| "Maybe California" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Tori Amos | ||||
| from the album Abnormally Attracted to Sin | ||||
| Released | May 19, 2009 | |||
| Recorded | December 2007 | |||
| Length | 4:25 | |||
| Label | Universal Republic | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Tori Amos | |||
| Producer(s) | Tori Amos | |||
| Tori Amos singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Maybe California" is a song by American singer and songwriter Tori Amos from her tenth studio album Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009). It was released as a promotional single May 19, 2009 by Universal Republic as a digital download only.
The song is a sparse ballad production featuring piano and vocals by Amos with light percussion and lush string arrangements. Thematically, the lyrics deals with a mother who has fallen into despair over the inability to care for her family's needs, and is contemplating suicide as a way out. Amos observed that women often quietly shoulder the burden of keeping a family intact, especially in times of emotional and financial strain, stating that Maybe California comes out of that kind of crisis: [1]
The song is about the mother’s role in our new world, where so many men are losing their jobs and the women are not, because they’re cheaper. What is that doing to a home? If the mothers start breaking down then everything starts breaking down [...] We’ve all been in that place where you think "if i just take myself out of their life then it will be ok". It is an escape, but at the time when you don’t feel like there’s anything you can do, and maybe if you’re out of the way it could get bette, because there’s no solution. This is a political statement. In Maybe California it needs to be told from the personal. [2]
Amos made the song, its video and ringtone available to download for free on Mother's Day as a gift, so that mothers everywhere could "know that they are seen and appreciated". [3]
A new version of Maybe California was recorded with a full orchestra as an iTunes bonus track for inclusion on Amos' 2012 retrospective release Gold Dust.
As with all the tracks on Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Maybe California has an accompanying "visualette" composed of material filmed during Amos' previous tour supporting American Doll Posse. The video clip features Amos driving a car and pensively moving around a park, sidewalks, along the seaside and cliffs while wearing Haute couture clothes. The video culminates in Amos standing on the edge of a cliff and reaching out her arms, as if to give a hand. [4]
The music video was included on a DVD accompanying the deluxe edition of the album.
The song was met with positive reviews by critics, who found the simple production and confessional content to be an enjoyable and touching return to the style of Amos' earlier recordings. Rolling Stone named Maybe California the standout track on the album. [5] PopMatters also said the song was a highlight, stating that "Perhaps most satisfying of all of it is the realization that [it] is as wrenching a song as she’s ever written, so quiet in its despair, but so clear at the same time". [6] BBC Music's review likewise stated that the simple ballad was archetypal Amos. [7] All Music Guide's review finds it to be "beautifully composed and delivered". [8] Slant Magazine's review called the song "a frankly stunning plea". [9] The reviewer for Wears The Trousers felt the song has "some genuinely touching moments but lyrically is perhaps too direct". [10] SPIN magazine, while negative in their review of the album, singled out Maybe California as the track to download. [11]
Although it did not chart anywhere else, Maybe California reached #1 in Portugal. [12]
| Title | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| "Maybe California" (2009) | Portugal | 1 |
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.
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.
"Hyperballad" is the fourth single from Post, a studio album by Icelandic musician and recording artist Björk. The song was written by Björk and co-produced by long time collaborator Nellee Hooper. "Hyperballad" infuses folktronica, acid house and synth-pop.
"A Sorta Fairytale" is a song written and performed by singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It was released as the first single from her 2002 album Scarlet's Walk. The song reached number 14 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, and number one on the Triple A chart. The song has since been featured in episodes of the television shows Nip/Tuck and The L Word. There are three commercially released versions of the song: the album version (5:30), the 101 Mix (4:00) and the original single version (4:01). It was released as a CD single (UK/Canada) with "Operation Peter Pan" as the B-side, and as a DVD single (US) with the music video, co-starring Adrien Brody.
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.
American Doll Posse is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released in 2007 by Epic Records. A concept album, American Doll Posse sees Amos assuming the identity of five different female personalities inspired by Greek mythology in order to narrate stories of life in modern America. Themes include opposition to the Iraq War, recording industry misogyny, disillusion, sexuality, personal loss and female empowerment in general. Musically, the album is more rock-oriented than other studio albums by Amos, notably featuring more guitar and drums than previous albums The Beekeeper (2005) and Scarlet's Walk (2002).
Abnormally Attracted to Sin is the tenth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released 19 May 2009, in standard and limited CD/DVD edition. The album debuted on Billboard 200 at no. 9, giving Amos her seventh Top 10 album in the US. Unlike Amos' previous releases since 2000, which drew upon various external sources such as feminism, religion and politics, the album is considered a mainly personal album.
"Welcome to England" is a song by American singer and songwriter Tori Amos, appearing on the album Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009). It was released as the lead digital single from the studio album on April 14, 2009 by Universal Motown Republic Group, which also marks as her first single released from the label. Written and produced by Amos herself, just like the rest of the album, the song was recorded at her husband's studio in England, Martian Studios.
Midwinter Graces is the eleventh solo studio album by singer-songwriter Tori Amos released on November 10, 2009, through Universal Republic Records. It is the first seasonal album by Amos, and is also notable for marking her return to a more classical, stripped-down, baroque sound with various synths, string-instruments, the harpsichord and Amos's own signature Bösendorfer piano at center stage, once more. The album, like previous releases from Amos, is available in a single form CD or a Deluxe edition which includes 3 bonus tracks, a 20-page photo book, and a DVD containing an interview with Amos. The standard edition was not released in the US or Canada. Midwinter Graces became Amos's lowest-charting album on the Billboard 200, peaking at number 66.
Little Earthquakes is the debut solo album by the American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, featuring the singles "Silent All These Years", "China", "Winter" and "Crucify". After Atlantic Records rejected the first version of the album, Amos began working on a second version with her then-boyfriend Eric Rosse. The album was first released in the UK on January 6, 1992, where it peaked at number 14 in the charts.
"Taxi Ride" is a song by American recording artist Tori Amos from her seventh studio album Scarlet's Walk (2002). The song was released as the album's second single in January 2003. It was written, composed and produced by Amos. The song is a folk pop track, which features instrumentation of electric guitars, drums, bongos, and acoustic guitar. The track was her second offering after departing from Atlantic Records and signed with Epic Records.
Night of Hunters is the twelfth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released on September 20, 2011, in the United States through Deutsche Grammophon. It is a concept album that Amos has described as "a 21st century song cycle inspired by classical music themes spanning over 400 years." She pays tribute to classical composers such as Alkan, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, taking inspiration from their original compositions to create new, independent songs. Regarding the album's concept, she has described it as the exploration of "the hunter and the hunted and how both exist within us" through the story of "a woman who finds herself in the dying embers of a relationship."
Gold Dust is the 13th solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released on October 1, 2012 by Deutsche Grammophon and Mercury Classics. The album is produced by Amos with arrangements by long-time collaborator John Philip Shenale. Inspired by and following in a similar vein as Amos's previous effort, the classical music album Night of Hunters (2011), Gold Dust features some of her previously released alternative rock and baroque pop songs re-worked in an orchestral setting. The material for Gold Dust, consisting of songs selected by Amos spanning her entire catalogue from Little Earthquakes (1992) through Midwinter Graces (2009), was recorded with the Metropole Orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley.
"Flavor" is a song written and recorded by Tori Amos, originally appearing on her album Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009) as a down-tempo song, and later released as the lead single from her album Gold Dust (2012) which features classical rearrangements of selected songs from her oeuvre. Amos stated she felt the song was overlooked on its original album and had to be re-worked and noticed on Gold Dust.
Unrepentant Geraldines is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. The album, available on standard CD/digital download, a limited edition CD+DVD, and two disc vinyl LP, was released in Germany on May 9, 2014 by Mercury Classics and May 13, 2014 in the United States by Mercury Classics/Universal Mercury Classics. Unrepentant Geraldines is Amos' eighth studio album to debut in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
"Carry" is a song by American recording artist Tori Amos, released as the main promotional single from the album Night of Hunters (2011). The track was released Aug 18, 2011 as a digital download only with an accompanying video clip.
"A Silent Night with You" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter, Tori Amos. It was released November 29, 2009 as the only promotional single from the seasonal album Midwinter Graces (2009).
"Trouble's Lament" is a song by American singer/songwriter Tori Amos from her 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines (2014). It was released as the album's lead promotional single on March 28, 2014, by Universal/Mercury Classics as a digital download only.
Ocean to Ocean is the sixteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released on October 29, 2021. A vinyl release followed on January 28, 2022. Amos has supported the album with a 6-date UK/Ireland tour in March 2022, and a 34-date US tour that followed between April 27 and June 17, 2022; EU dates have been postponed to April 5 through April 30, 2023 due to the pandemic.