AMERICAN DOLL POSSE

'''American Doll Posse''' is the ninth studio album by singer-songwriter Tori Amos. It was released in the United States on May 1, 2007.^[1] Despite any negative reviews Tori may have garnered for 2005's ''The Beekeeper'', ''American Doll Posse'' entered the charts at US #5, selling 54,000 copies, making it her sixth album to debut in the US Top 10.^[2]
"Big Wheel" was released as the album's first radio single in the United States. However, multiple radio stations have rejected "Big Wheel" because the acronym is repeated in the bridge of the song.^[3] Despite the acronym, the single has been highly successful on Triple A radio. "Bouncing Off Clouds" has been released as the first single in Europe.^[4] "Teenage Hustling" is being considered for a follow-up single.^[5]
As with all her releases with Epic Records, ''American Doll Posse'' was offered in a limited edition, which included two videos (a behind-the-scenes of her photo shoot and a slideshow-style bonus track titled "My Posse Can Do"), an expanded booklet, and five postcards, one of each "doll". iTunes offered a free bonus track, "Miracle", and a Ticketmaster concert pre-sale code for anyone who pre-ordered either version of the album. Borders offered a bonus track "Drive All Night" to anyone who purchased the standard edition, while Target offered a poster that features the five "dolls".

Contents

Track listing

B-sides

Development

The Doll Posse

Isabel

Clyde

Pip

Santa

Tori

Posse blogs

Personnel

Chart performance

Tour

Release history

References

Track listing

Included with song titles are the names of the characters from whose perspective the songs are sung, where available.^[6]
All songs written by Tori Amos
#"Yo George"
★ (Isabel) – 1:25
#"Big Wheel" (Tori) – 3:15
#"Bouncing Off Clouds" (Clyde) – 4:06
#"Teenage Hustling" (Pip) – 4:02
#"Digital Ghost" (Tori) – 3:50
#"You Can Bring Your Dog" (Santa) – 4:04
#"Mr. Bad Man" (Isabel) – 3:18
#"Fat Slut"
★ (Pip) – 0:41
#"Girl Disappearing" (Clyde) – 4:00
#"Secret Spell" (Santa) – 4:04
#"Devils and Gods"
★ (Isabel) – 0:53
#"Body and Soul" (Pip and Santa) – 3:56
#"Father's Son" (Tori) – 3:59
#"Programmable Soda"
★ (Santa) – 1:25
#"Code Red" (Tori) – 5:27
#"Roosterspur Bridge" (Clyde) – 4:01
#"Beauty of Speed" (Clyde) – 4:06
#"Almost Rosey" (Isabel) – 5:26
#"Velvet Revolution"
★ (Pip) – 1:19
#"Dark Side of the Sun" (Isabel) – 4:16
#"Posse Bonus"
★ (Tori) – 1:45
#"Smokey Joe" (Pip) – 4:19
#"Dragon" (Santa) – 5:03

B-sides

The album, as with most of Amos' albums, is also known for its collection of original B-sides. One can be found on limited edition versions of the album, while the other two are available exclusively through different retailers as digital downloads. The final three tracks on the album, "Posse Bonus", "Smokey Joe", and "Dragon", were originally to be bonus B-side tracks for the limited edition packaging, but were added to the official tracklisting prior to the album's release.

Title	Single
"My Posse Can Do"	"American Doll Posse DVD" (2007)
"Miracle"	"iTunes Pre-order" (2007)
"Drive All Night"	"Borders Edition" (2007)

Development

Prior to its release, Amos revealed that the album is political in nature:
Amos has also considered the return of the harpsichord and Wurlitzer on this record. ^[7] She has made several comments about bringing a "warrior woman" out, as well as stating that the record will be a very different chapter from what has come before. ^[8]
Following preliminary writing work during Amos' five-month solo tour in the spring and summer of 2005, and further work after the end of the tour, recording sessions commenced in June 2006 at Amos' home studio in Cornwall, England, with Jon Evans on bass and Matt Chamberlain on drums. After a month of tracking work, Amos continued editing and recording for the remainder of the year, as well as working on the promotion for her career-spanning box set ''.
Mixing work was completed in January and February 2007, and the album title was announced through a press release on February 20.
The album, like all Tori Amos albums since 1998's ''From the Choirgirl Hotel'' ^[9], has been recorded at Martian Engineering in Cornwall ^[10].

The Doll Posse

The "American Doll Posse" of the title consists of five different female characters that Amos "developed around the album's 20 tracks," according to ''US Weekly'' ^[11]. The characters represent different aspects of Tori's own personality:
On her next tour to promote the album, Tori will open each show dressed as a different character

Isabel

Isabel (HisTORIcal) is based upon the Greek goddess Artemis and is the voice of the tracks "Yo George", "Mr. Bad Man", "Devils & Gods", "Almost Rosey" and "Dark Side Of The Sun".^[12] She is a photographer and is the most outwardly political. On tour, she "covered" the Tori songs "Sweet Dreams", "Tubular Bells", "In The Springtime Of His Voodoo", "Tombigbee".

Clyde

Clyde (CliTORIdes) is based upon the Greek goddess of the underworld Persephone and is the voice of the tracks "Bouncing Off Clouds", "Girl Disappearing", "Roosterspur Bridge" and "Beauty Of Speed". Clyde "wears her emotional wounds on her sleeve, but remains idealistic. She is looking at the effects of not being a whole person. She is trying to figure out what she believes in and she is dealing with having been disappointed in her life" ^[13].On tour, she "covered" the Tori songs "Little Amsterdam", "Rattlesnakes", "Black Dove (January)", "Juarez", "Little Earthquakes".

Pip

Pip (ExpiraTORIal) is based upon the Greek goddess of war, wisdom and strategy Athena and is the voice of the tracks "Teenage Hustling", "Fat Slut", "Body & Soul" (with Santa), "Velvet Revolution" and "Smokey Joe". She is a "warrior woman" and is confrontational. On tour, she "covered" the Tori songs "Bliss", "Cruel", "Heart Of Gold", "The Waitress".

Santa

Santa (SanaTORIum) is based upon the Greek goddess Aphrodite and is the voice of the tracks "You Can Bring Your Dog", "Secret Spell", "Body & Soul" (with Pip), "Programmable Soda", "Dragon" and "My Posse Can Do". She is sensual and passionate. On tour, she "covered" the Tori songs "Cruel", "God".

Tori

Tori (TerraTORIes) is based upon the Greek gods Demeter and Dionysus and is the voice of the tracks "Big Wheel", "Digital Ghost", "Father's Son", "Code Red" and "Posse Bonus". She appears to be a caricature of the artist herself, with promotional images released depicting the character holding sage and with a Bible in one hand and the word 'shame' scrawled across the other.

Posse blogs

As part of the marketing campaign, a series of blogs written by each character are circulating on the Internet on various websites, with fans invited to "hunt" the blogs down ^[14].
She has mentioned in an interview that she would be updating the blogs and that the blogs will be available until the end of December 2007.

Personnel

^[15]

★ Isabel – vocals on tracks 1, 7, 11, 18, 20

★ Clyde – vocals on tracks 3, 9, 16, 17, background vocals on track 5

★ Pip – vocals on tracks 4, 8, 12, 19, 22, background vocals on track 15

★ Santa – vocals on tracks 6, 10, 12, 14, 23, background vocals on track 3

★ Tori Amos – vocals on tracks 2, 5, 13, 15, 21, background vocals on track 20, bösendorfer piano on tracks 1-7, 9-10, 12-23, electric piano on track 3, fender-rhodes on tracks 7, 13, 23, upright piano on track 17, wurlitzer on track 20, clavichord on track 22, mellotron on track 23

★ Matt Chamberlain – drums & percussion on tracks 2-7, 9-10, 12-13, 15-18, 20-23

★ Jon Evans – bass on tracks 2-7, 9-10, 12-13, 15-18, 20-23

★ Mac Aladdin – electric guitar on tracks 2-8, 10, 12-13, 15-18, 20, 22-23, ukulele on tracks 7, 11, electric 6 and 12 string guitars on tracks 10, 13, 18, 20, mandolin on tracks 11, 19, acoustic guitar on tracks 11-12, 15-16, 20, ebow guitar on 22

★ Edward Bale, Matthew Elston, Holly Butler, Rosmary Bank – string quartet on tracks 9, 14

★ John Philip Shenale – string arrangement on tracks 9, 14, brass arrangement on track 14

★ Nick Hitchens – tuba, euphonium on track 14

Chart performance

Chart (2007)	Providers	Peak position	Certification	Sales
United World Chart	Global Sales Data	10		350, 000+
US Billboard Top 200 Albums	Sound Scan	5		104,000
European Top 100 Albums	Sound Scan	7
Australian Albums Chart	ARIA	20
Austrian Albums Chart	Media Control	14
Belgium Ultra Top Albums Chart	A.C. Nielsen	23
Canadian Albums Chart	Nielsen SoundScan	15
Croatian International Albums Chart		23
Dannish Albums Chart	AC Nielsen	22
Dutch Albums Chart	Mega Charts BV	5
Estonian Albums Chart		31
Finnish Albums Chart	YLE	7
French Albums Chart	IFOP	48
German top-100 Albums Chart	Media Control	10
Greek International Albums Chart	IFOP	39
Irish Albums Chart	IRMA	28
Italian Top-100 Albums	FIMI	18
Norway Albums Chart	VERDENS GANG	11
Poland Album Chart	ZPAV	26
Swedish Albums Chart	GLF	24
Swiss Albums Chart	Media Control	15
UK Albums Chart	British Phonographic Industry / The Official UK Charts Company	50 ★
Billboard Top Digital Albums		2
Billboard Top Internet Albums		3

★ Copies of the CD+DVD special edition of "American Doll Posse" were ruled to be ineligible for the UK sales chart due to the inclusion of free art cards depicting each of the Posse characters. According to an article on Amos's site everythingtori.com, Amos chose not to issue a reduced packaging version of the special edition (as had been done with Scarlet's Walk). So the UK chart position is based only upon sales of the single disc standard CD packaging version of the album.

Tour

The full band tour for ''American Doll Posse'' commenced on May 28, 2007 in Rome, Italy, and Amos will begin each concert on the tour 'in character' as one of the five alter-egos from the American Doll Posse, before taking over as herself a third into the show. The tour began with the Santa character for six songs, beginning with "Body and Soul," before a costume change for the Tori character for a further fifteen songs. Amos played piano, Yamaha keyboard, and Hammond organ and was joined by Jon Evans (bass), Matt Chamberlain (drums), and Dan Phelps (guitar). The European leg of the tour ended with a show in Ra'anana, Israel on July 21, 2007.
The first live performance of the new material took place on April 10, 2007 for Radio Eins in Berlin, Germany, where Amos performed six songs solo on piano - "Silent All These Years" and "Leather" from 1992's ''Little Earthquakes'' as well as four songs from the new album - "Velvet Revolution," "Father's Son," "Beauty of Speed," and "Almost Rosey."
The Australian Tour will commence sometime in September which will be followed by the US & Mexican Tour beginning in early October.

Release history

Region	Date
Poland	April 26, 2007
Germany	April 27, 2007
Italy	April 28, 2007
Australia	April 28, 2007
UK	April 30, 2007
Mexico	April 30, 2007
Singapore	April 30, 2007
USA	May 1, 2007
Finland	May 2, 2007
Japan	July 18, 2007

References

1. Tori Amos - American Doll Posse
2. Billboard News May 9, 2007
3. Got MILF? Er, Maybe Not ...
4. Bouncing Off Clouds Hits European Airwaves
5. AOL
6. More ADP Info
7. News: BBC 6 Music Interview
8. News: Recording On Tori's Next Album To Start Soon
9. About The Martians...
10. MP3.com: Tori Amos announces new album, tour
11. News: The Posse ... Revealed!
12. Tori Amos To Release New Album American Doll Posse; To Launch World Tour in May 2007
13. Meet Clyde
14. News: Tori Introduces the American Doll Posse
15. American Doll Posse Credits