Scarlet’s Walk
Tori Amos Biography Part 9
While Strange Little Girls did well, Tori definitely saved all of her stellar original work for her new label, Sony/Epic, with whom she signed in early 2002 after a 15-year-long career with Atlantic.
She recorded the new album “Scarlet’s Walk” in her barn. She is quoted as describing Scarlet’s Walk as a “Sonic Novel,” which chronicles the cross-country trek of a woman named “Scarlet” (Tori’s alter ego). This album was even longer than her “first novel,” Boys for Pele, and surprisingly highlighted Jon Evans’ and Matt Chamberlain’s instrumental skills rather than her own.
As she travels”Scarlet,” ponders many things (i.e. pornography, 9/11, her relationships, and coffee) and observes many interesting phenomena (i.e. homophobia, the butchering of the land, misogyny), and she appears to be interpreting much of it through the lens of Native American spirituality. Combine this amount of content and the immense musical talent of the touring trio, and you have yourself a chart-topping album.
The song Taxi Ride is said to tell the story of Tori’s famous friend and make-up artist, Kevyn Aucoin, who died unexpectedly in the spring of 2002. A Sorta Fairytale, Strange, and Don’t Make Me Come to Vegas were also released, along with the B-sides Operation Peter Pan, Seaside, TomBigBee, and Bug a Martini.
Tori, Mark, and the rest of the crew, in an effort to curtail illegal downloading and leaking of the album, hatched a scheme to fix the portable CD players that they distributed to the press so that if the CD was taken out of the player, both it and the CD were destroyed. The plan worked! So much so that record companies have instituted this plan for other album releases. In another stroke of genius, Tori decided to make the CD a “key” to her website that fans needed to open up cool, exclusive areas and hear new songs. It worked…we all bought it. Tori and her team were nominated for a Grammy for the packaging of Scarlet’s Walk.
The album did very well, hitting number 7 in the us and 26 in the UK. The tour (although Caton wasn’t on board for this one) was a success as well, and nearly lasted a year. A DVD chronicling this tour was released in 2004, titled “Welcome to Sunny Florida.” In addition to great live performances, Welcome to Sunny Florida also boasted some pretty cute interviews with Tori’s parents. The songs TomBigBee, Apollo’s Frock, Ruby Through the Looking Glass, and Bug a Martini were also released though this DVD.
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