Native Invader | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | September 8, 2017 | |||
Recorded | 2016–2017 | |||
Studio | Martian Engineering Studios, Cornwall, UK | |||
Length | 61:57 | |||
Label | Decca | |||
Producer | Tori Amos [1] | |||
Tori Amos chronology | ||||
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Singles from Native Invader | ||||
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Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 76/100 [3] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
Pitchfork | 7.5/10 [5] |
Native Invader is the fifteenth studio album (twelfth of entirely original material) by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It was released on September 8, 2017, through Decca Records. [6] Its lead single "Cloud Riders", was released on July 27, 2017.
Amos contributed the song "Flicker" for Netflix documentary film Audrie & Daisy 's ending credits. In a Billboard interview, Amos was asked about future plans, revealing there will be "another album next year. We're in beginning stages and it might be a very different record beginning Nov. 9, but let's see where we're going." [7]
On April 18, Amos began a five-day countdown with a series of Instagram posts depicting a studio and a "sacred fire". On the fifth day, the news was revealed to be a brand new album and world tour.
In her fan newsletter, it states in Summer 2016, Amos took a road trip through North Carolina's Smoky Mountains with intention to reconnect with the stories of her mother's family. That winter, her mother suffered a stroke. With that and the 2016 United States election, the album took a different direction. [8] Amos states, "It wasn't going to be a record of pain, blood and bone when I began. It wasn't going to be a record of division ... I listened and watched the conflicts that were traumatizing the nation and [wrote] about those raw emotions." [8]
Regarding writing the songs, Amos has said that "[T]here's an intake and an outtake period. That's when I'm finding works. So there was a deluge for Native Invader after quite a while of waiting for the muses to come. And then once things aligned and there was enough pressure [from] what was going on in the world and what happened to Mary, then all of a sudden, it's kismet and it all lined up. Now, it doesn't always work like that where it comes as a rush where I'm working on 7 songs at a time but that's what started to happen and you start filing really quickly and go 'Oh, you're not a part of this structure are you. Oh, no you are! You’re a "Reindeer King"! You're three different songs at once!'" [9]
A major source of inspiration for the album was Amos' belief that her white Appalachian ancestors from North Carolina and Tennessee were of Cherokee descent. During her trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, Amos acknowledged that she had Confederate ancestors. Both Tori Amos and her sister Dr. Marie Amos Dobyns have claimed Eastern Cherokee heritage and her sister has created ties with Native American organizations, such as by joining the Association of American Indian Physicians, an organization that allows people to join based on self-identification as Native Americans. While the album incorporates Native American themes, Tori Amos stated that she is an "observer" of Native American culture who is "not in a position to speak for First Nations people– that’s a sacred task." [10]
Native Invader was well-received from music critics upon release. The album received a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [3]
Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Neil Z. Yeung wrote, "Native Invader stands tall with its own vital voice and energy, alluding to beloved touchstones from throughout Amos' oeuvre while remaining fully of its time." [4]
Pitchfork rated the album positively, claiming that "[Amos'] intricately arranged songs are passionate and despairingly poetic." [5]
To promote the album, Amos embarked on the Native Invader Tour across Europe and North America. [11] [12] The tour began on September 6, 2017, in Cork, Ireland and concluded on December 3 in Los Angeles, California.
Regarding Amos duetting live with her daughter Tash, "I don't think on this tour but [...] in the not so long future. [...] It is one of those things again that kind of has to be something we work up and rehearse." [13]
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Reindeer King" | 7:06 |
2. | "Wings" | 4:09 |
3. | "Broken Arrow" | 5:20 |
4. | "Cloud Riders" | 5:23 |
5. | "Up the Creek" (feat. Tash) | 3:22 |
6. | "Breakaway" | 4:36 |
7. | "Wildwood" | 4:41 |
8. | "Chocolate Song" | 4:41 |
9. | "Bang" | 6:11 |
10. | "Climb" | 4:02 |
11. | "Bats" | 4:18 |
12. | "Benjamin" | 2:43 |
13. | "Mary's Eyes" | 5:16 |
Total length: | 61:57 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
14. | "Upside Down 2" | 3:23 |
15. | "Russia" | 2:44 |
Total length: | 68:07 |
Chart (2017) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (ARIA) [16] | 113 |
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [17] | 21 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [18] | 19 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [19] | 46 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [20] | 20 |
French Albums (SNEP) [21] | 128 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [22] | 18 |
Irish Albums (IRMA) [23] | 20 |
Italian Albums (FIMI) [24] | 50 |
New Zealand Heatseekers Albums (RMNZ) [25] | 5 |
Polish Albums (ZPAV) [26] | 19 |
Scottish Albums (OCC) [27] | 15 |
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) [28] | 87 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [29] | 23 |
UK Albums (OCC) [30] | 16 |
US Billboard 200 [31] | 39 |
US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard) [32] | 3 |
US Top Rock Albums (Billboard) [33] | 6 |
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 musician Tori Amos. It was released on May 5, 1998, on Atlantic Records. The album was Amos' first to be recorded at her own Martian Engineering Studios in Cornwall, England and was self-produced, with the mixing being handled by longtime collaborators Marcel van Limbeek and Mark Hawley, whom she had married in early 1998.
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 author 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.
Scarlet's Walk is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. It was released on October 28, 2002 in the UK and October 29 in the US on Epic Records, making it her first release on the label after her split with Atlantic Records. Her first studio album of original material since To Venus and Back in 1999, the 18-track concept album details the cross-country travels of Scarlet, a character loosely based on Amos, and was greatly inspired by the changes in American society and politics post-September 11, 2001. Topics explored on the album include nationalism, personal relationships, and the death of a close friend. Amos also took inspiration from the stories of her grandfather, who she claims was Cherokee and told her of the abuses against Native Americans throughout the United States' history.
Under the Pink is the second studio album by singer-songwriter Tori Amos. Upon its release in January 1994, the album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart on the back of the hit single "Cornflake Girl", and peaked at number 12 in the US.
A Tori Amos Collection: Tales of a Librarian is the first retrospective compilation album by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. Given the option to be involved in the project, Amos elected to take a central role in the production of the collection, released in 2003 on her former label Atlantic Records.
The Beekeeper is the eighth studio album by American musician Tori Amos. It was released on February 20, 2005, through Epic Records and is her second release for the label. As with many of Amos' releases throughout the 2000s, The Beekeeper is a concept album, heavily inspired by the practice of beekeeping and its connection to femininity and female empowerment. The album's nineteen tracks are separated into six different "gardens", and are inspired by topics such as her experiences with motherhood, betrayal ("Witness"), and Christian mythology.
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, disillusionment, sexuality, personal loss, and female empowerment in general. Musically, the record is more rock-oriented than other studio works by Amos, notably featuring more guitar and drums than previous albums The Beekeeper (2005) and Scarlet's Walk (2002).
Flicker is the debut studio album by Irish singer Niall Horan. It was released on 20 October 2017 by Capitol Records. "This Town" was released on 29 September 2016 as the album's lead single, followed by "Slow Hands", "Too Much to Ask", "On the Loose", and "Seeing Blind".
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.
"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.
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.
To Venus and Back is a double album by American singer, songwriter and pianist Tori Amos. Released on September 21, 1999, it comprises her fifth studio album and first live album. The first disc, entitled Venus: Orbiting, shows Amos increasingly experimenting with elements of electronica and trip hop, and spawned the singles "Bliss", "1000 Oceans", "Glory of the 80's", and "Concertina". The second disc, Venus Live, Still Orbiting, was recorded mostly during her Plugged '98 tour in support of her previous album, From the Choirgirl Hotel.
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 almost her entire catalogue at the time, from Little Earthquakes (1992) through Midwinter Graces (2009), was recorded with the Metropole Orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley.
Unrepentant Geraldines is the fourteenth studio album by American musician Tori Amos. It was released on May 9, 2014 through Mercury Classics. The album marks a return to pop and rock music after several releases in the classical genre. Recorded at her own Martian Engineering Studios, the album was self-produced and mixed by her husband Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek.
Flow State is the debut studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Tash Sultana, released on 31 August 2018, through their own record label, Lonely Lands Records.
Ocean to Ocean is the sixteenth studio album by American musician Tori Amos. It was released on October 29, 2021 through Decca Records. The album was written during lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic in Cornwall, England and featured the musicians collaborating remotely, with recording occurring in England, California, and Massachusetts. It is Amos's first studio album since Midwinter Graces (2009) to feature her typical backing band of Matt Chamberlain on drums, Jon Evans on bass, and Mac Aladdin on guitar.