From Tori With Love

My personalized CD business in college exposed me to various genres of music. Before giving the CDs to my classmates, I would listen to each song to make sure that it plays well. This made me appreciate cheesy love songs, alternative, rock, ballad, and even emo music. Prior to that, pop music is the only music I listened to. It is through this way that I discovered one of the most talented musicians ever – Tori Amos.

My favorite redhead. (Image is from this site.)

Once, a classmate requested Tori Amos’ A Sorta Fairytale, and it immediately became my favorite. Before that, Spark, another favorite, was the only Tori Amos song I knew. To be honest, I could not understand both songs’ meaning at first since I have not gone through what the songs are about – love and miscarriage. There’s just something in them that made me keep listening, aside from Tori’s unique, haunting voice that sounds better when accompanied by the piano. Since then, I have listened to most of Tori’s songs and watched most of her videos. I thought this made me a true blue fan, but I realized that I still did not know her well enough to be considered as such. I didn’t even know her real name until recently. 

I stumbled upon this video on YouTube just weeks ago while watching Tori’s live performances. Who would have thought that Myra Ellen, Tori’s real name, is a preacher’s daughter? How about her being a “choir flirt” and homecoming queen? Looking at her now, I wouldn’t suspect that she was once an all-American girl. And did you know that before she started singing songs with dark lyrics, she sang a song about Baltimore, the jingle of a cereal brand, and this 80s dance track that will make even Cyndi Lauper cringe? And the hair! Oh that 80s hair! Watch the video to know what I mean.

Also, I shouldn’t be called a fan because I never owned even one original Tori recording. All I had are bootlegged copies of her CDs. What a shame! So three months ago, I purchased Tori’s From Russia With Love, a live album. It isn’t available here, so I asked my sister, who is in the States, to buy it for me ( I just paid her back). She had it shipped here along with other stuff, and it arrived two weeks ago. Now I can be called a true fan!

It's autographed! Listen to my favorite track here.

I paid more than 150 dollars, which is pricey. This is because aside from the double CD, it comes with this big black box:

What is inside it? I’ll write about it next time. :P