precious things and the song Happy Phantom. Other than that I couldn’t wait for it to be over. This album was a drag.

Didn't know her before and am happy I heard this Album before I died.

I can appreciate that people would like this, but it's not for me at all. It's not terrible, it's just kind of bland and uninspiring. At it's worst it's a bit annoying. I don't like her style at all, the construction of the songs, the delivery... Nothing works for me personally.

I've never been a huge Amos fan, but this album is listenable. Mostly. Not going to get high rotation, but probably wouldn't turn it off if it was on.

Definitely giving off Kate Bush vibes. A great opening 1 2. It doesn't ever really shift a gear for me though, most of the way through.