Tore Amos Winter

She may be the daughter of a reverend, but Tori Amos never seemed the likeliest candidate for a Christmas album; she might sing about "God", but her music always seemed secular and never seasonal, but in a year that brought holiday albums by Bob Dylan and Sting, it makes perfect sense that Tori should deliver one, too…

With her haunting solo debut Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos carved the template for the female singer/songwriter movement of the '90s. Amos' delicate, prog rock piano work and confessional, poetically quirky lyrics invited close emotional connection, giving her a fanatical cult following and setting the stage for the Lilith Fair legions. But Little Earthquakes is no mere style-setter or feminine stereotype – its intimacy is uncompromising, intense, and often far from comforting. Amos' musings on major personal issues – religion, relationships, gender, childhood – were just as likely to encompass rage, sarcasm, and defiant independence as pain or tenderness; sometimes, it all happened in the same song.

Tori Amos'second full-length solo effort has often been considered a transitional album, a building on the success of Little Earthquakes that enabled her to pursue increasingly more adventurous releases in later years. As such, it has been unfairly neglected when in fact it has as good a claim as any to be one of the strongest, and maybe even the strongest, record she has put out…

Intimate, confessional, poetic, and defiantly independent, Amos' songs touch on self, family, religion, femininity, pain, and love with a searching spirit that translates powerfully into songcraft. This momentous box spans the depth and breadth of her extraordinary repertoire, spotlighting both album versions and a sprawling tapestry of rarities. Disc A - Little Earthquakes extended Disc B - Pink And Pele Disc C - Pele/Venus/Tales Disc D - Scarlet/Beekeeper/Choirgirl Disc E - Bonus B-sides.