Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos

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What makes Little Earthquakes a classic is not any single quality but the way several qualities converge and hold their tension. Amos was classically trained, and her piano playing has the precision and command that comes from years of formal instruction. The piano on this record is always in service of something deeper: dread, longing, fury, tenderness. 

The album's most enduring quality is its emotional precision. The subject matter — sexual alienation, religious trauma, the difficulty of asserting one's own voice, the slow aftermath of assault — is handled with a directness that was genuinely startling for its moment. Songs about women's experience had existed for as long as women had been making music, but not quite like this; not with this combination of melodic accessibility and unflinching specificity.

Featured songs:

Crucify
Winter
China
Leather
Me And A Gun
Silent All These Years