News: Los Angeles Times (February 22, 2007)

While most of the press about American Doll Posse so far has understandably focused on the facts announced in the press release—new album on May 1st, world tour starting May 28th, blah blah blah—the Los Angeles Times (registration required) has decided to turns its eye towards the promotional photograph, which they credit to Blaise Reutersward (consistent with the Swedish newspaper article that reported that he was working with Tori on her next album’s cover art), and reaction to it across the Internet.

Tori Amos strikes a pose for new album

By Chris Lee, Times Staff Writer
February 22, 2007

The photo of Tori Amos hit the Web Tuesday and quickly became a meme — that is, an object of blogger scrutiny, water-cooler conversation and bulletin-board incredulity that ranks right up there with, well, Britney’s freshly shaved head.

In it, the American-born, England-based singer-songwriter — notable for both her piano-driven pop and naked emotionalism — is photographed with a Bible in one hand and the word “shame” scrawled across the palm of the other. Looking willfully weirded out, she stands in front of a suburban tract home wearing a shimmering, burgundy-colored dress; a trickle of blood wends down her leg to her broken high-heel shoe strap.

The image (at www.toriamos.com and countless other sites) serves as a viral marketing ploy — hey, it worked! — for Amos’ ninth studio album, “American Doll Posse,” which she wrote and recorded in Cornwall, England, her home. The CD hits record stores on May 1, ahead of a world tour set to kick off in Rome on May 28.

But it is hardly out of character for the woman Rolling Stone describes as “music’s most famous woodland nymph,” who has dabbled with narrative photography before — most notably in the series of character shots that accompanied her 2001 album, “Strange Little Girls.” For that project, Amos concocted a unique female persona — glamazon, nerd, housewife, butch, etc. — for each of its 12 songs.