This alt-worthiness was reinforced when her piano-and-voice version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (from the Crucify EP, which also includes Tori treatments of the Stones and Led Zep) garnered significant alternative airplay.  

 Though she'd materialized briefly four years before, fronting a best-forgotten hairspray band that also included future Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum, her solo debut, Little Earthquakes, was one of that year's most improbable success stories.  

 Under the Pink is nearly as good. It beats the sophomore jinx by taking more chances–breaking away from personal pain in "God" ("Do you need a woman to look after you?") and "Cornflake Girl," even as her lyrics dive deeper into abstraction. 

 Her popularity had become so great that Boys for Pele entered the charts at #2, but this difficult album resists meeting comprehension even halfway. The pain displayed on "Hey Jupiter" is clear and convincing. 

 The move to a band format on From the Choirgirl Hotel provides the focus that had been lacking on the previous album, and pushes her singing to carry as much meaning as the words.  

 To Venus and Back is an ambitious, and only intermittently successful, double-CD set. The studio disc consists of new songs cut with a minimum of preproduction. 

 The mission of Strange Little Girls is gender reversal–Tori takes on a collection of songs ostensibly written from a male viewpoint and turns the tables. 

 There's also a concept to Scarlet's Walk, its suite of songs chronicling a cross-country journey in the aftermath of 9/11. The booklet's color-coded roadmap isn't necessary; these songs feel like a triptych. 

 No compilation could possibly please her famously fussy and proprietary audience, but Tales of a Librarian does a reasonable job of cherry-picking her catalogue, remixing many tracks and reworking some.  

 Though "The Power of Orange Knickers," a tuneful duet with Damen Rice, had plenty of life in it, much of The Beekeeper didn't: The eighty-minute album was underproduced, overlong and bland in spots. 

 The rocking American Doll Posse was a slight improvement, balancing a fuzzy concept (the songs were supposedly written by four different incarnations of Tori Amos) with upbeat songs like "You Can Bring Your Dog." 

 Abnormally Attracted to Sin had prog-rock-leaning songs and not enough hooks. 

 Midwinter Graces was a solid, focused holiday album.