This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations .(October 2018) |
"Spark" | ||||
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Single by Tori Amos | ||||
from the album From the Choirgirl Hotel | ||||
B-side | "Purple People", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Bachelorette", "Do It Again", "Cooling" | |||
Released | April 20, 1998 | |||
Genre | Art pop, alternative rock | |||
Length | 4:12 | |||
Label | Atlantic, EastWest | |||
Songwriter(s) | Tori Amos | |||
Producer(s) | Tori Amos | |||
Tori Amos singles chronology | ||||
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"Spark" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released by Atlantic and EastWest as the first single from Amos' fourth studio album, From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998).
Amos wrote "Spark" after suffering a miscarriage. She discussed the song in an article from Q magazine in May 1998. [1]
"Y'know, once you've felt life in your body, you can't go back to having been a woman that's never carried life. The other thing is feeling something dying inside you and you're still alive. Obviously when it was happening, it was already over, but in my mind, you don't know that it's over yet. You're doing anything, thinking, 'Oh God, maybe if I put a cork up myself, maybe it'll keep this little life in.' That's why in 'Spark', I say, 'She's convinced she could hold back a glacier/But she couldn't keep baby alive.' You just start going insane. There's nothing you can do, so so you surrender and then... start again."
The timing for an Amos release has never been better, as the mainstream has apparently caught up to the singer/songwriter's quirky brand of pop music. She meets fans halfway with this first single from the imminent, much-anticipated new album, From the Choirgirl Hotel, by infusing the song's complex, piano-driven structure with a sticky chorus and ample use of scratchy angst-rock guitars. Amos continues to explore the far regions of her vocal range, yelping and ranting at whim. However, she counters that with welcome softer nuances that serve the song well. Add an insinuating, tribalistic midtempo drum, and you have what could be a major pop breakthrough for this eternal critical darling. – Billboard (April 1998)
British magazine Music Week wrote, "Tori bursts back onto the scene with this powerful first single from her forthcoming album From the Choirgirl Hotel. Her trademark piano is there but the addition of a band, drums, loops and electronic effects add a further dimension. It's a very fine, multi-layered song which will see her first return to the chart sinoe the "Professional Widow" remix smash." [2]
Amos requested the video for "Spark" to be directed by James Brown, who originally had a different idea for the video that Amos disliked; she requested wanting something "where a girl has a will to live." The video was shot in Dartmoor, South West England and took three days to finish.
You don't really know what's going to happen to her, but that's not the point. She's trusting her instincts in a way she never has before, she's finding something in herself she never knew even existed. The man who's trying to find me, probably is the driver. You don't really know too much about him, but you know she's got to get away from him. The water shot – it was about an hour and a half. It was 5:30 at night, and the sun was going down. [switches to up-close shot where she wriggles from the blindfold] Here, right here, I'm in a different water tank, and they had me swimming around for a while trying to get close-up shots. [About the overhead shot where we see Amos running along the banks of the river directly after the water sequence] Well, that was my double, right there. She was walking in a forest while I was shooting all this, because it took hours to get those two seconds. I had changes of clothes – I had wet clothes and dry clothes, and in the middle of the forest the girls would stand around me in their parkas and I'm putting the wet clothes on and putting on the muddy clothes to get the right outfit at the right time. "Here [the car at the end], these two are brother and sister, and they're in the album artwork, where they look like angels in the artwork, although here they're very much like the Village of the Damned . You don't know what's going to happen to this girl, but she has a will to live. [3]
I really had no idea that I was going to be crawling through a river on my knees in England in the cold, but I started to get into the story and I really believed that this girl, it was about striving, ...she wanted to live so desperately that she would do anything to do that. All you know is this car crash saved her life so the idea "some things that are really horrible", yea they are horrible, but then you move on and then maybe "wow". She was in the back of this trunk, the car crashed, her life is saved because of what you think is a horrible thing normally -- a car crash -- and then she starts to find a will in herself to strive, to stay alive, she stars believing in her ability to get through. [It was shot] in one of the moors in Dartmoor and that was really mud. [Skeeter] was something special. I think the main thing is you know he's out there looking for her, whether he's one of the Cray brothers or you're not quite sure. But she's finding her way, having to trust her instincts. The truth is I love this director so much, James Brown, from the Apollo 440 video. He turned in a treatment to me that I just said "I love you but this treatment is so not the spirit of this piece ...take me to the water." ...You don't know sometimes where you're gonna go from one minute to the next. Life is that precious and I think people forget that we don't know where we're gonna be in an hour from now. We don't really appreciate that. What I love is that from one second to the next, she doesn't know how she's gonna get through but she's coming through for herself. It was freezing. It was a body double on set who was supposed to go into the river, but she hyperventilated. She was so sweet, she's this amazing athlete but she wouldn't go in. She's a wonderful person and so it was like "ok somebody's gotta do it and we're the only two people with red hair so it's my turn." There's a lot [of symbolism] in the whole video, like a hundred things that James put in as subtext. - MTV Live Interview with Carson Daly, 1998 [4]
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Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
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Region | Date | Format(s) | Label(s) | Ref(s). |
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United States | April 7, 1998 | Alternative radio | Atlantic | [19] |
United Kingdom | April 20, 1998 |
|
| [20] |
United States | May 19, 1998 | Contemporary hit radio | Atlantic | [21] |
June 9, 1998 |
| [22] [23] |
"Professional Widow" is a song written by the American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released on her third album, Boys for Pele (1996). It is a harpsichord-driven rock song and its lyrics are rumored to have been inspired by the American songwriter Courtney Love. The song was released on July 2, 1996 by Atlantic and EastWest, as the third single from the Boys for Pele album in the US, containing remixes by the house music producers Armand van Helden and MK. The single reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. In Italy, the original version peaked at number two in October 1996. An edited version of the Armand's Star Trunk Funkin' Mix of "Professional Widow" was originally released as a double A-side single with "Hey Jupiter" in Europe and Australia.
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.
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.
"LA Song" (subtitled "LA Song (Out of This Town)" on the single release) is a song by American singer-songwriter Beth Hart, released as the first single from her second album, Screamin' for My Supper, on July 20, 1999. While it reached only No. 90 on the US Billboard Hot 100, it was an Adult Top 40 top-10 hit and reached No. 1 in New Zealand in February 2000.
"Cornflake Girl" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It was released on January 10, 1994, as the first single from her second studio album, Under the Pink (1994), by EastWest Records in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it served as the album's second single, after "God". Singer Merry Clayton provided backing vocals and sings the "man with the golden gun" bridge.
"So Excited" is a song recorded by American singer Janet Jackson, featuring guest vocals from rapper Khia, for Jackson's ninth studio album 20 Y.O. (2006). The song was written by Jackson, Jermaine Dupri, James Phillips, Johntá Austin, James Harris III, Terry Lewis and Khia Chambers, with Herbie Hancock, Michael Beinhorn and Bill Laswell also receiving songwriting credits for sampling Hancock's 1983 song "Rockit". Production for "So Excited" was handled by Dupri, LRoc, Jam, Lewis and Jackson. "So Excited" is musically a hip hop and dance song which lyrically expresses submission from a woman to her lover. It was released on August 28, 2006, by Virgin Records as the second single from 20 Y.O.
A Piano: The Collection is a five-disc box set spanning the first 15 years of the solo career of American singer and songwriter Tori Amos. Released on September 26, 2006, by Rhino Records as part of the contract Amos negotiated with Warner Music Group, the set includes singles, album tracks, B-sides, rarities, demos, and unreleased songs from album sessions.
"I Never Loved You Anyway" is a song by Irish band the Corrs, released in December 1997 as the second single from their second album, Talk on Corners (1997). The music was written by the band with Carole Bayer Sager, who also wrote the lyrics alongside Andrea Corr. The song became a top-50 hit in Australia and the United Kingdom, as well as on the Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary chart. The track earned producer David Foster a nomination for Producer of the Year at the 1999 Juno Awards.
"God" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos, released as a single from her second studio album, Under the Pink (1994). It was issued as the album's lead single in the United States on February 3, 1994, as the second single in Australia on May 2, and as the fourth single in the United Kingdom on October 3. The song reached number 44 on the UK Singles Chart as well as number one on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. It became Amos's first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 72.
"Lately" is the debut solo single of Welsh singer-songwriter Lisa Scott-Lee. It was released after the split of pop group Steps, of which Scott-Lee was a member. It was released on 12 May 2003 by Fontana Records and was written by Scott-Lee and Point4. The single peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart, reached number 24 on the Irish Singles Chart, and also charted in the Netherlands and Switzerland. To date, it is Scott-Lee's only single to reach the top 10 in the United Kingdom.
"Caught a Lite Sneeze" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released by Atlantic and EastWest as the first single from her third studio album, Boys for Pele (1996), on January 1, 1996. The song is about wanting to do anything to keep a relationship going, knowing that it is over. It references Nine Inch Nails's album Pretty Hate Machine in the lyrics "Caught a lite sneeze / Dreamed a little dream / Made my own pretty hate machine." On December 11, 1995, Atlantic made the song available for streaming on their website, one of the earliest examples of a major label implementing such a feature.
"Talula" is a song by American singer-songwriter Tori Amos, released by Atlantic and EastWest as the second single from her third studio album, Boys for Pele (1996). The song reached number 22 on the UK Singles Chart and appeared in the Jan de Bont film Twister.
"Jackie's Strength" is a song by Tori Amos, released as the second single from her 1998 album From the Choirgirl Hotel. It reached #54 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart. The remix single, released the following year, reached number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart in the U.S. The lyrics refer to Jackie Onassis, there is also a brief reference to the Kennedy assassination, though Amos herself explained that the song also concerns her own personal doubts about marriage. Amos reiterated this in an interview with columnist Steven Daly in Rolling Stone.
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.
"Raspberry Swirl" is a song written and performed by Tori Amos. It was released as the second single from her 1998 album From the Choirgirl Hotel in Germany and Australia, and as the third and final single in North America and the UK. In the United States it was released as a double A-side single with "Cruel", off the same album. In Germany, Australia and the UK it was released as its own single. Two variations of an identical 12" vinyl promotional release were issued in the U.K.
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.
"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.
"Beggin' on Your Knees" is a song performed by the Victorious cast featuring American singer Victoria Justice. It was produced by Kristian Lundin and Shellback, who also co-wrote the song with Savan Kotecha, for Victorious: Music from the Hit TV Show (2011), the soundtrack to the Nickelodeon television series, Victorious. It was released as the album's second single on April 1, 2011 through Columbia Records in association with Nickelodeon. Musically, the song runs through a synthpop oriented beat with teen pop lyrics, and the lyrics speak of vengeance against a cheating boyfriend.
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