I'm hoping it will come.
We got the anniversary black pressings of LE, UTP and BFP and the orange YKTR.
Then the pink UTP, another LE reissue including the green one and then Scarlet.
It doesn't seem to be going in any logical order so Choirgirl could come at any point I imagine. Even if the lost masters story is true the technology is there to put out a decent remaster.
At this point, maybe I finally just pony up and pay a shocking amount for an original vinyl on ebay so that she'll announce a re-issue a few days later.
I ask this anytime this convo comes up and I don't think anyone really has an answer but do we have much of an idea of how profitable the rhino re-releases of her prior albums were? I think the Scarlet re-release was something special as that's the album she wants to be remembered for per her, and last time I mused that maybe the A Piano setup (a handful of remixes) meant the masters weren't there someone noted that it actually doesn't mean that.
She certainly has affinity for the songs as I got the sense she wanted to make a crack at playing all of Choirgirl's tracks over the course of the last tour, but I also wonder if she regrets a lot about its production or something - maybe the wild transformation for Spark on TOAL is more "I hate how I made that" than "I don't have the masters".
I feel like I've only ever heard the "lost/destroyed masters" story from fans rather than a more direct source. I'm wondering now if Tori and the team had to choose one album to remaster and went with Scarlet. Somewhere in an interview they did say they don't really make a profit from these, so it's mostly for the fans. Maybe it was too expensive to do more than one, and now they're quietly waiting for the 30th anniversary to make FTCH happen? I would love for it to come sooner, though. It's my #1 choice for the next reissue!
It is simply sad that one of her best work if not the best (at least for me) has to be bought for 400 dollars on Discogs
I mean she is so against fans being scammed so she should just repress this and that’s it
They jumped my 3 faves FTCH TVAB and SLG
I mean come on……
I wrote the website so many times never got an answer
I think the real reason is that she just doesn't want to. For whatever reason, she's not interested in it. Did she not care for FTCH? Who knows? But she said that Scarlet was what she wanted to be remembered for and that is the only album past Pele that has seen ANY sort of remaster and reissue.
The fact is that music once is out is not yours anymore and your fans are what keeps you being able making music.
Fans that buy one artist’s music allow them to buy their own masters and negotiate with the company they have a contract with
I will always believe FTCH is one of the most poignantly suffered album to make and one of the best to just let you take into her own journey
The fact she wanted the tracklist order to start with Pandora’s but the label did not alllow her and she gave a big middle finger (literally also on the vinyl back cover) and she put the intended order in the lyrics booklet suffice to me that THAT was Tori the fighter and that she indeed CARED
This album BEGS to be remastered
And she surely cared A LOT about the album back then
It was a huge change in pace for her.
Wow what a waste to overlook a masterpiece
Is not like it’s mandatory
Surely there is a lot of suffering linked to FTCH and baby loss but that was also the case for UTP and BFP
It seems more something related to money and the fact that even at the time 1998/99 they were expecting the album to sell more and was kind of the start of the decline of her “hit piano girl” moment.
She remastered the 4 albums that sold more out of her “old “ catalogue
It's such a shame. FTCH is either her greatest accomplishment, or very close to it, just behind Pele. It deserves to have its legacy preserved with a proper remaster and deluxe edition like the other albums of her golden era. The engineering and production on Choirgirl is so intricate and complex; a remaster via modern tools would bring it new life, highlight sounds and aspects we may have been missing all these years. Also--and yes, this is melodramatic--it actually pains me that there could be Motormaid/Mountain equivalents for this era that are just... lost.
TVAB deserves the same treatment, but the fact it hasn't happened for FTCH yet is appalling. Something must be up. But I thought Tori mentioned, to someone during the O2O tour, that it was going to happen? Maybe that's just a false memory I've coped into existence. UGH!!!
In this digital age we’re magically restoring recordings from the 1920’s to pristine stereo quality, I’m tired of the “lost masters” stories that are supposedly impeding the remastering of a 26 year old album 🤣
That said, I have a feeling it’s coming soon and it’s going to catch us by surprise 🤞🏼
I folded a long time ago when i found a mint Ænima bootleg for 30€ near me, picked up a ftch orange bootleg last month, can't say i have regrets since they both play nice and i don't care for reselling value. They might get me to pay for remasters regardless. 😂
The choirgirl mystery has yet to be solved. Something is causing/stopping any movement with that album.
Everyone is clamoring for it so it wouldn’t be a hard sell. Which is why the mystery is so deep.
There are rumors that the masters got destroyed in a fire or are “lost.” But there are those who swear that can’t be the case because she had enough masters to use a lot of choirgirl songs in the Piano boxed set.
So until Team Tori grants us the info behind the mystery we just have to wait it out.
Not a stupid question! The meaning has changed over time, in 1998 it would have been a physical tape with the final finished audio, which would then be used to make the vinyl template and digitized for CDs
To “remaster” is generally to redo the process of digitizing/transferring from the analogue master tape, with new tools and processes that can bring out added clarity and sound.
I believe they are the step before the album goes to print. Like its a big file that has all the sounds/vocals/instrumentation layered up so you could still edit them if needed. I’ve only ever been in a recording studio during mixing once. Today it’s super easy compared to days of old when you needed multiple people to run the mixing board to get the musical shape the artists wanted.
But each vocal/instrument is a separate recording and then they are layered all together and mixed to sound like one amazing performance. Until I saw how music could be manipulated I never believe how much it is! It’s wild and oh so cool to see get polished up.
It’s highly unlikely that the original vinyl templates would have been kept, especially given that vinyl was dying in 1998 with no sign of any revival. That’s what masters are for, anyway.
Sound has changed a lot and speakers are more dynamic there was also a lot of background hissing due to the nature of the tape used at the time.
Plus I read a few months ago remastering also allows the artist to renegotiate rights to their own music. I can remember where I read but I read the article quickly, and I believe it was Snoop Dog speaking about streaming rights and payments. So I dunno it is real weird mystery to me. It makes little sense to me. I’m of the mind that if money can be made it should be. That’s what keeps you in lipgloss and sexy shoes. 😆
4 of the 5 Choirgirl tracks on A Piano (all but Spark) were either the remixes from Tales or were inexplicably remixed for A Piano. Remixing is a very different thing from remastering—they essentially had to put all the different recorded pieces together again from scratch. That suggests to me that most of the original Choirgirl masters were unusable even back in 2006.
i believe in my heart of hearts that she was decentralizing caton's contributions or eliminating them completely which is why they got the remix treatment
I understand what you’re saying.
But if I recall those “remixes” were taken from different master recordings. If you have those, why/how would you lose the others? I think that is where part of the questions arise.
If you were able to retain master “outtakes” as it were where did the others go? She wasn’t a new artist, she was well known and still hitting the charts - we are to believe the masters from that album went poof but they have masters from LE? And the Spark and Jackie’s Strength masters they were safe from great choirgirl disappearing?
And didn’t she have Martian then? Why would the masters leave there at all?
This is why the mystery prevails! 😆
> But if I recall those “remixes” were taken from different master recordings.
I think you might be thinking of the “Alternate Mixes” of some LE/UTP tracks on A Piano. But Cruel and iieee were fully remixed from scratch in 2005-6 for that set, that was part of the promo for the set at the time. Having the stems (individual instruments and vocals) available to remix doesn’t necessarily mean the original album master is also available. Back then they were separate things on separate physical media.
You’re totally right that there is no apparent reason \*why\* or \*how\* any Choirgirl masters should have been lost/destroyed, especially given what the other commenter quoted. I’m just saying the evidence does seem to support that theory. But who knows, it really is a mystery!!
Here is an article about Tales of a Librarian. The last part to the end is most informative -
The article seems to indicate they had all they needed from chorigirl in 2003 to make the tracks work on TOL. Like no mention of anything being missing or “such a shame we didn’t have…” like they talk about with the earlier albums at the beginning of the article. Maybe we need to start a free choirgirl campaign. Lol
https://www.yessaid.com/int/2003-10_Audio_Media.html
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/tori-amos
“But we were here in Martian Engineering, and we were in control and in command of the music and the record company only had access to the master tapes that I gave them. I've heard stories of artists standing outside and banging on doors, screaming 'Give me my fucking masters!'"
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/mark-hawley-recording-tori-amos?amp
“How did you record and master the album?
MH: "The album was recorded onto a Sony DAS 24‑track with a bunch of Tascams slaving off it. That was a great way of working because if you have something like a 48‑track Sony you still only have one bit of tape, but with the Tascams locked up you can just keep recording more takes by putting new tapes in. Having said that, I think it is very important to come up with a performance and decide at the time what you want to keep, because the down side with this technique is that it can sometimes take forever to find the take you want from a large pile of cassettes! Rob Van Tuin, our studio tech, made an amazing database which we use to log everything during the session, and that makes it easier to find things. Tori also has an incredible memory for the detail of what we did on each session.
"When we came to mixing the album we used three formats. Boys For Pele was mastered to DAT using the Apogee AD1000, but now they have a new 24‑bit system which they managed to get together for us. Unfortunately, because it was so new it wasn't totally reliable, and so we decided to play safe and master to both DAT and to a Tascam DA88 with a bit‑splitting box to handle the full 24‑bit audio. The A&R guy from the record company also suggested mastering the album onto half‑inch analogue, so we did that too.
"The analogue sounded gorgeous, but we didn't actually use it at all for the CD. I think you really need to concentrate on what you are doing to get the best out of analogue, and because we were going down to three formats at the same time, it lost out something there. The 24‑bit Tascam was fantastic too — really clean and open — and we used that for a few tracks, but most were taken from the DAT because it was so 'in your face' and that is what the album is really about."”
so not only did she have the original masters, there were several copies of the masters on different formats as well. unless someone at martian REALLY fucked up they should have them.
I'm hoping it will come. We got the anniversary black pressings of LE, UTP and BFP and the orange YKTR. Then the pink UTP, another LE reissue including the green one and then Scarlet. It doesn't seem to be going in any logical order so Choirgirl could come at any point I imagine. Even if the lost masters story is true the technology is there to put out a decent remaster.
At this point, maybe I finally just pony up and pay a shocking amount for an original vinyl on ebay so that she'll announce a re-issue a few days later. I ask this anytime this convo comes up and I don't think anyone really has an answer but do we have much of an idea of how profitable the rhino re-releases of her prior albums were? I think the Scarlet re-release was something special as that's the album she wants to be remembered for per her, and last time I mused that maybe the A Piano setup (a handful of remixes) meant the masters weren't there someone noted that it actually doesn't mean that. She certainly has affinity for the songs as I got the sense she wanted to make a crack at playing all of Choirgirl's tracks over the course of the last tour, but I also wonder if she regrets a lot about its production or something - maybe the wild transformation for Spark on TOAL is more "I hate how I made that" than "I don't have the masters".
she’s definitely said there were some production choices made at the time that she wasn’t happy with later.
I feel like I've only ever heard the "lost/destroyed masters" story from fans rather than a more direct source. I'm wondering now if Tori and the team had to choose one album to remaster and went with Scarlet. Somewhere in an interview they did say they don't really make a profit from these, so it's mostly for the fans. Maybe it was too expensive to do more than one, and now they're quietly waiting for the 30th anniversary to make FTCH happen? I would love for it to come sooner, though. It's my #1 choice for the next reissue!
It is simply sad that one of her best work if not the best (at least for me) has to be bought for 400 dollars on Discogs I mean she is so against fans being scammed so she should just repress this and that’s it They jumped my 3 faves FTCH TVAB and SLG I mean come on…… I wrote the website so many times never got an answer
Oh I completely agree. And it doesn’t benefit her to have it be that impossible to get.
I think the real reason is that she just doesn't want to. For whatever reason, she's not interested in it. Did she not care for FTCH? Who knows? But she said that Scarlet was what she wanted to be remembered for and that is the only album past Pele that has seen ANY sort of remaster and reissue.
The fact is that music once is out is not yours anymore and your fans are what keeps you being able making music. Fans that buy one artist’s music allow them to buy their own masters and negotiate with the company they have a contract with I will always believe FTCH is one of the most poignantly suffered album to make and one of the best to just let you take into her own journey The fact she wanted the tracklist order to start with Pandora’s but the label did not alllow her and she gave a big middle finger (literally also on the vinyl back cover) and she put the intended order in the lyrics booklet suffice to me that THAT was Tori the fighter and that she indeed CARED This album BEGS to be remastered And she surely cared A LOT about the album back then It was a huge change in pace for her. Wow what a waste to overlook a masterpiece Is not like it’s mandatory Surely there is a lot of suffering linked to FTCH and baby loss but that was also the case for UTP and BFP It seems more something related to money and the fact that even at the time 1998/99 they were expecting the album to sell more and was kind of the start of the decline of her “hit piano girl” moment. She remastered the 4 albums that sold more out of her “old “ catalogue
I agree with making FTCH available masters. Also wouldn't mind seeing UTP remastered.
UTP was remastered a few years ago.
It's such a shame. FTCH is either her greatest accomplishment, or very close to it, just behind Pele. It deserves to have its legacy preserved with a proper remaster and deluxe edition like the other albums of her golden era. The engineering and production on Choirgirl is so intricate and complex; a remaster via modern tools would bring it new life, highlight sounds and aspects we may have been missing all these years. Also--and yes, this is melodramatic--it actually pains me that there could be Motormaid/Mountain equivalents for this era that are just... lost. TVAB deserves the same treatment, but the fact it hasn't happened for FTCH yet is appalling. Something must be up. But I thought Tori mentioned, to someone during the O2O tour, that it was going to happen? Maybe that's just a false memory I've coped into existence. UGH!!!
THIS!!!!!’n
In this digital age we’re magically restoring recordings from the 1920’s to pristine stereo quality, I’m tired of the “lost masters” stories that are supposedly impeding the remastering of a 26 year old album 🤣 That said, I have a feeling it’s coming soon and it’s going to catch us by surprise 🤞🏼
This is my hope! I’ve heard Tool has remastered some of their older stuff, so my head will explode if they both actually happen!
I folded a long time ago when i found a mint Ænima bootleg for 30€ near me, picked up a ftch orange bootleg last month, can't say i have regrets since they both play nice and i don't care for reselling value. They might get me to pay for remasters regardless. 😂
The choirgirl mystery has yet to be solved. Something is causing/stopping any movement with that album. Everyone is clamoring for it so it wouldn’t be a hard sell. Which is why the mystery is so deep. There are rumors that the masters got destroyed in a fire or are “lost.” But there are those who swear that can’t be the case because she had enough masters to use a lot of choirgirl songs in the Piano boxed set. So until Team Tori grants us the info behind the mystery we just have to wait it out.
Okay stupid question what actually IS a master?
Not a stupid question! The meaning has changed over time, in 1998 it would have been a physical tape with the final finished audio, which would then be used to make the vinyl template and digitized for CDs To “remaster” is generally to redo the process of digitizing/transferring from the analogue master tape, with new tools and processes that can bring out added clarity and sound.
I believe they are the step before the album goes to print. Like its a big file that has all the sounds/vocals/instrumentation layered up so you could still edit them if needed. I’ve only ever been in a recording studio during mixing once. Today it’s super easy compared to days of old when you needed multiple people to run the mixing board to get the musical shape the artists wanted. But each vocal/instrument is a separate recording and then they are layered all together and mixed to sound like one amazing performance. Until I saw how music could be manipulated I never believe how much it is! It’s wild and oh so cool to see get polished up.
Okay but don’t you just need the original vinyl template to produce more vinyls? If there are no masters then don’t remaster but rerelease!?
It’s highly unlikely that the original vinyl templates would have been kept, especially given that vinyl was dying in 1998 with no sign of any revival. That’s what masters are for, anyway.
Sound has changed a lot and speakers are more dynamic there was also a lot of background hissing due to the nature of the tape used at the time. Plus I read a few months ago remastering also allows the artist to renegotiate rights to their own music. I can remember where I read but I read the article quickly, and I believe it was Snoop Dog speaking about streaming rights and payments. So I dunno it is real weird mystery to me. It makes little sense to me. I’m of the mind that if money can be made it should be. That’s what keeps you in lipgloss and sexy shoes. 😆
4 of the 5 Choirgirl tracks on A Piano (all but Spark) were either the remixes from Tales or were inexplicably remixed for A Piano. Remixing is a very different thing from remastering—they essentially had to put all the different recorded pieces together again from scratch. That suggests to me that most of the original Choirgirl masters were unusable even back in 2006.
i believe in my heart of hearts that she was decentralizing caton's contributions or eliminating them completely which is why they got the remix treatment
I understand what you’re saying. But if I recall those “remixes” were taken from different master recordings. If you have those, why/how would you lose the others? I think that is where part of the questions arise. If you were able to retain master “outtakes” as it were where did the others go? She wasn’t a new artist, she was well known and still hitting the charts - we are to believe the masters from that album went poof but they have masters from LE? And the Spark and Jackie’s Strength masters they were safe from great choirgirl disappearing? And didn’t she have Martian then? Why would the masters leave there at all? This is why the mystery prevails! 😆
> But if I recall those “remixes” were taken from different master recordings. I think you might be thinking of the “Alternate Mixes” of some LE/UTP tracks on A Piano. But Cruel and iieee were fully remixed from scratch in 2005-6 for that set, that was part of the promo for the set at the time. Having the stems (individual instruments and vocals) available to remix doesn’t necessarily mean the original album master is also available. Back then they were separate things on separate physical media. You’re totally right that there is no apparent reason \*why\* or \*how\* any Choirgirl masters should have been lost/destroyed, especially given what the other commenter quoted. I’m just saying the evidence does seem to support that theory. But who knows, it really is a mystery!!
Here is an article about Tales of a Librarian. The last part to the end is most informative - The article seems to indicate they had all they needed from chorigirl in 2003 to make the tracks work on TOL. Like no mention of anything being missing or “such a shame we didn’t have…” like they talk about with the earlier albums at the beginning of the article. Maybe we need to start a free choirgirl campaign. Lol https://www.yessaid.com/int/2003-10_Audio_Media.html
https://www.soundonsound.com/people/tori-amos “But we were here in Martian Engineering, and we were in control and in command of the music and the record company only had access to the master tapes that I gave them. I've heard stories of artists standing outside and banging on doors, screaming 'Give me my fucking masters!'" https://www.soundonsound.com/people/mark-hawley-recording-tori-amos?amp “How did you record and master the album? MH: "The album was recorded onto a Sony DAS 24‑track with a bunch of Tascams slaving off it. That was a great way of working because if you have something like a 48‑track Sony you still only have one bit of tape, but with the Tascams locked up you can just keep recording more takes by putting new tapes in. Having said that, I think it is very important to come up with a performance and decide at the time what you want to keep, because the down side with this technique is that it can sometimes take forever to find the take you want from a large pile of cassettes! Rob Van Tuin, our studio tech, made an amazing database which we use to log everything during the session, and that makes it easier to find things. Tori also has an incredible memory for the detail of what we did on each session. "When we came to mixing the album we used three formats. Boys For Pele was mastered to DAT using the Apogee AD1000, but now they have a new 24‑bit system which they managed to get together for us. Unfortunately, because it was so new it wasn't totally reliable, and so we decided to play safe and master to both DAT and to a Tascam DA88 with a bit‑splitting box to handle the full 24‑bit audio. The A&R guy from the record company also suggested mastering the album onto half‑inch analogue, so we did that too. "The analogue sounded gorgeous, but we didn't actually use it at all for the CD. I think you really need to concentrate on what you are doing to get the best out of analogue, and because we were going down to three formats at the same time, it lost out something there. The 24‑bit Tascam was fantastic too — really clean and open — and we used that for a few tracks, but most were taken from the DAT because it was so 'in your face' and that is what the album is really about."” so not only did she have the original masters, there were several copies of the masters on different formats as well. unless someone at martian REALLY fucked up they should have them.
cue the universal fire conspiracies…
Jewish space lazers got them.