Christmastide | ||||
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EP by | ||||
Released | December 4, 2020 | |||
Recorded | 2020 | |||
Studio | Martian Engineering (Cornwall, England) | |||
Genre | Christmas | |||
Length | 16:35 | |||
Label | Decca | |||
Producer | Tori Amos | |||
Tori Amos chronology | ||||
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Singles from Christmastide | ||||
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Christmastide is an extended play by singer and songwriter Tori Amos. Released on December 4, 2020, [1] it is her second release to feature holiday-themed material after 2009's Midwinter Graces , and the first of which to contain exclusively original material.
"Better Angels" was released as a single preceding the EP on November 25, 2020. [2]
On the EP, Amos stated:
With Christmastide it was important to be positive and to try and lift people’s spirits. It's a time of year that should be joyful with family and friends but also can sadly be a very lonely place for some. Many families will be unable to be together this year because of the Pandemic as well as many that are also dealing with the aftermath of a long and bitter U.S. Election. I hope these songs contained in this beautiful package can be a small treat to help along the way. We will get through these tough times together with strength in unity and hope. [1]
The album was released to streaming, as a digital download, and on vinyl, with cover artwork by graphic artist Rantz Hoseley. [3] While it did not chart on the US Billboard 200, it did reach number 79 on the Top Current Album Sales chart. [4]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Beats Per Minute | 70% [5] |
Financial Times | [6] |
The EP received generally positive reviews from music critics, including a five-star score from the Financial Times .
All songs written by Tori Amos.
Side one
Side two
Chart (2020) | Peak position |
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US Top Current Albums ( Billboard ) [4] | 79 |
Tori Amos is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
From the Choirgirl Hotel is the fourth studio album by American singer and songwriter Tori Amos, released on May 5, 1998. A departure from her previous albums, it was more a heavily produced project featuring elements of electronic music and a full rock band sound. The album debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 and number 6 in the UK. While falling short of the number 2 debut for her previous album, Boys for Pele (1996), From the Choirgirl Hotel is Amos's strongest debut to date in US sales, selling 153,000 copies in the first week. By 2008, it had sold 778,000 copies in US. In 1999, Amos received two Grammy nominations: Alternative Music Performance, and Female Rock Vocal Performance for "Raspberry Swirl".
Strange Little Girls is a concept album released by singer-songwriter Tori Amos in 2001. The album's 12 tracks are covers of songs written and originally performed by men, reinterpreted by Amos from a female point of view. Amos created female personae for each track and was photographed as each, with makeup done by Kevyn Aucoin. In the United States the album was issued with four alternative covers depicting Amos as the characters singing "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", "Strange Little Girl", "Time", and "Raining Blood". A fifth cover of the "I Don't Like Mondays" character was also issued in the UK and other territories. Text accompanying the photos and songs was written by novelist Neil Gaiman. The complete short stories in which this text appears can be found in Gaiman's 2006 collection Fragile Things.
Boys for Pele is the third studio album by American singer and songwriter Tori Amos. Preceded by the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze", by three weeks, the album was released on January 22, 1996, in the United Kingdom, on January 23 in the United States, and on January 29 in Australia. Despite the album being Amos's least radio friendly material to date, Boys for Pele debuted at number two on both the US Billboard 200 and the UK Albums Chart, making it her biggest simultaneous transatlantic debut, her first Billboard top 10 debut, and the highest-charting US debut of her career to date.
Mazzy Star is an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 in Santa Monica, California, from remnants of the group Opal. Founding member David Roback's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Kendra Smith left Opal.
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Tori Amos is an American pianist and singer-songwriter whose musical career began in 1980, at the age of seventeen, when she and her brother co-wrote the song "Baltimore". The song was selected as the winning song in a contest for the Baltimore Orioles and was recorded and pressed locally as a 7" single. From 1984 to 1989, Amos fronted the synth-pop band Y Kant Tori Read, which released one self-titled album with Atlantic Records in 1988 before breaking up. Shortly thereafter, Amos began writing and recording material that would serve as the debut of her solo career. Still signed with Atlantic, and its UK counterpart East West, Amos' initial solo material was rejected by the label in 1990. Under the guidance of co-producers Eric Rosse, Davitt Sigerson and Ian Stanley, a second version of the album was created and accepted by the label the following year.
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