Poe began experimenting with musical samplers and sequencers as a teenager. Noteworthy are her early collaborations with
J Dilla of
Slum Village. Poe's musical influences ranged "from
Black Flag to
Bob Dylan -- from
Billie Holiday to
Tribe Called Quest" according to music writer Stephen Grecco. Poe was signed to
Modern/
Atlantic Records in 1994 on the strength of the demos she made with J Dilla and
RJ Rice in RJ's living room in
Detroit. On January 28, 1996,
The New York Times named Poe, along with
Alanis Morissette, among the defining voices of the current "movement in music" which featured "angry" female artists who were "...articulate, sexually explicit, both lover and fighter...(women who) reject self-pity and refuse to define themselves purely in terms of their connection to men." In September 1996,
Glamour published a picture of Poe, with a snarl on her face and wearing a tee-shirt on which she had written the words, "Happy-Well-Adjusted Female." In the accompanying interview, Poe says "I don't think 'Angry' really sums it up at all!" In the November 14, 1996, issue of
Rolling Stone, Poe's album, "Hello," attained a position on the Reader's Top Ten Chart. and in August 1997,
Esquire named Poe, along with
Gwen Stefani,
Lil' Kim, and
Sarah McLachlan among the top five "Women Who Rock Our World". Poe began her first major tour in January 1996, as the opening act for
Lenny Kravitz. She and her touring band (Daris Adkins on Guitar, Dan Marfisi "Jones" on Drums, Toby Skard on bass/ and Cameron Stone on cello) then continued touring extensively as headliners and at festivals until 1999, when she stopped to begin pre-production on her second album for Atlantic. Pollstar Magazine reported in 1998 that Poe had performed for approximately 600 shows in a two-year time period.
Hello Poe's first album,
Hello, was released in 1995. Musically, the album was described as a sample-rich amalgam of hip-hop, rock, and jazz. Lyrically, the album was filled with literary allusions, film nods, comic book references, and psychological irony. The CD was critically acclaimed.
Hits Magazine called "Hello" an "over-the-top PoMo masterpiece." Not long after the album's release, Poe's single, "
Trigger Happy Jack (Drive By a Go-Go)" broke into the
top 20 of the
Billboard Alternative and Modern Rock chart. "Trigger Happy Jack" was produced by
Dave Jerden (
Jane's Addiction,
Alice in Chains) and Jeffrey Connor and featured
Matt Sorum (of
Guns N' Roses) on drums and Dean Pleasants (of
Suicidal Tendencies) on guitar. Poe met Jeffrey Connor towards the completion of the record as a session bassist she hired for additional overdubs on "Hello". Connor had given Poe a track he started writing after working with her. Poe heard the demo and passed it to Jerden who immediately gave the track the green light and had Connor come in to produce. Connor brought in Sorum and Pleasants for what was to become "Trigger Happy Jack". It featured the lyric "You can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being". The song's video went into high rotation on
MTV and introduced Poe to the mainstream. Another single, "
Angry Johnny", broke into the
top 10 of
Billboard's Modern Rock chart, and also enjoyed heavy rotation on radio. The song's video received high rotation on MTV. The song featured the line, "I wanna blow you...(pause) away." A promotional maxi-single of the song was released to radio but was never available commercially. This single included a "Band Mix" produced by Poe and Matt Sorum that received heavy rotation on radio. There was another remix done by the Spanish producer Jesus N. Gomez. In August 1997, Atlantic released a maxi-single of the song "Hello" that included six remixes of the song ("Hello: E-Smoove Funk Mix" by E-Smoove/ "Hello: Modern Mix" by Edge Factor/ "Hello: Nevins Electronica Mix" by
Jason Nevins/ "Hello: The Generator Mix by E-Smoove/ "Hello: The Edge Factor Mix" by, Edge Factor, and "Hello: Trial Dub Mix" by Edge Factor.) On September 13, 1997, "Hello" hit number one on the
Billboard Hot Dance chart. The video for this song also enjoyed heavy rotation on MTV. On November 20, 1997, the
RIAA awarded
Hello gold certification.
Haunted Poe's second album,
Haunted, was released in October 2000. The album, produced by Poe and
Olle Romo was inspired by Poe's discovery of a box of audio tapes that contained recordings of her late father's voice. Listening to those tapes for the first time proved so difficult for Poe that she was hesitant to use them in her music. She was quoted in the
Los Angeles Times, "I took these tapes home, and I couldn't listen to them. It was too hard, so I kept finding ways to avoid it. They were sitting on my coffee table next to a
boombox for quite some time."
Haunted was embraced by the press. The
Los Angeles Times wrote that "The wait for Poe's follow up to her debut album has paid off with rich, sophisticated, songs of depth and emotional intensity." They instructed audiences to "Think of
Haunted as the equivalent of
Pink Floyd's
The Wall." They added that "Poe's version is more succinct, darker in parts, but just as accessible."
Elle magazine credited Poe with "...defining the future of pop".
Maxim magazine called
Haunted, "The best mindf**k you'll get all year." The first single from
Haunted, "
Hey Pretty", hit the top 20 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart at a time when female musicians and singers in the format rarely got airtime. At the end of 2000, the only two women in the Billboard top 100 year-end Modern Rock Chart were Gwen Stefani and Poe. MTV put the "Hey Pretty" video into heavy rotation, and in July 2001, Poe was invited to be the opening act for
Depeche Mode's
Exciter Tour. Haunted was also referred to in the 2002 film
Panic Room. In a conversation between
Jodie Foster's character, Meg Altman, and the agent selling the home containing the Panic Room, Sarah Altman (Meg's daughter, played by
Kristen Stewart) asks "Ever read any
Poe?", to which the response given is "No, but I loved her last album!" Also in 2000, Atlantic released a promotional CD single of the song, "Haunted", which included a remix by
Grammy-winning producer/musician
Chris Vrenna (
Nine Inch Nails,
Marilyn Manson).
With Mark Danielewski Poe's brother, Mark Z. Danielewski, is a best-selling novelist, and as young children Mark and Poe formed a creative relationship wherein Poe would read and edit the pages her brother wrote. In 1997, Poe sent a manuscript of her brother's first novel
House of Leaves to Warren Frazier, who was a college friend of hers and who had become an agent at John Hawkins Literary Agency in New York. Warren agreed to represent Mark and eventually secured a publishing deal for Mark at
Pantheon Books. In 2000, Pantheon published
House of Leaves, releasing it to coincide with the release of Poe's second album
Haunted. Poe invited Mark to do a spoken word passage in her "Drive By 2001" remix of the song "Hey Pretty" and also invited him to perform this passage in both her video and live show opening for Depeche Mode. Of his sister's support, Mark recounts how he once in a moment of rage tore the handwritten manuscript of a story called "Redwood" into tiny pieces and threw it into a dumpster. Poe rescued the pieces from the dumpster and taped the entire manuscript back together. It took her two weeks. In October-November 2000, Poe performed a tour of
Borders with her brother. Their set included Mark reading passages from
House of Leaves and Poe singing songs that share themes with the book.
House of Leaves made the
New York Times Best Seller list in April 2000.
Effect of AOL–Time Warner merger With
Haunted climbing the charts, It renewed its agreement with the boutique label, Modern/FEI Records (Fishkin Entertainment, Inc.) through which Poe was signed to Atlantic. In November 2001, six weeks after renewing Poe's contract,
Billboard Magazine announced that Atlantic was severing ties with Modern/FEI records. The result was that Poe was dropped from Atlantic's roster of artists. Poe's manager and Modern/FEI label head Paul Fishkin stated that "Poe was stunned to be let go as Atlantic had just picked up its option on her next three albums and had already printed promo CDs of her next single 'Wild' and sent them to radio." Val Azzoli, then President of Atlantic, said to
Billboard Magazine of dropping Poe, "Poe must be feeling pretty bruised right about now," adding that Atlantic had simply made a business decision. The article points out that it was a strange decision in light of the fact that, "according to
SoundScan,
Haunted had sold 250,000 copies and the album's first single, 'Hey Pretty', had only come out two months prior." ==Hiatus and later career (2001–present)==