AFTER SPENDING years in classical piano training, then experimenting with the Los Angeles rock scene, Tori Amos attracted a popular music audience with her pure talent and honest expression of emotion. Though Amos's debut album, Little Earthquakes, received only a smattering of college radio airplay, press coverage, and video exposure – MTV could never quite decide whether she belonged on Alternative Nation or VH1– it quietly insinuated itself into 600,000 American homes and earned a gold record. Her sophomore effort, Under the Pink, repeated this trajectory in the spring of 1994, vaulting into the Top Ten and going gold.