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New York Post (US)
February 15, 1994

Outrageously funny girl

by Lisa Robinson

"The American media totally misses my humor," says Tori Amos, whose new album, "Under the Pink," entered the British charts at No. 1 last month.

"One headline in the British press said 'Confessions of a Cereal Killer,' because my song -- 'Cornflake Girl' -- was in the top 10," added Amos, whose new album is currently a more-than-respectable hit at No. 12 on the U.S. charts.

"They seem to understand what I'm talking about -- violence and rage and all that stuff. It's emotional and it's a raw nerve. And yet there's a sad voice that talks, an angry one that talks, and one that has to make a joke that talks. I don't know why, but the British -- who are the most humorous people in the world -- have always picked up on it. They understand my different layers."

Amos' 1992 major label debut, "Little Earthuakes," sold more than 1 million copies worldwide and received extensive MTV exposure and alternative radio airplay. She performed 200 shows during the year after the album's release and riveted audiences with her frank sensuality combined with outrage.

About her "in-your-face sexuality," Amos, an admitted rape victim, says, "In our minds, love and lust are separated. It's hard to find a person who would be responsible with your children and who would also throw a man up against a wall and lick him from head to toe, and then go read an Alice Walker book.

"I am all these things," says Amos," but people just want you to be a nice person. I'm not just a nice person; I want to be a creative, responsible, angry, passionate, loving woman."

She did her own version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" because, she says, "The first time I heard it, the piano said to me, 'I want to do this.' And when the piano tells me it wants to do something, she rules the roost. I'm really just her servant.

"Also, that song became an anthem for rage coming from men, and I said I felt it should be done with women's rage as well. It just goes so deep into the heart."


original article



[article shared by Lori Christie]

[transcribed by jason/yessaid]

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