Arts·Video

'Inspirational and aspirational': Chantal Kreviazuk on the Tori Amos album that changed her life

Before singer and Canada Reads panellist Chantal Kreviazuk fights for the one book Canadians need now, she tells us about the one album that changed her life.

'It was the first time that I heard words relating to specifically being a woman'

Chantal Kreviazuk reflects on the Tori Amos album that changed her life

8 years ago
Duration 1:51
Before singer-songwriter and Canada Reads panelist Chantal Kreviazuk fights for the one book Canadians need now, she tells us about the one album that changed her life.

In 1994, Tori Amos released her sophomore album Under the Pink. With bold songs like "Cornflake Girl," "God" and "Pretty Good Year," the album spoke to young women who hadn't heard their experiences represented so honestly in music. An aspiring singer-songwriter at the time, Juno Award-winning Chantal Kreviazuk remembers hearing Amos' Under the Pink as "the first time that I heard words relating to specifically being a woman."

Winnipeg-born Kreviazuk would release her first album two years later, and go on to be a piano-playing Order of Canada-winning artist who made music on her own terms — just like Amos.

It was the makings of an epiphany for me as an artist.- Chantal Kreviazuk

With the recent release of her new album Hard Sail and her upcoming participation in Canada Reads defending The Right to Be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Kreviazuk is looking back on the Tori Amos album that changed her life.

The Canada Reads debates will be broadcast March 27-30, 2017 on CBC Radio One at 11 a.m. (1pm AT/NT), CBC TV at 4 p.m. and live streamed online at CBCbooks.ca at 11 a.m. EST.

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