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Cover of From the Choirgirl Hotel by Tori Amos
Cover: From the Choirgirl Hotel

Song · Tori Amos

“Spark” by Tori Amos

From the album From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)

“Spark” by Tori Amos appears on 25 radio countdowns from 11 stations between 1998 and 2014. It was first released in 1998 on the album From the Choirgirl Hotel. Its best result is #34 on the WBER Listener Countdown 1998. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #50 alternative song of 1998, #2,757 alternative song of all time and #366 of the '90s.

25countdowns
11stations
#34best position
0#1 finishes
0top 10 finishes
1998–2014years charted

Watch

Tori Amos - Spark (Official Music Video)

Video from YouTube (UPROXX Indie Mixtape). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube

"Spark" was the first single from From the Choirgirl Hotel, Tori Amos's fourth album, released on Atlantic in 1998, and it came out of grief: she wrote it after suffering a miscarriage. Speaking to Q that May, she described the madness of still being alive while feeling a life die inside her, and the desperate, impossible bargaining that comes with it.

None of that is buried. Amos produced it herself and plays piano and synthesizer, but this is no quiet piano confessional: Matt Chamberlain's drums skitter and thump, Justin Meldal-Johnsen's bass throbs, and Steve Caton's guitars flicker at the edges while her voice swoops from a whisper to a keening wail. Mark Hawley and Marcel van Limbeek recorded and mixed it. It reached number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest any of her singles has climbed in America.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.

RockLists rankings

Alternative & Modern Rock

All Rock Formats

Year-end countdowns

Year#StationCountdownof
1998 40 KROQ Los Angeles, CA KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1998 107
1998 72 Live 105 San Francisco, CA Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 1998 106
1998 89 Q101 Chicago, IL Q101 Top 101 Songs of 1998 101
1998 44 WHFS Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD WHFS Top 99.1 Songs of 1998 100
1998 46 WFNX Boston, MA WFNX Top 101.7 Songs of 1998 102
1998 88 107.7 The End Seattle, WA The End Top 107 Songs of 1998 107
1998 70 The Buzz Burlington, VT / Plattsburgh, NY / Montreal, QC The Buzz Top 99 Songs of 1998 100
1998 34 WBER Rochester, NY WBER Listener Countdown 1998 98
1998 47 102.7 WEQX Southern Vermont and the Capital District of New York (Albany) WEQX Top 102.7 of 1998 103
1998 47 Radio & Records United States (national airplay chart) Radio & Records Top 103 Songs of 1998 102

All-time and decade countdowns

Year#StationCountdownof
1999 154 107.7 The End The End Top 1077 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) 1077
1999 1861 CD101 CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) 2000
2000 1861 CD101 CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000) 2001
2001 1868 CD101 CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001) 2002
2002 1854 CD101 CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002) 2003
2003 1828 CD101 CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003) 2004
2004 1828 CD101 CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004) 2005
2005 1822 CD101 CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) 1994
2007 1512 CD101 CD101 Top 2008 Songs of All-Time (December 2007) 2008
2008 1575 CD101 CD101 Top 2009 Songs of All-Time (December 2008) 2009
2009 1594 CD101 CD101 Top 2010 Songs of All-Time (December 2009) 2010
2010 1635 CD101 CD101 Top 2011 Songs of All-Time (December 2010) 2011
2011 1697 CD101 CD101 Top 2012 Songs of All-Time (December 2011) 2011
2013 1713 CD101 CD101 Top 2013 Songs of All-Time (December 2013) 2012
2014 1741 CD101 CD101 Top 2014 Songs of All-Time (2014) 2013

Charting alongside it in 1998

Best songs of 1998 →
  1. 1IntergalacticBeastie Boys
  2. 2Flagpole SittaHarvey Danger
  3. 3Celebrity SkinHole
  4. 4Inside OutEve 6
  5. 5Closing TimeSemisonic
  6. 6Father of MineEverclear

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