Tori Amos just released her 18th studio album, In Times of Dragons, a dark, allegorical work that stands as her most politically charged record to date. At its center is a character called the Lizard Demon, an amalgamation of powerful, predatory men. Amos is evasive about the specifics: “I’m not saying that’s in Washington, D.C. We’re not mentioning names,” she says when we ask. Instead, she constructs a narrative in which her protagonist is trapped in a life of luxury, married to this mysterious bad guy, before ultimately escaping.
Though Amos typically writes on her own, In Times of Dragons marks a rare shift: The album includes contributions from her 25-year-old daughter, Natasha “Tash” Hawley, who will graduate from law school this year. The collaboration emerged almost by accident. After she’d mapped out the album’s narrative, Amos found herself stuck on the music. The breakthrough came when Tash resurfaced months-old recordings of the two casually improvising at the piano. It’s just one way that this album stands out in a career full of surprising choices.
Rolling Stone caught up with Amos ahead of her European tour to talk about the new album’s urgency, her life lessons in the music industry, why she skipped Lilith Fair in the Nineties, and the creative path that has defined her career from early rejection to reinvention and beyond.
Your daughter has three co-writing credits on this album, which is rare for you. How did that happen?
I was struggling with this record, and I told her and she said, “Mom, six months ago, we were hanging out and I recorded us just jamming at the piano in Florida.” And I said, in my menopausal mind, “We were jamming?” And she sent me “Strawberry Moon” and “Stronger Together.” That gave me the launch.
You’ve made political albums before, but this one feels so much more raw and urgent. What made it different from your other political albums?
Come on, nobody really needed me in the Obama years. [On this album,] the Lizard Demon [character] is based on real people. It’s an amalgamation of men. We’re not mentioning names. So now we’re walking down the fork in the road that goes way back. What if I would’ve chosen a different man in my life? I had to allow myself to make that choice to write this record because this had to be a narrative. If you’re going to document our times, the only way is through allegory, I think, to allow other people in so they can join the story.
How did you find your voice as a singer at the start of your career?
It took me a while. I imitated everybody. I’ve been called a third-rate Pat Benatar. I played piano bars, so I did the covers. That was my big teaching. You listen to other singers, Stevie Nicks, the whole gamut, and you’d find the ones you can do. I’d stand in front of the mirror and try to do “Magic Man.” So you try and emulate these women and find your voice vocally.
What advice would you give to your younger self when you first released your debut, Little Earthquakes?
Don’t piss off the suits. Open champagne instead of thinking you can piss on their desk. Just open the champagne and drink it and tell them how great they are, instead of telling them the truth. That would’ve served me so well.
What do you wish someone had told you about performing live?
Study Prince. Study Robert Plant. Study Jim Morrison. The muses told me that, and I did. So I got that right. I studied them. I watched them plug into a voltage. If you go out there as yourself, that’s where you get it all wrong. You need to leave yourself in the fucking dressing room. Be a channel. Let the muses and the songs come through you. The thing about performing is it is not about you. If you get that, you get it right. Ego at the door. You must serve. You surrender. The piano must play you.
When did your muses start appearing?
When I was really young, but then I lost sight of them when I started chasing to make it in the music industry. After seven and a half years of being rejected and me going, “I can’t do this piano-bar thing for too much longer …” Luckily, the piano found its way back to me, but it was that crash and burn before I made Little Earthquakes [in 1992]. I’m so grateful for that because in the dark times during Boys for Pele [in 1996] — that was such a controversial record, it was such a tough time. If I hadn’t had that experience in 1988 where [my early band] Y Kant Tori Read went scorched-earth, I wouldn’t have been able to withstand the heat in 1996. Because of that, I made a commitment to stay true to the muses.
You never performed at Lilith Fair. In your 1998 Rolling Stone cover story, you said, “This isn’t just about eating some chicken and hearing your favorite female singers. You walk into my show, you walk into my world. It’s a film every night. I can’t impose that on Lilith and vice versa.” What are your feelings looking back?
I’d send that to Sarah [McLachlan] — she’d find it funny. She’d laugh her ass off. She’s got a good sense of humor. [Lilith] was a great business model. She did a great thing. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve got to give it up to her. She asked me to headline. I have a lot of respect for Sarah. At the time, I was trying to find my sovereignty. Being a part of a festival like that didn’t feel like my path to find it.
What is your favorite city in the world?
London. Hands down. I first came to London in 1991. I didn’t know anybody. So I would go to the Tower of London with my sandwich and talk to the dead queens. I would imagine Anne Boleyn coming through Traitors’ Gate. I would sit there on a bench and wait for her to come. And she came every time. And she and I would have these conversations. They were usually very mundane.
What did you guys talk about?
She would say things to me like, “Tori, don’t try too hard to make friends. Keep coming back to Traitors’ Gate. I come every day. So you can come talk to me. Just take a step back, and don’t be too eager, and you’ll be fine.”
Albini and Whinna in an undated Polaroid snapshotCourtesy of Heather Whinna
2nd grade Courtesy of the Albini Family
7th grade Courtesy of the Albini Family
11th grade Courtesy of the Albini Family
Big Black in 1986Gail Butensky
Albini built Electrical Audio to embody his recording philosophy in a physical space.© Monfourny Renaud/DAPR/ZUMA
Albini got seriously into poker in his later years, as seen in this photo from the 2008 All Tomorrow’s Parties festival.Roger Kisby/Getty Images
Albini and Whinna founded the Letters to Santa charity in 1996.Courtesy of Heather Whinna
Whinna (center), Kim Deal (right), and Electrical Audio staff unveil the Steve Albini Way street sign in November 2024.Althea Legaspi
Althea Legaspi
Althea Legaspi
Pop Albums Are Getting More Ambitious. Can Audiences Keep Up?
This Music May Contain Hope, the second album from British songstress Raye, makes great demands of its audience. The record nearly runs the length of a feature film and most of the 17 songs sound like they could soundtrack one. When the credits roll at the end — she thanks each and every person who helped create the record for six and a half minutes on “Fin.,” — they conclude a gloriously disorienting listening experience. For most of the album, Raye is asking you to come along as she fights and prays through despair and self-criticism to keep hope alive.
Sometimes that battle is filtered through songs that sound like show tunes or gospel hymns. In the case of “Click Clack Symphony,” they crescendo into a dizzying Hans Zimmer composition. There’s a level of patience and reciprocity the album requires from its listeners: At once confrontational and confessional, This Music May Contain Hope is not designed for detached consumption — and it’s part of a surge of recent releases that find artists creating ambitious records that encourage intentional engagement.
Last year, Hayley Williams released Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party as 17 individual singles. Fans created their own sequencing and narratives guided solely by the themes and sounds they chose. A few months later, Rosalía released Lux, a captivating 18-track record performed in 13 languages. It shares a musical complexity with This Music May Contain Hope and an interrogative spirit with The Apple Tree Under the Sea, the debut album from Hemlocke Springs released earlier this year. Each record is as all-consuming as the ideas they’re engaging with — mental anguish, faith and religion, internal and interpersonal implosion.
Raye often describes music as medicinal. Backed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Flames Collective choir on “I Know You’re Hurting,” her melodies and harmonies are bandages and sutures. When she instructs the listener to “close your eyes and let this music get to working,” she exudes the wisdom of an elder passing home remedies through generations. At a time when easier access to music often means increasingly passive listening, these albums replace momentary distraction with connection and compassion. They give the audience something to return to.
Raye included the voices of her grandparents at the start of “Life Boat.” The portion her grandfather contributes, where he says, “I’m living, not giving up,” was recorded just days before his death. More voices flood in across the next four minutes. They all repeat some variation of “I’m not giving up, yet,” some with more desperation than others. “Say it,” Raye says, stern and direct. “Say, ‘I’m not giving up, yet.’” The mantra is set against the kind of thudding club beat that defined the earliest phases of her career. Drums and synthesizers are interspersed with delicately arranged strings, but there’s something transcendent about the contours and echoes of Raye’s voice.
That kind of vocal power is something Rosalía speaks about often: Duende. The flamenco term refers to a type of enchantment delivered through an especially evocative vocal performance. It’s not necessarily about technical prowess, or precision. “There’s something so ethereal and divine about el duende,” Rosalía told The New York Times last year. “El duende is something that visits you. It’s something that comes to you.” It makes the listening experience feel targeted and personal. This funneled into Rosalía on Lux. The record unravels in a way that transcends the barrier of language.
Rosalía begins “Mundo Nuevo” in Spanish. Its translation reveals she’s searching for a hint of truth. She finishes “De Madrugá” in Ukrainian with something searching for her this time. “I’m not looking for revenge,” she sings. “Revenge is looking for me.” The London Symphony Orchestra and the Escolania de Montserrat i Cor Cambra Palau de la Música Catalana choir bolster the album, their arrangements ranging from anxious and erratic to soothing and hypnotic.
Rosalía introduced Lux with the first single “Bergain,” which splinters across German, Spanish, and English. When Yves Tumor’s voice cuts through on the song’s outro, the persistent repetition of “I’ll fuck you till you love me” is harsh and abrasive against the preceding moments. Rosalía chases that friction across Lux. Like her mix of languages, she challenges the listener with existentialism and ruminations on the afterlife. It might turn some listeners away, but the ones who stay are rewarded.
Most of the record was inspired by saints, like Teresa of Ávila or Joan of Arc. Their history adds a third layer to the depth of Lux; Hemlocke Springs similarly fixates on religious motifs on The Apple Tree Under the Sea. She weaves in medieval tales and impulsive adventures made for a storybook. Positioning herself as a character in her fantastical stories gives her audience someone to root for while creating some distance between fiction and reality.
In that sense, The Apple Tree Under the Sea shares a theatrical ease of access with This Music May Contain Hope. Raye’s cautionary tales about traitorous South London men who should be banned from WhatsApp play into the same spectacle as Springs’ “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Ankles” and “Moses.” There’s a prelude towards the end of The Apple Tree Under the Sea that features the voice of a man who sounds far away as he preaches about sin and final judgements. It gets even harder to hear him when the sounds of running horses and marching feet cut through. The suspense builds into an orchestral outro that leads into “Sense (Is),” a booming, optimistic song about making the most of a clean slate and a glass half full.
Springs’ journey is the shortest within this set of albums. It spans 10 songs in just over half an hour, but retains its complexities with winding plot twists. Where she leans into communicating through stories and allegories, Raye through a version of theater, and Rosalía essentially through multinational cathedrals, Williams’ Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party brings listeners into an excruciatingly vivid reality. The achingly haunted “True Believer” walks the streets of Nashville. It moves down Broadway and past repurposed clubs. It attends the churches and questions the rhetoric presented in them. It runs parallel to the moments across the album that brings listeners into a home with fragile glass walls.
The album’s most shattering moment arrives towards the end: “Good ‘Ol Days.” It’s not as distressing as “Negative Self Talk,” or as sobering as “Whim.” It glides along a warm groove and drops burning one-liners with pointed specificity. What fortifies it the most is an appearance from Williams’ grandfather midway through the song. “You are so tacky/I think that’s why I love you so much,” he says in a voicemail message. “I just had to call you first on my new phone/I love you, y’all have a blast, bye.” The interlude emphasizes just how interior the content of the record is, made up of real moments, people, and feelings.
There’s a false perception in pop music that the best way to connect with the masses is to keep things broad — that vague generalizations are easier for people to latch onto. But the hyper-specificity and confrontation on these albums form real connection, creating the feeling that the listener is being trusted with someone else’s secrets and struggles — and safe to embrace their own, too.
There’s bravery in how these artists are driven by conviction. They understand the reach their platforms provide, but have little interest in idolatry. They each use different formats to craft a sense of togetherness even in their most intimate moments, like it means more to show someone they aren’t alone than to tell them. They ask for patience as they remind listeners it’s commendable to try. Some people don’t come to music looking for this; it can be challenging to have an artist in your ear telling you to bring your most shattering emotions and memories to the surface. But those are the kind of records that endure over time.