Track Listing

1. Spark
2. Cruel
3. Black-Dove (January)
4. Raspberry Swirl
5. Jackie's Strength
6. Iieee
7. Liquid Diamonds
8. She's Your Cocaine
9. Northern Lad
10. Hotel
11. Playboy Mommy
12. Pandora's Aquarium

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9461 in Music
• Published on: 2000
• Released on: 1998-05-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.com
For Tori Amos, sex can be a weapon, a spiritual offering, or an act of protest. It's certainly been the singer-pianist's big subject since her 1989 debut Little Earthquakes. But while her earliest compositions tried to punch every emotional hot button at once and came off sounding turgid and overblown, her new album packs a greater punch by toning down mock-symphonic excess in favor of stark, haunting tracks that contain veiled mysteries. Love cuts both ways on Choirgirl. Songs such as "She's Your Cocaine" and "Cruel" view relationships as vicious power plays, while the protagonists in "Playboy Mommy" and "Northern Lad" desperately seek salvation via emotional connection. Hypnotic, affecting, and frequently gorgeous, From the Choirgirl Hotel is Amos's most accomplished album to date. --Marc Weingarten

Spin
Choirgirl ... is less fey ... and her vocals don't get whipped so much into that register known as "upper tiramisu." That the messages are less pointed and the presentation less frilly makes for more universal appeal.... [T]hink of this as simply a rock record, which means its meaning is found in noise. You will find yourself engaged in old and favorite habits--dancing around; singing along; dropping through all the normal, miraculous rock'n'roll escape hatches.... [T]his is something to believe in.

People
Some talking points for parents of teenage Amos fans: ... note Amos's accomplished musicianship, her years of classical training, her soaring soprano, the complex structure of her songs. No need to mention that you find her music repetitive, boring and in dire need of a backbeat.... The more you pretend to like this album, the less your kids will want to listen to it.