But, in 1998, the label didn’t give enough support to her fourth solo release, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and she tried to get out of her contract. She finally wrote Little Earthquakes and managed to have it released after a long struggle with Atlantic Records who didn’t think at first they could sell it it was a success and launched her as one of the front female singer songwriters of the 90’s. Billboard Magazine called her a bimbo and she even faced disdain from people she knew in the business after the review was published. She gave them what they wanted and it didn’t work, and the general opinion was that she would never be anybody. The music wasn’t good and her looks were quite vulgar and a stereotype of 80’s fashion, but she had faced years of rejection with her piano, and finally began to believe the big cheeses who told her that the “girl and her piano thing” was dead and that she had to do music that could sell to be signed on a label. The fans will recognize clear autobiographical references to her conflicts with record labels in those lines: she was 25 when her first record, Y Kant Tori Read, miserably crashed (it sold only 7,000 copies). In the visualette for the song, it is thus no coincidence if we can see briefly shots of Pip’s “Me and a Gun” performance in Chicago where she holds a knife.īut, however dark and haunting “Curtain Call” is, the look the artist has on her career is definitely positive: “By the time you’re 25/ they will say ‘you’ve gone and blown it’/By the time you’re 35 I must confide/you will have blown them all/Right on cue just act surpised/when they invite you to take your curtain call/you climbed China’s wall/your curtain call.” Use it.’ With tears in my eyes… at the time, I had no idea where it was going.” Finally, when she decided to go independent, she talked to Doug Morris who talked her out of it because “there is no money in independent” and proposed her to sign a joint venture deal to release Abnormally Attracted to Sin.īut these events were strong enough to understand why she wrote a song where she takes a look at her career and what she achieved, the mistakes she made, the pitfalls she met. What are you talking about? You’re not retired.’ And I swear to God, Tash said, word for word, ‘Mummy, I may not want to go to university. We’re going.’ And he said, ‘What retirement? You’re playing till you’re 80 in high heels. “Mark and I sat down and I said, you know, ‘This is Tash’s future. However, she was so beaten she seriously considered to put an end to her career at this moment (which is why she told some interviewers at the time it would probably be her last world tour).
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And I will never give them any future children ever again.” “The idea of Sony shoving their fist up my business chute was just… shoot, OK, not only will I not allow them to put one penny into it, I will pay for everything. When she offered to bring her own money to the table, they let her know that she could bring as much money as she wanted, but she wouldn’t have a percentage on the sells of the DVD if it recouped. In an interview for Red Alert in May 2009, she explained how things went crumbling down between her and the label: a day before the Chicago concert where Christian Lamb shot her performance of “Me and a Gun” as Pip, the executives let her know that they didn’t want to put more money in the live DVD. Of course, we know that Tori didn’t choose to end her career, but her conflict with Epic (she split with the label some time after the end of the ADP World Tour, in May 2008) seemed to have affected her at this time.
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It sounds pretty disillusioned at first, as though she was approaching the end of her career ( “ebony beauty pass this shade”) and was giving some advice to younger female artists before passing the torch.
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“Curtain Call” sees Tori reflecting on her career and struggles in the music industry.