S1E6: From the Choirgirl Hotel || Checkout Anytime, But You Can Never Leave

Content warning: this episode discusses child and pregnancy loss. Please take care while listening. 

Tori Amos’ blazing fourth album From The Choirgirl Hotel claims a rightful place amongst legendary music by contemporaries such as Madonna, PJ Harvey, Hole, Beck and many others who released similarly iconic work in 1998.

At a career high point, Amos intuitively plugged in a full band to achieve the record’s signature space-rock atmosphere and conjured some of her most electric live shows to date. Yet, inexplicably, she still was forced to face down misogynistic criticism in all corners of the male-dominated world of music journalism, even as she soared. Rolling Stone -who gave the album a four star review- couldn’t resist referring to Amos as a “space cadet”, “overeducated”, and “unsisterly” in a surprisingly barbed cover story that manages to ungraciously spend a chunk of time castigating her for the “emotional incontinence” of her preceding album Boys for Pele.

Despite great resistance and even greater odds, From the Choirgirl Hotel, with its passionate storytelling and audacious compositions, tapped directly into the flashpoint of an era of exploding musical styles. Amos, in slinky deconstructed gowns over jeans and bodysuits, walked away the victor: a powerful woman reinventing herself with each new project, charting high, selling big and adhering uncompromisingly to a vision of remaining herself. 

So please join Kristen, Matt and Joey for the midnight sale, it’s time to check in to the Choirgirl Hotel, a record that holds you at the bottom of the sea in total darkness before releasing you back into a luminously fragmented mirrorball galaxy of ‘Tori Amos’ mythology.

 

FTCH Playlists:

JV: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3viIVIonnfbX5ZOvcsOFiY?si=20c51797e2a74e41

KK: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61zQq6ozghLTlDnWpekQmc?si=4b297c660a224c1f

MM: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Wn2Cxi5uOZWee64nl4wOj?si=9fac68b767bf46ea