Tori self-help policy

Joining the long queue of recoupable artists leaving the majors as quickly as the expensive sliding doors can open to let them out: Tori Amos. Naturally, she's penned a message explaining her motives ("more money, more control") at length:

This is an exciting time. There will be many ways in the present and in the future for artists to cross what has become the new unchartered Music Frontier. Ways that may seem impossible today but in a month(')s time will seem probable. There are many ways to be involved in a structure. But what kind of structure will it be and what will be the make up of it's (sic) foundation?

These are important questions, so important that I've been observing many different working templates in the music business for years now. The key word here is the word "working." In some cases these structures do not work positively for some artists. Only for those who have designed the system to specifically "work" for the corporate few. Artists need not fear structure, we just have to design and partner with expansive ideas.

It is time for us as artists to stop being dependent, dependent on any system that has become undependable. Only then can we help to create a new system that propagates and secures independence for each creator.

"Partnering with expansive ideas", is ironically, exactly the sort of vacuous flipboard phrase that would go down well in a cosy boardroom of the sort that's being shunned these days. Still, good luck to her - although, to be fair, what with the albumsworth of stuff where she pretended to be lots of different people doing cover versions and the whole wetnursing a pig promo shots, it's not like Tori's been all that hemmed in by the corporate world, is it? Let's hope it doesn't turn out they've been saving her from herself.