The Alternative Number Ones: Tori Amos’ “God”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

The Peabody Institute is officially part of Johns Hopkins University, but it's not on the Hopkins campus. Instead, Peabody is a little further south, in the Baltimore neighborhood known as Mount Vernon, right in the shadow of the Washington Monument. (I'm talking about our Washington Monument, not the Washington Monument.) Mount Vernon is right on one of Baltimore's main north-south corridors, but it always feels tiny and idyllic and old. It's got cobblestone streets and classical architecture. Akbar, a few blocks away from Peabody, is my absolute favorite Indian restaurant. That's still there, but I don't really know what else is in Mount Vernon these days. It used to have the cool record store and the cool bookstore/café. The rowhouse office for the Baltimore City Paper, the first publication that ever paid me to write, was a couple of blocks away. I have nothing but fond memories of Mount Vernon. I love that fucking place.

Tori Amos might feel differently. When she was a little kid, Amos was a classical piano prodigy, and she was the youngest person ever admitted to Peabody's preparatory division. I studied music at Peabody, too, but my experience wasn't like hers. I think my parents had me playing recorder there when I was about four -- the closest I ever came to learning to play an instrument. It was probably a summer camp or something. I remember that the building had very high, very pretty ceilings and that the light in there was gorgeous. That's all I got. At the time, I had no idea that Peabody was a prestigious classical institution. I was a kid, and it was a building where my parents sometimes took me. The name sounded funny -- pee-buddy. Nobody there had any expectations for me. I probably didn't know that Peabody was an important conservatory until I started reading magazine profiles of Tori Amos.