There was a section in Billboard.com today where someone asked for Tori's album sales stats...it was really interesting to see...I know there are many of you fans here so I decided to copy it for ya here...

Tori Amos' debut solo album continues to be her best seller. The 1992 Atlantic release "Little Earthquakes" has sold 1.9 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Here is a rundown of sales for all of Amos'albums and EPs:

"Little Earthquakes" (1992, 1.9 million)
"Crucify" EP (1992, 413,000)
"Under the Pink" (1994, 1.4 million)
"Boys for Pele" (1996, 1 million)
"Hey Jupiter" EP (1996, 168,000)
"From the Choirgirl Hotel" (1998, 753,000)
"To Venus and Back" (1999, 446,000)
"Strange Little Girls" (2001, 381,000)
"Scarlet's Walk" (2002, 549,000)
"Tales of a Librarian" (69,000)

All but one of Amos' solo works were released by Atlantic. The exception is last year's "Scarlet's Walk," which was her first for Epic.

Released in November, the 20-track "Tales of a Librarian" collects material from her Atlantic catalog, two new songs ("Angels," "Snow Cherries From France") and re-recorded versions of the 1992 B-sides "Mary" and "Sweet Dreams."

As previously reported on Billboard.com, Amos has also contributed covers of the early 1950s songs "Murder, He Says" and "You Belong to Me" to the Epic soundtrack to the film "Mona Lisa Smile."

I noticed this. Quite impressive for someone as unusual and out of the mainstream as her.

I agree...she's sold quite well...more than I thought she did! Seems that her hardcore fan base sits around in the 300-400k relm. That's pretty good if you ask me...I hope TALES OF A LIBRARIAN does better...it's such a great collection..and the packaging is amazing.

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

I think her worldwide sales are even more impressive.

apparantly tori works a lot of people's you-know-whats!

its funny that as her sales slowly declined in the u.s., they have been steady in the rest of the world (excluding this current hits collection).

what is it about american music fans that prevents them from having loyalty to an artist? chaka khan once said that she will always prefer living in europe because they appreciate her and are loyal whereas american fans are so fickle and impossible to satisfy.

i agree.

imnotsayinthisjust2bnasty said:

You said you-know-what...




MTV.


Think about it. Silent All These Years was all over MTV. As was, God and Cornflake Girl. The videos from these other albums hardly got played. Also, Little Earthquakes has had more time to sell.

very nice numbers. Good to see her sales are back on the upswing with Scarlet's Walk. Venus and SLG had sold substantially less than her earlier numbers. Alot of that blame can be placed on Atlantic Records and their poor job of promotion, in my opinion. Not that I think Epic did wonders for Scarlet's Walk, but they did better than Atlantic who didn't even seem to try.

I worked in the promotion department at Atlantic when Tori was signed. Here's the scoop:

Atlantic spent a ton of cash on her out of the gate, and Tori busted her ass touring and meeting every single fan before or after the show. The album sold well and was on MTV alot. Atlantic made her priority number one! There other priority around then was MArc Cohn "Walking in Memphis" which also proved a big seller.

Tori's second album had some big hits as well, but Tori was tiring of kissing every radio programmers ass, and radio was changing as well. I think her sales went down a bit because her later music wasn't as commercial, but she still toured and her fans stook by her. I think due to the fact that she's always cared about her fans and worked hard touring she'll always have a career. Her last album had a couple of songs that seemed more commercial and I think that's why she sold more with "Scarlet"

I knew Tori when she was just starting out and she was a great person and a very talented musician. I gave her one of those redhaired trolls for her birthday and she carried it in her purse..She was cool and I wish her the best..

Wow, that's awesome DMSR.

See? We're not just blindly kissing her ass! Everything we say about her is true!

She really cares for her fans and still takes time out to meet them before every show. She just doesn't have enough time to talk to everybody. On the Strange Little Girls tour, my friend and I took a guess as to when she would be outside doing her pre-show meet n greet. We worked downtown, about 9 blocks away from where the show was playing. We lucked out and got to watch her from across the street. There were so many people there, probably about 60, so about 30 of us were across the street watching her sign autographs and talk to people. It was cool to see her do that.

Another really awesome thing about Tori is she doesn't mind people taping her shows and trading them online. There is a community of fans that share WAVE files of FULL concerts. I don't do that... yet. I download mp3s from Diagnosed Sounds; live clips from shows. Very cool. Especially sinces she changes half the set list every night.

VinaBlue said:

what pre-show were you at?

DMSR said:

Nice story. I think part of the trouble with Venus was that a lot of people weren't prepared for her to go electronic. They want her alone at the piano. And Strange Little Girls would be a tough record to sell by anybody.

JonSnow said:

San Diego, Symphony Hall

VinaBlue said:

it was so cool to see Tori at the meet and greets, the way she interacts with fans is simply amazing. The meet and greets can be a difficult experience, though - some of the fans don't show alot of courtesy to other fans

JonSnow said:

Yeah, I was just happy to see it from across the street. I had to work that day and I know people were waiting outside since 8am and it was 3pm. I hear stories about people getting all pushy too. Some people are just psychotic.

imnotsayinthisjust2bnasty said:

what, she can only live somewhere when people kiss her ass?

imnotsayinthisjust2bnasty said:

Okay,I kinda have a problem with something you said,yes I am american,and yes you can say I'm not especially "loyal",with anyone,if you wanna put it that way.
I don't have to buy EVERY SINGLE THING an artist puts out,or if I do buy something,and I don't like it,I will probably sell it or something.I'm certainly not gonna to have something taking up space that I don't intend to listen to ever again.
If I don't like something,I don't like it,and I'm not gonna pretend to like everything to be seen as "loyal".
You think I own every Prince album,heck no.

gypsyfire said:

all i was saying is that american music fans are always trying to be part of the next trend. this is a massive generalization, but it is pretty accurate. look at how many disposable acts come out every year and have multi million record sales but then are gone. i know it used to happen before as well, but not at this rate.

american critics are also very finicky. tori was their angel for the first 2 or 3 records and then they turned on her. teasing her style and such. yet, she has pretty much remained the same (excluding some tweaking with choirgirl and venus). but its a catch 22 because if you do the same thing with each record, you get bashed for that too. take sade, for instance. when lover's rock came out i read so many reviews that said (i'm gonna paraphrase here) you don't need to buy this record because its the same as every one of her records. i've never understood that mentality. if that's the sound of the artist, why should he/she change it? european critics and fans don't seem to have the idea of music.

as for chaka's comments, i can't speak for them. although, if she is more popular there and tours there more often or does more promo work there, it would make sense to live there. i mean, if i work in new york but live in connecticut, its a pain in the ass commute.

TRON said:

At first, only the piano songs appealed to me from Venus
and now, after all this time, I find that the electronic
songs do much more for me than all the regular ones.

"Juarez" being one of the best and most haunting.

IstenSzek said:

Definitely.

"Juarez", "Datura", "Riot Poof", and "Suede" all rock my pussy.

TRON said:

lol

I LOVE Riot Proof. I sooo wanted her to do that live when I saw her last.

The sun is, warming... My man is, moistening...


Sounds like a few men I know...

VinaBlue said:

She said the title is basically code for "hysterically gay".

TRON said:

I'll go look it up on hereinmyhead.com.

http://www.hereinmyhead.c...enus8.html

"To me Riot Poof is about one part of my family that is the conqueror and the other part who where being conquered. They fought at both sides. And you have to find out who you are. Many people don't want to see that they're partly victim and partly the executioner. Every evening I get letters. Hundreds of letters. A great part of them are letters from young women (and men) who where sexually abused by adults they trusted. They hate themselves because they think they made the adults do this. They are all wearing a little victim sign. Like they belong like some elite group. They're drown in a lake called victimhood. Instead of saying: 'No! I have the pride of a lioness. I will hunt. I will escape from this all.' I found this place when I lost my baby. Then I understood the life force you can get from it. So I could go to Venus, to make passionate records there. I can't define my new record yet. I only see this picture in front of me, like it is filmed from a camera that is circling round the heart of Venus. So I can look at her in all her darkness."
-- Tori; OOR Magazine, Sept. 18, 1999

"This record talks a lot about the shadows and the shadow world," says Amos. "Riot Poof is for all the jocks out there who need to deal with their secret sexuality." -- Tori; Tower Records' Pulse Magazine, NOV99

"I'm surprised when I see, for instance, gay men being racist or women colluding with that patriarchal thing, when women are sexist against women. So men don't surprise me. Being a lioness, I know the teeth and claws of women. But, of course, women have always been blamed. We see it down the centuries - 'if she didn't have a wet pussy then we wouldn't have been with her'. Urgh! And they have a woody sitting at the fuckin' table but they see it as this sanctified, insatiable body part. And women aren't allowed that - if they do, they become bad. That's what the song Riot Poof is about. It's like I'm the tooth fairy, the homo fairy and this is my present to all the homophobes. I'm leaving it under all their pillows. (pause) Blossom riot poof."

"Well, that being a poof doesn't mean you're not a hunter, that you're not masculine, or a man. And also being feminine doesn't mean that you're not a hunter either. There are all these concepts around but now the paradoxes are starting to live."
-- Tori; Attitude Magazine, Nov99

"Yeah... Because I was brought up in such a Christian household it is about the father. It's a father God and a son saviour so when I say The sun is warming / my man is moistening in Riot Poof, which is really about a guy who finds his feminine after he burns everything to ground and decides maybe, head, face down to the earth, 'Maybe I need to think about this for ten seconds'."
-- Tori; Much More Music's Speakeasy, Jan 2000

I: So who wrote a song about you?
Darren: Because I was cooking for Tori Amos when I came out, she wrote a song about me. It was called Drama Queen which when translated into Dutch and back into English becomes Riot Poof, so that's what she called it.
-- Darren Staats, Tori's chef during the 1998 Plugged Tour; Gay.com Interview, Early 2001

this chick doesn't even know what her song is about! she knows its about a gay man. she knows its about hunting/hunter. the rest is for us to work out. LOL. i just love this woman!

imnotsayinthisjust2bnasty said:

LOL, I know! I was like, "I'll go check out what it says at hereinmyhead.com." Then I thought, "Is that really gonna help?"