Artist Tori Amos

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Tori Amos

Tori Amos has lived several different lives since starting out as Mary Ellen Amos the child musical prodigy, dabbling in synth-pop in the ’80s with Y Kant Tori Read, and then moving on to the incendiary passion and anger that fueled her seminal 1992 solo debut, Little Earthquakes. Since then, Amos’ recorded output has been hit-or-miss—see 2009’s particularly uninspiring Abnormally Attracted To Sin, which falls back on some of the same breathless religion-versus-sex themes that first made her a favorite of goth-lite girls in the ’90s. Amos’ most recent, Night Of Hunters, brings still another genre into the mix: It’s a concept album inspired by centuries of classical music history. Despite the quiet, somber nature of that release, Amos still has presence that can silence a room or make it sizzle.

Updated 11/21/2011