Customer Reviews

Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was excited to finally have a full length biography of Tori, but upon reading this book, I found myself disappointed. The content was fairly detailed, but early in the book, I began to be annoyed by some minor factual errors. As the book went on I found the unnecessarily subjective opinions of the author becoming more common, and was bored to tears as he went through a song by song description of every single album, saying what he viewed the songs were about (usually with some basis in fact) and his opinion. I never thought I could be bored by this subject matter. As a very avid tori fan, I knew I had to own it anyway, but if you are anything but the most obessive collector, just pick up Tori Amos: Peice by Piece and wait for a more specific biography to come out that will be more interesting.

Tori Amos is my favorite musician/songwriter, and if this applies to you as well, you already own this book. You can't resist it. If you are casually interested, or a new fan, I would recommend "Tori Amos: All These Years" by Kalen Rogers instead, as it is her authorized biography, and it is wonderfully done. This book is an interesting read for the Tori fan. Although most of the information in it I already knew, there are some interesting tidbits here and there, and lots of wonderful Tori quotes. I particularly enjoy how it is arranged in chronological order by album release date, and I also enjoy the author's stab at a theoretical analysis of the songs. However, I have one complaint about the book, which is my pet peeve: why did no one apparently proof read this book? There are typos and grammatical errors throughout. Sentence structures have gone awry. It is very distracting to me and to others as well, I imagine. It also gives the book the feel that it was thrown together at the last minute, although that obviously is not the case, as a tremendous amount of research was done to write this book. Please, proofread! It would have been a simple thing to do that would make the book a lot less distracting and a lot more enjoyable. On the whole, I give this 3 stars and it is essential (and irresistable) for any true Tori fan.

This book is a must-read for any Tori Amos fan, but also an interesting read for those new to her music. Jacobs uses his own interviews with Tori, as well as countless others with various magazines to give us a better idea of her creative processes. So many quotes from Tori herself make this even more genuine. He describes her personal struggles (including rape) as well as her many successes.

Two-thirds of the book is biography, including a section of color photographs (basically publicity photos - nothing out of the ordinary). But then, for almost 50 pages, Jacobs provides probably the most detailed list of Tori's compositions/covers/other artists covering her material/etc. that you're likely to find anywhere. CDs, video concerts, guest appearances, it goes on and on. His bibliography is also quite comprehensive.

I've always got my eye out for a good Tori Amos biography. This isn't it. There's almost nothing in the way of new information, and nearly a third of the book is taken up by appendices. The two-thirds that is actually devoted to biography is bloated by the author's personal opinion of each song on each album Tori has done.

If, like me, you've read many of Tori's articles and interviews, own all her albums and have your own passionate opinion of the songs contained therein, there's nothing new to be learned here. It's nice to have the whole story in one piece, but I was still disappointed. You're better off reading TORI AMOS: PIECE BY PIECE.

Fair warning - this book should NOT have an aggregate four-star review. For the first time ever I will be returning a book. Plain and simple - it is written so poorly that it is an embarrassment to the author, the copy/editor (if in fact one was employed) and the publisher (I'm shocked to see it put out on the Hal Leonard label) - not to mention the artist. Do not support the offenders by laying down your money for this book. Clearly, there was a lack of effort put in to the finished product. There are COPIOUS grammatical errors, sentences so poorly constructed as to be virtually unreadable, misuse of tenses, and far too much author specualation as to Tori's motivations, feelings, and decisions that are written as FACT (essentially, there is a problem of voice here). These are BASIC writing problems--such that I would expect more out of a first year college writing student.

If it appears that I am being harsh - I am... simply because there is too much unpublished talent in this world for books like this to exist. If it's still in print try 'Tori Amos: All These Years' by Kalen Rogers. Though it only covers the beginning of Tori's career it is VASTLY better than this.

A young lady who has crammed an awful lot into her life, Tori Amos deserves a well written biography and it's good to see that she has one in this book. Every performer that reaches her status has had an interesting path, an interesting way that they were discovered or a break of some kind that separated them from the multitude of wanna-be performers.

Her real story started when she was five and decided what she wanted to do in her life. And with extremely understanding parents she was enrolled in the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She stayed there for six years, even though she knew that what she was being taught was not what she wanted to learn.

From there the story gets even more wild, yet she not only survived, but has triumphed to be a major player in the music scene. And the story is very well told by Mr. Jacobs who had unprecedented access to her to make sure her story was well told. It's a story not only of her life, but gives insight into how her creative efforts work.

When I saw this biography, I thought it would be interesting, and I was right. This is ten years more recent than her authorized biography. I have my doubts that this one is authorized, but it was written by a person who gave an honest portrayal of Ms. Amos, being respectful at the same time.

One reviewer commented the biography was too subjective and spent too much time giving a song by song rundown of each of her projects. For most biographies, this would be valid. However, when one is dealing with a subjective field like music, and especially when one is dealing with an artist who is expressive both musically and lyrically, a more subjective biography is more acceptable. Tori's music and lyrics are so deep, it justifies a song by song analysis more so than other pop artists (including those like Madonna or even the Beatles). My only complaint is when biographer Jay S. Jacobs makes comments on people who voted for Bush (which I did twice, and gratefully), which wasn't really necessary.

Being a Christian, I would be more interested in reading about the comments of her parents on Tori's current direction (since she's a minister's child). I also am curious if Tori would have gone a different direction if she was introduced to CCM as a teenager, instead of leaning toward rock.

This biography did give me insight into Tori's personality, and doing so, it succeeded.

Every Tori Amos fan needs to own this book, every thing you ever would want to know about her life and her struggle to become a very large success is here.

PRETTY GOOD YEARS: A BIOGRAPHY OF TORI AMOS provides a satisfying biography of a rock n roll gal who has a wide audience of fans and relatively few other biographical coverages to her name. From her achievement as the youngest child ever to be admitted to a world-renowned music school to her feminist roots, ability to question even counter-culture norms, and her varied musical compositions and directions, PRETTY GOOD YEARS is more than just a survey of Amos' life: it's a detailed look at her times and her trend-setting ways.

Tori Amos has lived a fascinating life and it is good to see it recounted so interestingly. This book covers her childhood to recent years and gives you a glimpse into the world of a wonderfully eccentric talent. Also has a great breakdown of her records.