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Piece by Piece
I choose to fight my battles through my music . . . I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I’m not penetrating here. I’m just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. I had to redefine what that word means. That word now is really about an opening, an entering into a separate space. And after the first phase of my life, I realized that it was okay to enter that space without having to be invaded . . . I like the idea of just being able to be inside. Not using penetration as a violent word. The idea of being able to find keys . . . music, using keys to get into a space that we couldn’t before . . .
Now, backstage at an undisclosed arena where the sweat of athletes is still perfuming my makeshift dressing room, my many conversations with Ann Powers have begun . . .
“You come from the journalist side. I come from the artist side. It can become offensive. I’m sure from your side as well as from mine.”
“Well, it’s true everyone expects us to be enemies. And in some ways we are. My job is interpretation. Yours is art, which often benefits from mystery . . .”
"Ann and I decided to strip our roles back to basics. We are both women born feminists in the 1960s. We are both married. We are both mothers. We are both in the music industry. Traditionally we are enemies. But for this project to be effective, I had to allow Ann to expose Tori Amos. And Tori Amos’s inner circle. And me.” –from the Introduction
An intimate, eye-opening look inside the life of one of the most unique and adored performers of contemporary rock music
From her critically acclaimed 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes, to the recent hit, Scarlet’s Walk, Tori Amos has been a formidable force in contemporary music, with one of the most dedicated fan bases in the industry. In Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, the singer herself takes readers beyond the mere facts, explaining the specifics of her creative process—how her songs go from ideas and melodies to recordings and passionately performed concert pieces.
Written with acclaimed music journalist Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos’s life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her and how she records and then performs them for audiences everywhere, all the while connecting with listeners across the world and maintaining her own family life (which includes raising a young daughter). But it is also much more, a verbal collage made by two strong female voices—and the voices of those closest to Amos—that calls upon genealogy, myth, and folklore to express Amos’s unique and fascinating personal history. In short, we see the pieces that make up, as Amos herself puts it, “the woman we call Tori.”
With photos taken especially for this book by the photographer Loren Haynes, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a rare treat for both Tori listeners and newcomers alike, a look into the heart and mind of an extraordinary musician.
Now, backstage at an undisclosed arena where the sweat of athletes is still perfuming my makeshift dressing room, my many conversations with Ann Powers have begun . . .
“You come from the journalist side. I come from the artist side. It can become offensive. I’m sure from your side as well as from mine.”
“Well, it’s true everyone expects us to be enemies. And in some ways we are. My job is interpretation. Yours is art, which often benefits from mystery . . .”
"Ann and I decided to strip our roles back to basics. We are both women born feminists in the 1960s. We are both married. We are both mothers. We are both in the music industry. Traditionally we are enemies. But for this project to be effective, I had to allow Ann to expose Tori Amos. And Tori Amos’s inner circle. And me.” –from the Introduction
An intimate, eye-opening look inside the life of one of the most unique and adored performers of contemporary rock music
From her critically acclaimed 1992 debut, Little Earthquakes, to the recent hit, Scarlet’s Walk, Tori Amos has been a formidable force in contemporary music, with one of the most dedicated fan bases in the industry. In Tori Amos: Piece by Piece, the singer herself takes readers beyond the mere facts, explaining the specifics of her creative process—how her songs go from ideas and melodies to recordings and passionately performed concert pieces.
Written with acclaimed music journalist Ann Powers, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos’s life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her and how she records and then performs them for audiences everywhere, all the while connecting with listeners across the world and maintaining her own family life (which includes raising a young daughter). But it is also much more, a verbal collage made by two strong female voices—and the voices of those closest to Amos—that calls upon genealogy, myth, and folklore to express Amos’s unique and fascinating personal history. In short, we see the pieces that make up, as Amos herself puts it, “the woman we call Tori.”
With photos taken especially for this book by the photographer Loren Haynes, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a rare treat for both Tori listeners and newcomers alike, a look into the heart and mind of an extraordinary musician.
368 pages, Paperback
First published February 8, 2005
About the author
Tori Amos
51 books289 followersTori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos) is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. She is married to English sound engineer Mark Hawley. Together they have one child, Natashya "Tash" Lórien Hawley, born on September 5, 2000.
Amos was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few pop performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. She is known for emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of subjects including sexuality, religion and personal tragedy. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", and "A Sorta Fairytale".
Amos had sold 12 million records worldwide as of 2005 and has also enjoyed a large cult following. Having a history of making eccentric and at times ribald comments during concerts and interviews, she has earned a reputation for being highly idiosyncratic. As a social commentator and sometimes activist, some of the topics she has been most vocal about include feminism, religion, and sexuality.
Amos was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few pop performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. She is known for emotionally intense songs that cover a wide range of subjects including sexuality, religion and personal tragedy. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", and "A Sorta Fairytale".
Amos had sold 12 million records worldwide as of 2005 and has also enjoyed a large cult following. Having a history of making eccentric and at times ribald comments during concerts and interviews, she has earned a reputation for being highly idiosyncratic. As a social commentator and sometimes activist, some of the topics she has been most vocal about include feminism, religion, and sexuality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 195 reviews
May 20, 2010
Man, what a pain! This is a tough call. I'll go with the 2 stars and call it even, I guess.
Unfortunately, I feel like I need to talk about my Tori feelings first. Curse it!
Before reading this, I correctly worried I would find it all so annoying that I'd be sad. But I picked it up because I conducted an experiment where I re-listened to every Tori song that I've had since high school, which I can't say is every song? But is a few hundred. I just shuffled them around for days. I wasn't allowed to skip any, even the horrible ones, except for the song that used to make me cry really hard, just in case. It was a good idea, and giving the new songs some time was good too. And I saw some done in new ways; are you kidding me, P.S. 22? For real, doesn't that make you want to listen to Tori Amos?
But really for each thing that makes me go YES, something else makes me go NO. The unfortunate penchant for role play. And she's kind of obsessed with being skinny. And I have a low threshold for her more dippy beliefs. I even like obscure myths and stuff, but it's just distraction here.
Anyway. This book is not good, and it begins with this narcissistic problem. People do like to read one's thoughts, but they also read nonfiction for facts, and not facts like the name of the paint color of the studio in one's beach house. Which I think we get told two or three times, actually. Once is too many. It could all be less horrible to read if anyone had reined in anyone else, but that clearly didn't happen. Did the editor just give up?
I think the editor just gave up. The problem really is the book itself -- Tori's annoying sometimes, but at least I still respect her a lot at the end of all this, and instead I find Ann Powers the lamest hack ever. BAD. The structure is ridiculous -- it's barely a book at all. And Powers's own insertions are crazy and factless. "The degradation of archetypes within contemporary society has made serving Dionysus a sloppy affair for many." THE WHOLE THING IS LIKE THAT.
But. My favorite part to read was the chapter about touring, because touring is cool, and it was also the most grounded in reality chapter. I like someone telling what it was like when their driver got the upper deck of their bus torn off, and they still slept in it because they didn't know what else to do. And the historical ironies are kind of funny. Like how her first tour manager ditched her in 1992 for They Might Be Giants. You can't make that stuff up. My very favorite was probably Joel Hopkins, Security Director/bodyguard, describing his management of the intense fan base: "I try to keep a close watch on the vulnerable ones." Oh my gosh man. Like a biker with a kitten, that one.
But see, that basically good chapter of a book is titled, "Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life's Gypsy Caravan". Ann Powers, are you serious? Because I about have a conniption here with you.
I think Powers's main crime, though, is not questioning one single thing Amos has to say. There are literally no follow up questions, or another point of view. Her authorial method seems to be: 1) bring up thing, 2) copy down what Tori says, 3) publish book. This makes for such indulgent content, plus it looks like total whitewashing over the slightly controversial pieces of Tori's history. It renders a book basically useless.
The actual best chapter is the one about her relationship problems with record labels. How Atlantic warned they'd bury her by making her live out her contract, and when it was done, she would be too old. It's a long story, and her telling it is great because above all it proves that she is no dummy. Not at all.
Too bad none of the people on this project with her could tell it.
Unfortunately, I feel like I need to talk about my Tori feelings first. Curse it!
Before reading this, I correctly worried I would find it all so annoying that I'd be sad. But I picked it up because I conducted an experiment where I re-listened to every Tori song that I've had since high school, which I can't say is every song? But is a few hundred. I just shuffled them around for days. I wasn't allowed to skip any, even the horrible ones, except for the song that used to make me cry really hard, just in case. It was a good idea, and giving the new songs some time was good too. And I saw some done in new ways; are you kidding me, P.S. 22? For real, doesn't that make you want to listen to Tori Amos?
But really for each thing that makes me go YES, something else makes me go NO. The unfortunate penchant for role play. And she's kind of obsessed with being skinny. And I have a low threshold for her more dippy beliefs. I even like obscure myths and stuff, but it's just distraction here.
Anyway. This book is not good, and it begins with this narcissistic problem. People do like to read one's thoughts, but they also read nonfiction for facts, and not facts like the name of the paint color of the studio in one's beach house. Which I think we get told two or three times, actually. Once is too many. It could all be less horrible to read if anyone had reined in anyone else, but that clearly didn't happen. Did the editor just give up?
I think the editor just gave up. The problem really is the book itself -- Tori's annoying sometimes, but at least I still respect her a lot at the end of all this, and instead I find Ann Powers the lamest hack ever. BAD. The structure is ridiculous -- it's barely a book at all. And Powers's own insertions are crazy and factless. "The degradation of archetypes within contemporary society has made serving Dionysus a sloppy affair for many." THE WHOLE THING IS LIKE THAT.
But. My favorite part to read was the chapter about touring, because touring is cool, and it was also the most grounded in reality chapter. I like someone telling what it was like when their driver got the upper deck of their bus torn off, and they still slept in it because they didn't know what else to do. And the historical ironies are kind of funny. Like how her first tour manager ditched her in 1992 for They Might Be Giants. You can't make that stuff up. My very favorite was probably Joel Hopkins, Security Director/bodyguard, describing his management of the intense fan base: "I try to keep a close watch on the vulnerable ones." Oh my gosh man. Like a biker with a kitten, that one.
But see, that basically good chapter of a book is titled, "Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life's Gypsy Caravan". Ann Powers, are you serious? Because I about have a conniption here with you.
I think Powers's main crime, though, is not questioning one single thing Amos has to say. There are literally no follow up questions, or another point of view. Her authorial method seems to be: 1) bring up thing, 2) copy down what Tori says, 3) publish book. This makes for such indulgent content, plus it looks like total whitewashing over the slightly controversial pieces of Tori's history. It renders a book basically useless.
The actual best chapter is the one about her relationship problems with record labels. How Atlantic warned they'd bury her by making her live out her contract, and when it was done, she would be too old. It's a long story, and her telling it is great because above all it proves that she is no dummy. Not at all.
Too bad none of the people on this project with her could tell it.
August 3, 2011
Remarkable study/autobiography of a remarkable musician/woman. Wickedly dark humor throughout, and a razor-sharp intelligence. No doubt other Tori fans saw this coming, but I often found myself struck with how many life threads and literary commonalities between the woman and her fans (namely, this one). I always knew she writes somewhat autobiographically in her songs, but I had no idea of how much she borrows from other people's lives as muse, and the way in which she writes about her close friends and family. How fortunate I am that my husband turned me on to her long ago. She's an amazing mentor in her own faerie-experienced Tori way: "[T]here can be room for a win-win among women, too. There can be room for more than one of us at a time. Many different archetypes are needed to complete the pantheon. Aphrodite can't be Athena and vice versa. To be jealous of Athena when you're Aphrodite is ridiculous. To envy Artemis' abilities when you're Aphrodite is not the right use of energy -- it's emotional cancer. I've learned the hard way." (PS. I've finally figured out what was up with the Pele pig-nursing! )
August 25, 2007
I loved Tori Amos when I was in high school, but this book was hard to take. In fact, I can't even remember if I finished it. It was almost like reading an unedited, disorganized, self-obssessed diary -- and not a well-written diary at that. I was looking forward to the promised insights into what her songs are about, but she only discussed her most recent work (which I'm not as into).
February 27, 2016
I love Tori's music. Generally speaking, I love her mind. She's a bit.. out of the ordinary sometimes, but generally I can appreciate and enjoy that. So I went into this with expecting to fall in love.
Straight away, I was put off. In the introduction, there are some interesting glimpses about Tori's approach to songwriting - how she is a vessel for songs - and her outlook on performance and 'the artist'. But then there's also passages like...
"I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I'm not penetrating here. I'm just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. [...] How does a woman penetrate? It's a beautiful paradox. We don't have that organ. Fundamentally, we don't pee standing up. And that changes your view of life, from the beginning. The figure of Mary Magdalene stands for the earth: a seed can be planted within her, whereas seeds can't be planted within men physically."
And I get what she's saying. I AGREE with the essence of what she is saying. But the way she writes has this tone that's almost pseudo-intellectual and uppity. And it put me off.
Then chapter one is all about the corn mother and I just felt so alienated and really struggled to relate it back to Tori, or anything other than a folk tale from somebody who was writing in an almost pretentious style.
However... I persevered. And I grew to love it. After the first chapter, the pretentious-ness seems to fade; possibly because it transitions into the Tori I am used to. Talking about things in an odd and unusual way, but not coming across as somebody feigning education and knowledge.
And so, the rest of the book is indeed fascinating. Tori's songwriting methods are inspiring; her education, the way she sees her projects and her music and her live shows. She hand-selects her setlists based on the venue, the city, the day, what she's feeling, how she thinks the show needs to play out. She has a connection to her own music that I have very rarely - if ever - seen in other musicians. And that's truly inspiring, and I loved every second of reading about it.
So overall..... The book is a positive. But it has some off-putting negative features in there. But overlooking them, I still found myself totally enraptured with Tori.
Straight away, I was put off. In the introduction, there are some interesting glimpses about Tori's approach to songwriting - how she is a vessel for songs - and her outlook on performance and 'the artist'. But then there's also passages like...
"I was born a feminist. And then at age five, when my strict Christian grandmother punished me, I realized, I'm not penetrating here. I'm just pissing people off. So I had to find another way to penetrate. [...] How does a woman penetrate? It's a beautiful paradox. We don't have that organ. Fundamentally, we don't pee standing up. And that changes your view of life, from the beginning. The figure of Mary Magdalene stands for the earth: a seed can be planted within her, whereas seeds can't be planted within men physically."
And I get what she's saying. I AGREE with the essence of what she is saying. But the way she writes has this tone that's almost pseudo-intellectual and uppity. And it put me off.
Then chapter one is all about the corn mother and I just felt so alienated and really struggled to relate it back to Tori, or anything other than a folk tale from somebody who was writing in an almost pretentious style.
However... I persevered. And I grew to love it. After the first chapter, the pretentious-ness seems to fade; possibly because it transitions into the Tori I am used to. Talking about things in an odd and unusual way, but not coming across as somebody feigning education and knowledge.
And so, the rest of the book is indeed fascinating. Tori's songwriting methods are inspiring; her education, the way she sees her projects and her music and her live shows. She hand-selects her setlists based on the venue, the city, the day, what she's feeling, how she thinks the show needs to play out. She has a connection to her own music that I have very rarely - if ever - seen in other musicians. And that's truly inspiring, and I loved every second of reading about it.
So overall..... The book is a positive. But it has some off-putting negative features in there. But overlooking them, I still found myself totally enraptured with Tori.
September 11, 2009
Just like Tori herself - slightly wacko, slightly kooky. There I said it - "kooky".
So sue me.
So sue me.
October 29, 2023
This was Tori Amos’ first book, co-authored with rock music journalist Ann Powers, and published in conjunction with her eighth studio album The Beekeeper. I discovered Tori sometime between the release of that album and the subsequent American Doll Posse, but my fandom didn’t really take off until five years later, when I finally saw her live… which changed my life (not a hyperbole; my show count will reach the triple digits this year).
I first read Piece By Piece a decade ago—in fact, I was in the middle of it when I met Tori for the first time, it was the very first item I ever got signed, and I was looking forward to revisiting it ahead of this year’s tour. In retrospect, I was still a rookie then, and had not been in the fandom long enough to really be able to contextualize some of the ideas about creativity, inspiration, and archetypes she touches on, so I don’t know how much a casual listener would get out of this; this is for the die-hards. For a long time in the 90’s, she did, by her own later admission, “play kooky for the Brits“, but a lot of this book still reads like having a somewhat rambling conversation with an eccentric, yet endlessly interesting aunt.
The title, taken from the 1999 song Datura, a holy grail to the fandom because it has never been played live, is apt: Piece By Piece is, put kindly, a conversational patchwork of musings and ideas. Put less kindly but more honestly, it’s a disorganized mess with no structure to speak of, and no editor anywhere in sight. Ann Powers is a hack; she asks no follow-up questions and doesn’t challenge anything Tori says—her contribution to the project seems to be to bring up a subject, dress up whatever Tori says to ensure it will read as pretentiously and pseudo-intellectually as humanly possible, then turn it in for publishing. Her interjections are utterly unnecessary and contain sentences such as “the degradation of archetypes within contemporary society has made serving Dionysus a sloppy affair for many“. My eyes rolled so far back into my head I could see myself think how I wish Ann Powers would shut the ever-loving fuck up.
So, I’m not going to lie, it’s sometimes a slog to get through—the first few chapters in particular are full of ramblings about the Corn Mother, Mary Magdalene, and the Gnostic Gospels that lost me more than once. If someone knows only three facts about me, they are most likely that I love Tori Amos, cats, and obscure myths, in that order, and yet a lot of her more outlandish beliefs presented here really tested and alienated me. Still, thankfully, not even Ann Powers managed to completely bury Tori’s razor-sharp wit and her fascinating views on the creative process.
About halfway through, you finally get to chapters that are grounded in tangible reality, and that’s when the book becomes worthwhile. My personal highlight is the Demeter chapter, about Tori’s journey into motherhood—as the chapter title suggests, parallels to pertinent myths are drawn here as well, but it’s suddenly like an entirely different book: We are allowed a glimpse of what it was like to go through three miscarriages, and how putting it into music saved her during the darkest time in her life. It finally felt like I was reading Tori’s authentic voice, with little to no tampering—honest, rather than self-indulgent, and parts of it brought tears to my eyes.
The rest of the book is what most people who picked this up probably want to read about: Her creative process, touring, private versus public self, and the music business—I loved getting to hear from her band and crew members. The part about how she parted ways with Atlantic is long, riveting, and deeply satisfying, and the chapter on touring is probably the realest of them all, with tons of insight into the fitness and diet regimen she needs to keep up to be able to do six shows a week plus promo, and memories from the road such as the one time the driver tore the roof off the bus when he attempted to clear a bridge they couldn’t fit under, and how they still slept in it because there was nothing else for them to do—no glamour, no bullshit, no pretentiousness. The chapter title though? Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life’s Gypsy Caravan. Seriously. Five stars for the good bits in which Tori shines through—when her own words, unaided and unadorned, offer a candid glimpse into her fascinating mind—and no stars for Ann Powers, who can’t string a sentence together that’s worth reading, so let’s round it up to three and call it even.
I first read Piece By Piece a decade ago—in fact, I was in the middle of it when I met Tori for the first time, it was the very first item I ever got signed, and I was looking forward to revisiting it ahead of this year’s tour. In retrospect, I was still a rookie then, and had not been in the fandom long enough to really be able to contextualize some of the ideas about creativity, inspiration, and archetypes she touches on, so I don’t know how much a casual listener would get out of this; this is for the die-hards. For a long time in the 90’s, she did, by her own later admission, “play kooky for the Brits“, but a lot of this book still reads like having a somewhat rambling conversation with an eccentric, yet endlessly interesting aunt.
The title, taken from the 1999 song Datura, a holy grail to the fandom because it has never been played live, is apt: Piece By Piece is, put kindly, a conversational patchwork of musings and ideas. Put less kindly but more honestly, it’s a disorganized mess with no structure to speak of, and no editor anywhere in sight. Ann Powers is a hack; she asks no follow-up questions and doesn’t challenge anything Tori says—her contribution to the project seems to be to bring up a subject, dress up whatever Tori says to ensure it will read as pretentiously and pseudo-intellectually as humanly possible, then turn it in for publishing. Her interjections are utterly unnecessary and contain sentences such as “the degradation of archetypes within contemporary society has made serving Dionysus a sloppy affair for many“. My eyes rolled so far back into my head I could see myself think how I wish Ann Powers would shut the ever-loving fuck up.
So, I’m not going to lie, it’s sometimes a slog to get through—the first few chapters in particular are full of ramblings about the Corn Mother, Mary Magdalene, and the Gnostic Gospels that lost me more than once. If someone knows only three facts about me, they are most likely that I love Tori Amos, cats, and obscure myths, in that order, and yet a lot of her more outlandish beliefs presented here really tested and alienated me. Still, thankfully, not even Ann Powers managed to completely bury Tori’s razor-sharp wit and her fascinating views on the creative process.
“Music has an alchemical quality. And there’s more than one voice on the piano. You have two hands. One can be playing a celestial melody while the other is doing quite the opposite. The joining of the profane and the sacred, or the passionate and the compassionate, happens right there on the keyboard.”
About halfway through, you finally get to chapters that are grounded in tangible reality, and that’s when the book becomes worthwhile. My personal highlight is the Demeter chapter, about Tori’s journey into motherhood—as the chapter title suggests, parallels to pertinent myths are drawn here as well, but it’s suddenly like an entirely different book: We are allowed a glimpse of what it was like to go through three miscarriages, and how putting it into music saved her during the darkest time in her life. It finally felt like I was reading Tori’s authentic voice, with little to no tampering—honest, rather than self-indulgent, and parts of it brought tears to my eyes.
The rest of the book is what most people who picked this up probably want to read about: Her creative process, touring, private versus public self, and the music business—I loved getting to hear from her band and crew members. The part about how she parted ways with Atlantic is long, riveting, and deeply satisfying, and the chapter on touring is probably the realest of them all, with tons of insight into the fitness and diet regimen she needs to keep up to be able to do six shows a week plus promo, and memories from the road such as the one time the driver tore the roof off the bus when he attempted to clear a bridge they couldn’t fit under, and how they still slept in it because there was nothing else for them to do—no glamour, no bullshit, no pretentiousness. The chapter title though? Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life’s Gypsy Caravan. Seriously. Five stars for the good bits in which Tori shines through—when her own words, unaided and unadorned, offer a candid glimpse into her fascinating mind—and no stars for Ann Powers, who can’t string a sentence together that’s worth reading, so let’s round it up to three and call it even.
October 2, 2007
This might be the worst book I've ever read. The only reason I even gave it ANY stars is because Tori Amos co-wrote it, and I think maybe it wasn't her but her co-writer who can't put a sentence together worth reading. Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows how obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with Tori Amos I am. I have pictures of her. I have her autograph framed and hidden in the back of my closet. It's my special secret. I don't want just anyone knowing I have such high regard for someone who initially wrote about 5 of the most brilliant albums ever produced and then fell from grace with a series of spectacularly boring CDs that featured the "ribbons" of her little girl, "the power of orange knickers," and what it's like to "drive....in [a} Saab, on [the] way to Ireland..." No, really. Those are actual song lyrics. Ugh.
August 20, 2014
Tori Amos's biography, written with the help of Ann Powers, a rock journalist. I really enjoyed hearing about her journey and most of all her experience being an artist, how she thinks about her music and herself. Recommended!
October 5, 2013
A very descriptive look inside the mind of Tori Amos and the way she creates her songs. A must read for music lovers and lovers of biography
December 7, 2019
Had read excerpts from this before that left my head spinning, but had never actually sat down to read the whole thing cover to cover.
Tori.... you definitely lost me a couple of times, and all the context on your Gnostic Gospels research didn't really give me the ganas to go back and listen to "The Beekeeper" (I am ride-or-die for American Doll Posse tho), and I have still not recovered from the disbelieving shock of being 19 years old and reading the printed-out lyrics for "Beekeeper" songs excerpted in this book before I'd heard the record.... and yet, there's no denying that Tori is one of the (under-appreciated) greats.
The chapter about the music industry was particularly fascinating and relevant to today's context (Taylor Swift fighting for your masters, I see you!). Fingers crossed that next year's memoir will have another chapter with insider info about what happened exactly re: Tori's fight with Epic/Sony cuz I am just dying to know... ALSO WAS THERE A LOVE TRIANGLE WITH TRENT REZNOR AND COURTNEY LOVE OR NOT, MY TEENAGE SELF CAN'T GET OVER IT....
Tori.... you definitely lost me a couple of times, and all the context on your Gnostic Gospels research didn't really give me the ganas to go back and listen to "The Beekeeper" (I am ride-or-die for American Doll Posse tho), and I have still not recovered from the disbelieving shock of being 19 years old and reading the printed-out lyrics for "Beekeeper" songs excerpted in this book before I'd heard the record.... and yet, there's no denying that Tori is one of the (under-appreciated) greats.
The chapter about the music industry was particularly fascinating and relevant to today's context (Taylor Swift fighting for your masters, I see you!). Fingers crossed that next year's memoir will have another chapter with insider info about what happened exactly re: Tori's fight with Epic/Sony cuz I am just dying to know... ALSO WAS THERE A LOVE TRIANGLE WITH TRENT REZNOR AND COURTNEY LOVE OR NOT, MY TEENAGE SELF CAN'T GET OVER IT....
February 28, 2017
Tori Amos is my most favorite singer/songwriter ever, meaning that no matter what this book was I could not be disappointed by it for the fact that Piece by Piece didn't have to exist. But it does. It's completely supplemental to my obsession with her music.
My actual rating is 4.5 stars, not 5. Here's why. Ann Powers' interjections feel unnecessary to me. In my opinion, they exist only to rehash everything Tori has just said in an attempt to keep casual readers hooked. I don't think there's too many people out there who would read this book if they weren't a fan of Tori, so Ann's parts got lost on me. My other point of contention is the format of the book. There are parts that are conversations between the two (with Ann's dialogue completely removed and Tori's edited so it appears she is talking to the reader directly), and other parts that are straight from Tori. I guess they're keeping some form of Tori's integrity by specifying when what she is saying has not been edited, but it seems totally unnecessary to me, and takes up too much space when so many thoughts and paragraphs are broken up because of it.
Tori is such a fascinating human being. This book was like a window into her mind and I find it very interesting there. Even if I space out and have to reread a sentence or paragraph a couple times, I don't mind doing it because it's very pleasant to read. Dealing with a lot of intangible and abstract concepts, this book was a great exercise for my mind and I really did enjoy every single word of it.
As an aspiring writer and musician, if I take only one thing away from what I've read it's this: you are not the source. I am not the source. No one is the source. Inspiration may come to me, allowing me to create, but the words that find themselves onto the page have simply passed through me, instead of from me. Once a person begins to believe that they are the source of all their creations, they lose their way. In retrospect, I find that this is the very reason I've had writer's block. Look outside rather than inside.
God I love this lady so much.
My actual rating is 4.5 stars, not 5. Here's why. Ann Powers' interjections feel unnecessary to me. In my opinion, they exist only to rehash everything Tori has just said in an attempt to keep casual readers hooked. I don't think there's too many people out there who would read this book if they weren't a fan of Tori, so Ann's parts got lost on me. My other point of contention is the format of the book. There are parts that are conversations between the two (with Ann's dialogue completely removed and Tori's edited so it appears she is talking to the reader directly), and other parts that are straight from Tori. I guess they're keeping some form of Tori's integrity by specifying when what she is saying has not been edited, but it seems totally unnecessary to me, and takes up too much space when so many thoughts and paragraphs are broken up because of it.
Tori is such a fascinating human being. This book was like a window into her mind and I find it very interesting there. Even if I space out and have to reread a sentence or paragraph a couple times, I don't mind doing it because it's very pleasant to read. Dealing with a lot of intangible and abstract concepts, this book was a great exercise for my mind and I really did enjoy every single word of it.
As an aspiring writer and musician, if I take only one thing away from what I've read it's this: you are not the source. I am not the source. No one is the source. Inspiration may come to me, allowing me to create, but the words that find themselves onto the page have simply passed through me, instead of from me. Once a person begins to believe that they are the source of all their creations, they lose their way. In retrospect, I find that this is the very reason I've had writer's block. Look outside rather than inside.
God I love this lady so much.
March 25, 2017
What the fuck even is this? A book of people (especially Ann!) who just want to confess how amazing Tori Amos is and how in love with her they are? This whole thing is narcissistic and gross lol
April 29, 2020
As a feminist and as someone who admires Tori Amos's music, this book was an important read for me. It tells the story of how Tori Amos became who she is, how she approaches creativity in general and in music in particular and her struggles in the music industry. I especially liked the chapter where she breaks down the details of how the music industry works and informs the reader what the artists actually go through and how the record labels behave. It's essential knowledge for any music fan.
August 20, 2014
This isn't your usual biography.
Oh sure, it covers the gritty truths of Tori's life: Miscarriages, rape, alienation, disillusionment. And yes, it yields the highlights: Her marriage, her daughter's birth, her musical success. But more than anything, this book records not the life of Tori Amos itself, but the *experience* of being Tori. Of being an artist.
It's not organized in a necessarily coherent way. It seems to flip-flop around a lot in time, so much so that when her more recent career is the subject and all of a sudden we're discussing when she was five, it can't even properly be called a flashback because we were never solidly in the present. But I think that style suits the material well. After all, Tori is not "over." There is no reason to go beginning to end when she is still changing, living, and becoming.
The book is broken into sections that cover themes to some degree, and though there is a sense of sprawling event-shuffling and a case of snapshot-itis, it has the feeling of viewing a whole collage and seeing it as a collective work rather than as snip-snaps of hundreds of magazines. And that rather sums up Tori's life. She is a snippet of everything that has somehow been spun into one song.
Tori is a musician. This book gives the reader a peek at her particular brand of art. Reading this, one really starts to understand what *being* an artist is like; being an artist is a very different experience from just being a person who creates art once in a while.
Anyone can draw a picture, move through the steps of a dance, write a song. But only a *painter* sees the world as fodder for a giant canvas and uses the eye as a camera to filter the beauty of the world through a paintbrush; only a *dancer* moves through life in a perpetual state of grace in balance and comfortable in the fluid precarious; only a *musician* lives and breathes notes until they are no longer individual tones but chords that weave into progressions that weave into harmony and melody that weave into songs and symphonies and sonic art.
In this book, we see how the world is the placenta for these musical babies while Tori is the cord. How the songs truly have their own lives that are expressed through Tori's voice, fingers, and artistic mind. How she truly IS her songs and what living in perpetual creation must be like.
So, as mentioned, this is not a chronicling of events or an analysis of her career or a journalistic representation of yet another rock star, though in its way it does end up sort of doing all those things. But really, what it does is introduce us to Tori, which means introducing us to her and her music.
The book highlights her relationship with the feminine and masculine divine, her interpretation of her heritage, her flirting with archetypes, and her musical inspiration (though she keeps quiet on specifics). Snippets called "Song Canvases" pepper the book's chapters, highlighting particular Tori songs and giving the reader some discussion about their creation, meaning, and expression. Personal stories about growing up, finding herself, understanding her sexuality, reconciling "the two Marys," becoming a wife, and becoming a mother help readers get to know Tori-the-person as well as understand her music better, though there are very few bits of the book that beat the reader over the head with "the truth EXPOSED!" or "the INSIDE SCOOP!" type revelations about her. It's a quiet, gentle rocking-into-you story of a woman and her life--which is not to say it doesn't have shocking bits, because it does--and the reader as a stranger feels more brought into this illuminated world.
I would have to say that my only reservation about this book's presentation is that one very likely has to be a Tori fan already to appreciate it. It is simply not a straightforward book and unless the reader is very forgiving of "confusing" life stories or is particularly sensitive to artistic renderings or stories of artists, the general reader might put it down for something more traditional.
Speaking as a Tori fan for over a decade, though, I found it captivating and beautiful. I was thrilled to be introduced to "characters" like Jon, Matt, Mark, and of course little Tash; I giggled a little at her casual mention of calling up Trent Reznor or having Neil Gaiman coming on in to meet her newborn daughter; I loved hearing about her mother, father, grandma, Poppa, and parental gods and goddesses. Hearing her words--rendered into this particular format by the quite-artistic-herself journalist Ann Powers--was like one of those good dreams where you get everything you want and awake not really minding that it didn't actually happen to you.
I recommend this book to anyone, but doubly for anyone who either is an artist or loves one. And it is absolutely required reading for Tori fans--"You bet your life it is!"
Oh sure, it covers the gritty truths of Tori's life: Miscarriages, rape, alienation, disillusionment. And yes, it yields the highlights: Her marriage, her daughter's birth, her musical success. But more than anything, this book records not the life of Tori Amos itself, but the *experience* of being Tori. Of being an artist.
It's not organized in a necessarily coherent way. It seems to flip-flop around a lot in time, so much so that when her more recent career is the subject and all of a sudden we're discussing when she was five, it can't even properly be called a flashback because we were never solidly in the present. But I think that style suits the material well. After all, Tori is not "over." There is no reason to go beginning to end when she is still changing, living, and becoming.
The book is broken into sections that cover themes to some degree, and though there is a sense of sprawling event-shuffling and a case of snapshot-itis, it has the feeling of viewing a whole collage and seeing it as a collective work rather than as snip-snaps of hundreds of magazines. And that rather sums up Tori's life. She is a snippet of everything that has somehow been spun into one song.
Tori is a musician. This book gives the reader a peek at her particular brand of art. Reading this, one really starts to understand what *being* an artist is like; being an artist is a very different experience from just being a person who creates art once in a while.
Anyone can draw a picture, move through the steps of a dance, write a song. But only a *painter* sees the world as fodder for a giant canvas and uses the eye as a camera to filter the beauty of the world through a paintbrush; only a *dancer* moves through life in a perpetual state of grace in balance and comfortable in the fluid precarious; only a *musician* lives and breathes notes until they are no longer individual tones but chords that weave into progressions that weave into harmony and melody that weave into songs and symphonies and sonic art.
In this book, we see how the world is the placenta for these musical babies while Tori is the cord. How the songs truly have their own lives that are expressed through Tori's voice, fingers, and artistic mind. How she truly IS her songs and what living in perpetual creation must be like.
So, as mentioned, this is not a chronicling of events or an analysis of her career or a journalistic representation of yet another rock star, though in its way it does end up sort of doing all those things. But really, what it does is introduce us to Tori, which means introducing us to her and her music.
The book highlights her relationship with the feminine and masculine divine, her interpretation of her heritage, her flirting with archetypes, and her musical inspiration (though she keeps quiet on specifics). Snippets called "Song Canvases" pepper the book's chapters, highlighting particular Tori songs and giving the reader some discussion about their creation, meaning, and expression. Personal stories about growing up, finding herself, understanding her sexuality, reconciling "the two Marys," becoming a wife, and becoming a mother help readers get to know Tori-the-person as well as understand her music better, though there are very few bits of the book that beat the reader over the head with "the truth EXPOSED!" or "the INSIDE SCOOP!" type revelations about her. It's a quiet, gentle rocking-into-you story of a woman and her life--which is not to say it doesn't have shocking bits, because it does--and the reader as a stranger feels more brought into this illuminated world.
I would have to say that my only reservation about this book's presentation is that one very likely has to be a Tori fan already to appreciate it. It is simply not a straightforward book and unless the reader is very forgiving of "confusing" life stories or is particularly sensitive to artistic renderings or stories of artists, the general reader might put it down for something more traditional.
Speaking as a Tori fan for over a decade, though, I found it captivating and beautiful. I was thrilled to be introduced to "characters" like Jon, Matt, Mark, and of course little Tash; I giggled a little at her casual mention of calling up Trent Reznor or having Neil Gaiman coming on in to meet her newborn daughter; I loved hearing about her mother, father, grandma, Poppa, and parental gods and goddesses. Hearing her words--rendered into this particular format by the quite-artistic-herself journalist Ann Powers--was like one of those good dreams where you get everything you want and awake not really minding that it didn't actually happen to you.
I recommend this book to anyone, but doubly for anyone who either is an artist or loves one. And it is absolutely required reading for Tori fans--"You bet your life it is!"
March 27, 2019
Well I got through this, but only just. I'm actually not sure why I pushed through it instead of giving up when it started to drag for me. I'm glad I did because I actually found the last two chapters (on public vs private self and then the music industry in general) to be the most interesting. They are, in fact, what saved the book from a two-star rating from me. Don't get me wrong, Amos is an interesting person in her own right. I appreciated reading about her creative process and am impressed with her relationships across the board (fans, band, crew, her daughter, etc). I did get bogged down a great deal by her "new-agey-ness", for lack of a better description. For those whole love Tori and her overall mindset and outlook, this might not be an issue. Perhaps I'm just not a big enough fan.
January 12, 2019
If you’ve ever watched an interview with Tori Amos, specifically around the Beekeeper era in which this autobiography was published, there are times when what she’s saying makes absolutely no god damn sense but you also know comes from this vast, endless well of knowledge within her that us mere mortals could never fully comprehend. Keeping that in mind, you have an idea of what you’re getting yourself into with this autobiography. And yes, I say all of this with my stan card waving passionately in the air with a vehement declaration that Tori’s music is in the Top 5 on my list of Things That Make My Life Worth Living.
That being said, Piece by Piece flows way more easily than you’d expect. Sure, everything comes back to some complex allegory about Greek goddesses or Christian figures, but Tori name-drops these figures so casually that you can’t help but go along for the ride, and Ann Powers seems to respect that. However, while I feel like other collaborators would try to tone down the density of Tori’s prose, Powers revels in it to often ridiculous results. Her interjections read like a Thesis on Greek mythology that’s a rehash of the professor’s lecture, but run through a thesaurus eighteen times to beef it up to the page requirement. Side-by-side, it makes Tori’s insight seem superfluous by proxy, which made reading this frustrating at times.
But besides that (and obviously that’s a huge “besides”), I enjoyed the way Powers set this up. This autobiography is more about a woman making her way through the music industry while also cultivating a family and less about the songs themselves, even though the “song canvases” of a select few and what inspired their creation are fun. The interviews flowed well into each other, and the research seemed thorough - Tori’s managers, stage crew, chef, nanny, etc. all give their input on our woman of the hour.
To me, this stayed faithful to the image Tori was projecting around the time of this book’s release - a causally wise matriarch who’ll take you out to her garden to school you on the historical misunderstanding of Mary Magdalene before dropping acid with you as long as her daughter’s nanny is on duty. Does Piece by Piece always stick the landing? Well, no, and I think most of that is due to Powers’ formatting - the chapter on touring is named “Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life’s Gypsy Caravan,” for God’s sake. Still, any chance I get to spend with this artist and her incredible mind is a win in my book.
That being said, Piece by Piece flows way more easily than you’d expect. Sure, everything comes back to some complex allegory about Greek goddesses or Christian figures, but Tori name-drops these figures so casually that you can’t help but go along for the ride, and Ann Powers seems to respect that. However, while I feel like other collaborators would try to tone down the density of Tori’s prose, Powers revels in it to often ridiculous results. Her interjections read like a Thesis on Greek mythology that’s a rehash of the professor’s lecture, but run through a thesaurus eighteen times to beef it up to the page requirement. Side-by-side, it makes Tori’s insight seem superfluous by proxy, which made reading this frustrating at times.
But besides that (and obviously that’s a huge “besides”), I enjoyed the way Powers set this up. This autobiography is more about a woman making her way through the music industry while also cultivating a family and less about the songs themselves, even though the “song canvases” of a select few and what inspired their creation are fun. The interviews flowed well into each other, and the research seemed thorough - Tori’s managers, stage crew, chef, nanny, etc. all give their input on our woman of the hour.
To me, this stayed faithful to the image Tori was projecting around the time of this book’s release - a causally wise matriarch who’ll take you out to her garden to school you on the historical misunderstanding of Mary Magdalene before dropping acid with you as long as her daughter’s nanny is on duty. Does Piece by Piece always stick the landing? Well, no, and I think most of that is due to Powers’ formatting - the chapter on touring is named “Sane Satyrs and Balanced Bacchantes: The Touring Life’s Gypsy Caravan,” for God’s sake. Still, any chance I get to spend with this artist and her incredible mind is a win in my book.
December 7, 2017
I love Piece by Piece by Tori Amos for the same reason that I love her music. It is created for the intelligent, engaged and judicious consumer. Tori and Ann assume that the reader has a love and appreciation for language, mythos, psychology, composition, feminism, etc. Part biography, part treatise on psyco-spiritual compositional methods, and part dissection of mythological archetypes, this book carries the same synthesis of ingredients that make Tori’s music so transcendental.
Most of the negative reviews of this book seem to fall into two categories. The first being from fans of Tori’s early career. Seemingly, these readers were expecting a candid and blunt, but relatable and inspiring, rehashing of Tori’s life. The book version of Little Earthquakes, if you will. These readers seem dissatisfied and confused by Tori’s philosophical and spiritual leanings. I find this is extremely disappointing because I am of the opinion that with each album, Tori’s vision and message became much more clear the more it became shrouded in allegories, concepts and archetypes. Her first two albums were potent, and the numbers speak for themselves, but I also find them to be a little simple. They do not do Tori’s incredible depth justice. The point of this tangent is to illustrate that I find it incredibly refreshing that the writing of this book falls into Tori’s contemporary worldview and writing style and I know a lot of people will agree.
The second group of unhappy readers appears to be mainly people who are not Tori Amos fans to begin with. To these, I do not have as much to say other than that when you read a biography of anyone you do not have a preexisting appreciation for, the process can be very dry and unfulfilling. Do not let these readers persuade you, as a Tori Amos fan, picking this book up is absolutely worth it’s weight in gold.
Most of the negative reviews of this book seem to fall into two categories. The first being from fans of Tori’s early career. Seemingly, these readers were expecting a candid and blunt, but relatable and inspiring, rehashing of Tori’s life. The book version of Little Earthquakes, if you will. These readers seem dissatisfied and confused by Tori’s philosophical and spiritual leanings. I find this is extremely disappointing because I am of the opinion that with each album, Tori’s vision and message became much more clear the more it became shrouded in allegories, concepts and archetypes. Her first two albums were potent, and the numbers speak for themselves, but I also find them to be a little simple. They do not do Tori’s incredible depth justice. The point of this tangent is to illustrate that I find it incredibly refreshing that the writing of this book falls into Tori’s contemporary worldview and writing style and I know a lot of people will agree.
The second group of unhappy readers appears to be mainly people who are not Tori Amos fans to begin with. To these, I do not have as much to say other than that when you read a biography of anyone you do not have a preexisting appreciation for, the process can be very dry and unfulfilling. Do not let these readers persuade you, as a Tori Amos fan, picking this book up is absolutely worth it’s weight in gold.
February 19, 2008
I've gone from owning a couple of her CD's over the years to becoming more intrigued of her creative process. Thanks to a dear friend for sharing her box set I have become a routine listener. After reading Tori's book and engrossing myself in her music I think she may have just singlehandedly knocked out all of my top favorite live performers. This woman was born to create music and relay messages from a spiritual realm. Yes, her music is that deep, that moving and some may even say that disturbing. She is a natural role model for musicians and you get the sense that she really wants to heal people and nurture the younger generations acting as a channel for her music but rarely takes the credit as a brilliant musician. She delivers in-depth advice on how to maneuver skillfully in the music industry and offers some scary examples of her "musical children's" near-death experiences. Prince wrote SLAVE on his cheek, her advisers suggested she act out similarly, her response was brilliant! I found myself cheering out loud for her! Amos exposes the game and the players. This is one of those books I would encourage ANYONE to read to learn how one artist's divine deliverance of songs that come to her on the lips of spirits can speak to an audience and move them to tears based on their personal interpretations. She's a fierce and vulnerable woman who knows pain and personal suffering first-hand. Amos is not afraid to reach beyond her keyboard and communicate to her listeners "I can relate to that" but at the same time has learned to find her voice and who will rip your throat out with her teeth should she feel threatened. BRAVO!
February 25, 2012
I like Tori Amos, and I like reading Tori's words. You expect her to be a little off, a little weird, and a little vague, and that's okay because for her, it works. But for some reason, Ann Powers, the journalist co-author, comes off like she's trying to out-Tori Tori. I don't expect Powers to be overly critical, but I wasn't ready for this level of wannabe asskissery.
It's brilliant when Amos is talking about herself, her personal development, and her life in the business. If you're familiar with her work, her stories and song canvases give you a clearer frame of reference for obscure lyrics. Non-fan readers should be able to appreciate the drama of the doctor story, the record contract fight, and descriptions of how Amos keeps it together backstage. The beautifully cryptic language might not appeal to a broad audience, but this book is still worth a look.
It's brilliant when Amos is talking about herself, her personal development, and her life in the business. If you're familiar with her work, her stories and song canvases give you a clearer frame of reference for obscure lyrics. Non-fan readers should be able to appreciate the drama of the doctor story, the record contract fight, and descriptions of how Amos keeps it together backstage. The beautifully cryptic language might not appeal to a broad audience, but this book is still worth a look.
November 16, 2022
3.5 stars.
Quite an interesting book with lots of info from Tori. My biggest issue with the book tho, was how it was laid out. The back and forth timelines were confusing, and it doesn’t help Tori got rambly a lot, so it was easy to get completely lost. I did find myself quite a few times wondering what I was reading again. I also didn’t really see the point of Ann’s small inserts. I wish her inserts would’ve provided more direction, and acted more like an interviewer asking questions, rather than reiterating what Tori said, and providing pretty pointless segues when sections wouldn’t even stick to one subject/timeline. With better editing this book could’ve been way more enjoyable all around. Either way, I found myself gaining even more respect for Tori, especially the things with her tours and owning her sexuality in her own way.
Quite an interesting book with lots of info from Tori. My biggest issue with the book tho, was how it was laid out. The back and forth timelines were confusing, and it doesn’t help Tori got rambly a lot, so it was easy to get completely lost. I did find myself quite a few times wondering what I was reading again. I also didn’t really see the point of Ann’s small inserts. I wish her inserts would’ve provided more direction, and acted more like an interviewer asking questions, rather than reiterating what Tori said, and providing pretty pointless segues when sections wouldn’t even stick to one subject/timeline. With better editing this book could’ve been way more enjoyable all around. Either way, I found myself gaining even more respect for Tori, especially the things with her tours and owning her sexuality in her own way.
July 17, 2007
I love Tori Amos' music and have for years. I have nmet her and found her very inspiring and lovely. She is a bit odd though.
This is a great biography and it is clear that she finds inspriration in many well researced places. However, she goes off on a lot of tangents and some of them are hard to follow.
It is nice to see a full picture with interviews with many people in her life. I also liked the biographies of some of her best known songs.
A good read for fans but a little much for the everyday person.
This is a great biography and it is clear that she finds inspriration in many well researced places. However, she goes off on a lot of tangents and some of them are hard to follow.
It is nice to see a full picture with interviews with many people in her life. I also liked the biographies of some of her best known songs.
A good read for fans but a little much for the everyday person.
March 22, 2007
I used this book extensively when I started my own book project this past summer. It's exhaustive. She wrote it with Ann Powers, one of my favorite cultural critics, and it's a candid look at her life as it influences her musical process. As you might expect there are many kooky discussions of mystics, Mary Magdalene, and goddesses. You get a really good sense of Tori as a person through this book.
March 27, 2013
A very interesting look into a singer/song writers life.
I have enjoyed some of her music and found this book to be a glimpse of what her life is like. She comes off to me as kind of odd, but then aren't we all?!
I have enjoyed some of her music and found this book to be a glimpse of what her life is like. She comes off to me as kind of odd, but then aren't we all?!
December 19, 2007
I looooove Tori's music; apparently, I hate her writing.
So out there, so nonsensical... interesting concept for a book (talk about how myth inspires music) but so poorly executed.
So out there, so nonsensical... interesting concept for a book (talk about how myth inspires music) but so poorly executed.
August 17, 2020
Wildly, disappointingly uninteresting. Ramblings about archetypes, mythology. I have loved loved loved Tori's music since I was a teenager but that couldn't save this book for me.
March 7, 2019
I'm being kind with the second star here. I'm also the biggest Tori Ellen fan, but only of her music. I find her personality in interviews very flaky at times and her stories in this book so dippy as to be incomprehensible. I bought this when it came out and just finished rereading. It was painful. It's interesting to me that many people are blaming Ann Powers for the book's failure. I don't care for her either but much of the book was directly quoted from Tori and the content is a lot of the problem.
Ann Powers is a feminist music writer which surely informs how she writes. I've read her book, "Rock She Wrote which was an anthology of music articles by women writers. It was too long and way too grounded in theoretical feminism. I just wanted to read about music, not revisit material from my women's studies classes. That was a bust and so is this book. It's funny that in the beginning Ann included a conversation she had with Tori laying down the ground rules and warning her that her job was to get personal. She then proceeded to let Tori take up most of the book rambling about myths, goddesses, archetypes, and the Magdelene. I've heard Tori discuss these things in interviews and it was beyond dull. Powers should have found a way to reign her in but I got the sense she didn't want to overstep and might have been a bit dazzled by her subject.
As much as I love her, the biggest issue with the book was the content and that has to be laid at Tori's door. In recent years, she's been very open about her research and interest in Mary Magdelene and the lost gospels. She discusses this in ponderous detail in this book. I really don't know why actors and musicians think that we care to hear them go on about topics outside their fields of experience. We wouldn't go to Albert Einstein to hear about music and we don't want to hear about Greek myth or religious history from Tori Amos. I don't mean to be harsh but when she begins talking about these things, I'm not even sure she knows what she's saying. The word archetype was used in the first chapter about 308 times. It was difficult to separate details of Tori's life from the ramblings about mysticism and the Source. Why can't anyone in this book just speak plainly about what happened in her life and career? I felt ripped off because the book claimed to be a guide to help artists navigate through the industry. There was a little bit of that sandwiched in between all Tori's musings on goddesses and the Corn Mother. The sections purporting to shed light on how certain songs were written were mostly more confusing babble. The one for "Mother Revolution" didn't even mention the song at all and just recounted a conversation between Tori and Tash in which Tash told her mum that she could be the number five. WTF is the point of this??
I found myself jumping to sections with Tori's staff because they made the most sense. She didn't want to do a standard memoir and that's fine. But did she think it was necessary to quote a bunch of different books about the lost gospels? It felt like Tori had an agenda and took advantage of her audience to get it across. She really wanted people to know about Mary Magdalene and about the satyrs so she let those topics dominate the book. Again, Tori isn't who I would turn to if I wanted to learn about these things. Auto-didact though she may be, there are plenty of scholars out there who probably do it better.
If you're trying to learn about Tori's story, I would suggest one of the biographies on her life. There isn't really a definitive one right now, but at least you'll get to know her a little bit better than you do in this overly pretentious doorstop of a book. Sorry Myra Ellen. :(
Ann Powers is a feminist music writer which surely informs how she writes. I've read her book, "Rock She Wrote which was an anthology of music articles by women writers. It was too long and way too grounded in theoretical feminism. I just wanted to read about music, not revisit material from my women's studies classes. That was a bust and so is this book. It's funny that in the beginning Ann included a conversation she had with Tori laying down the ground rules and warning her that her job was to get personal. She then proceeded to let Tori take up most of the book rambling about myths, goddesses, archetypes, and the Magdelene. I've heard Tori discuss these things in interviews and it was beyond dull. Powers should have found a way to reign her in but I got the sense she didn't want to overstep and might have been a bit dazzled by her subject.
As much as I love her, the biggest issue with the book was the content and that has to be laid at Tori's door. In recent years, she's been very open about her research and interest in Mary Magdelene and the lost gospels. She discusses this in ponderous detail in this book. I really don't know why actors and musicians think that we care to hear them go on about topics outside their fields of experience. We wouldn't go to Albert Einstein to hear about music and we don't want to hear about Greek myth or religious history from Tori Amos. I don't mean to be harsh but when she begins talking about these things, I'm not even sure she knows what she's saying. The word archetype was used in the first chapter about 308 times. It was difficult to separate details of Tori's life from the ramblings about mysticism and the Source. Why can't anyone in this book just speak plainly about what happened in her life and career? I felt ripped off because the book claimed to be a guide to help artists navigate through the industry. There was a little bit of that sandwiched in between all Tori's musings on goddesses and the Corn Mother. The sections purporting to shed light on how certain songs were written were mostly more confusing babble. The one for "Mother Revolution" didn't even mention the song at all and just recounted a conversation between Tori and Tash in which Tash told her mum that she could be the number five. WTF is the point of this??
I found myself jumping to sections with Tori's staff because they made the most sense. She didn't want to do a standard memoir and that's fine. But did she think it was necessary to quote a bunch of different books about the lost gospels? It felt like Tori had an agenda and took advantage of her audience to get it across. She really wanted people to know about Mary Magdalene and about the satyrs so she let those topics dominate the book. Again, Tori isn't who I would turn to if I wanted to learn about these things. Auto-didact though she may be, there are plenty of scholars out there who probably do it better.
If you're trying to learn about Tori's story, I would suggest one of the biographies on her life. There isn't really a definitive one right now, but at least you'll get to know her a little bit better than you do in this overly pretentious doorstop of a book. Sorry Myra Ellen. :(
February 23, 2021
I was inspired to read this book after reading her more recent book, Resistance, which I thought was phenomenal!! This however was a very different book. I’ve loved Tori for years and years and years and reading this changed my perception of her both negatively and positively.
Positively—Tori once again exhibits that she is an insanely hard worker and puts a ton of thought and research into her songs and is a master of her craft. I loved the insights into the music business and the business of touring and learning just how complex the inner workings of her recording and performing experiences are. As a mom, I loved her anecdotes about balancing her work life and “being Mommy”.
Negatively—I think Tori should have read the room a bit during the writing of this book. The touring chapter was a bit off putting as most musicians experience touring in vans, eating gas station food, and sleeping on stranger’s floors (if your lucky and aren’t sleeping in the van that night). The descriptions of luxuries, meals, private chefs, etc. could have been toned down just a bit. That goes for her home life as well—we were reminded of her three homes more than a few times!! I’m not saying she’s not earned everything she has, I’m just saying that humbleness goes a long way.
The writing held on way too strongly to the mythological archetypes concept that did no favors to anyone. However it was a very quirky concept that lent a vibe and I can’t fault it for being different. The execution could have been a bit better.
TLDR: read this only if you’re a super fan and can get past the fact that celebrities inherently have a bit of narcissism in them; that’s how they got to be celebrities in the first place! Also the business chapter is fantastic and should be taught in music education programs.
Positively—Tori once again exhibits that she is an insanely hard worker and puts a ton of thought and research into her songs and is a master of her craft. I loved the insights into the music business and the business of touring and learning just how complex the inner workings of her recording and performing experiences are. As a mom, I loved her anecdotes about balancing her work life and “being Mommy”.
Negatively—I think Tori should have read the room a bit during the writing of this book. The touring chapter was a bit off putting as most musicians experience touring in vans, eating gas station food, and sleeping on stranger’s floors (if your lucky and aren’t sleeping in the van that night). The descriptions of luxuries, meals, private chefs, etc. could have been toned down just a bit. That goes for her home life as well—we were reminded of her three homes more than a few times!! I’m not saying she’s not earned everything she has, I’m just saying that humbleness goes a long way.
The writing held on way too strongly to the mythological archetypes concept that did no favors to anyone. However it was a very quirky concept that lent a vibe and I can’t fault it for being different. The execution could have been a bit better.
TLDR: read this only if you’re a super fan and can get past the fact that celebrities inherently have a bit of narcissism in them; that’s how they got to be celebrities in the first place! Also the business chapter is fantastic and should be taught in music education programs.
April 13, 2020
Damnit, Tori. I had such high hopes for you.
I gave this book a second chance, thinking I had failed to grasp its brilliance when I first read it a decade and a half ago. I was correct in my initial assertions - this book sucks. It seems as though our beloved singer has no talent for writing a cohesive memoir, often losing track of her thoughts from one paragraph to the next. (Think of a distracted woman who keeps losing the thread of her story. Now, multiply that by like 9 chapters.) This book had an editor, too - A FUCKING ROCK JOURNALIST who should have been able to cultivate some semblance of flow out of all this. (I am not entirely sure what Ann Powers' role is here - perhaps to just transcribe the interview without giving us any real analysis or clues for context?) As one reviewer put it, this book reads like the self-indulgent ramblings of a teenage girl.
I strongly admire Tori - I really do. She has a wonderful mind, which unfortunately is not on full display here. I like the concept of examining her creative process through the lens of mythology - but in Ann Powers' hands, Tori's ideas present themselves as a scattered stream-of-consciousness which bears little substance and is a HUGE chore to read.
However, Tori has a new book coming out this fall. Let's hope it proves to be more satisfying than this one!
I gave this book a second chance, thinking I had failed to grasp its brilliance when I first read it a decade and a half ago. I was correct in my initial assertions - this book sucks. It seems as though our beloved singer has no talent for writing a cohesive memoir, often losing track of her thoughts from one paragraph to the next. (Think of a distracted woman who keeps losing the thread of her story. Now, multiply that by like 9 chapters.) This book had an editor, too - A FUCKING ROCK JOURNALIST who should have been able to cultivate some semblance of flow out of all this. (I am not entirely sure what Ann Powers' role is here - perhaps to just transcribe the interview without giving us any real analysis or clues for context?) As one reviewer put it, this book reads like the self-indulgent ramblings of a teenage girl.
I strongly admire Tori - I really do. She has a wonderful mind, which unfortunately is not on full display here. I like the concept of examining her creative process through the lens of mythology - but in Ann Powers' hands, Tori's ideas present themselves as a scattered stream-of-consciousness which bears little substance and is a HUGE chore to read.
However, Tori has a new book coming out this fall. Let's hope it proves to be more satisfying than this one!
May 22, 2020
Tori Amos is a song-writer, not a book-writer. The editor, Ann Power, failed at her job in this project. She should have taken the subject's stories and formatted them into something a bit more readable. This book is kind of all over the place and sometimes doesn't make much sense. These are things ghostwriters and editors are responsible for.
However, if you've ever gotten lost in her music, taken the time to sincerely contemplate her lyrics or read/heard any kind of interview with Torj, you really shouldn't be surprised by anything she says or does in *her own autobiography*. She's telling her own story in her own way. That's what autobiographies and memoirs *are*.
Tori Amos is the amazing and enduring artist she is precisely *because* she doesn't fit the mold of what everyone expects her to be. If that's a problem, I daresay you are not actually a fan. How can you possibly appreciate, much less like, someone if you keep wanting them to be something else?
While this is definitely not the best book ever written, which is the responsibility of the editor and not the musician, it does provide fascinating insight into who Tori Amos is. Yes, she's a weirdo. Yes, she has some unusual ideas. And no, she is not everyone's cup of tea. These are not facts anyone has ever tried to hide or deny, least of all Tori, herself.
If you can put that crap aside and simply enjoy the odd, bumpy ride of reading Piece by Piece, I think it's worth it. But maybe I'm just another crazy lady who's easily dismissed....
However, if you've ever gotten lost in her music, taken the time to sincerely contemplate her lyrics or read/heard any kind of interview with Torj, you really shouldn't be surprised by anything she says or does in *her own autobiography*. She's telling her own story in her own way. That's what autobiographies and memoirs *are*.
Tori Amos is the amazing and enduring artist she is precisely *because* she doesn't fit the mold of what everyone expects her to be. If that's a problem, I daresay you are not actually a fan. How can you possibly appreciate, much less like, someone if you keep wanting them to be something else?
While this is definitely not the best book ever written, which is the responsibility of the editor and not the musician, it does provide fascinating insight into who Tori Amos is. Yes, she's a weirdo. Yes, she has some unusual ideas. And no, she is not everyone's cup of tea. These are not facts anyone has ever tried to hide or deny, least of all Tori, herself.
If you can put that crap aside and simply enjoy the odd, bumpy ride of reading Piece by Piece, I think it's worth it. But maybe I'm just another crazy lady who's easily dismissed....
June 11, 2023
Tori Amos has been one of my favorite artists since I overheard my big sister listen to Little Earthquakes in the early 90s. In the subsequent decade, Amos' music carried me through my teen and 20-something tumult. I have long been blow away at her creativity and musicianship. She is something special in the music industry. But somehow, I was not as delighted to read the same message from her own pen. This work purported to avoid the common trap of overpraising the artist, but it was unsuccessful. I caught a whiff of narcissism. However, it is probably impossible to be an artist without high measure of confidence and self-promotion.
I feel that Powers and the editors failed to assist Amos in translating her thoughts into a compelling read. Sure, I was interested in Amos' creative process, but at times I felt like I was bushwhacking through woo. I appreciated the input of her team, but I think the formatting of this book falls flat. I felt like I was reading the project outline. I can appreciate the importance of archetypes in Amos' creative process and performance, but it was just too heavy handed for me.
I feel that Powers and the editors failed to assist Amos in translating her thoughts into a compelling read. Sure, I was interested in Amos' creative process, but at times I felt like I was bushwhacking through woo. I appreciated the input of her team, but I think the formatting of this book falls flat. I felt like I was reading the project outline. I can appreciate the importance of archetypes in Amos' creative process and performance, but it was just too heavy handed for me.
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