In this episode, we ponder what it means for a Tori Amos song to be “underrated.” Is “underrated” in this context even something definable? Or is it ultimately subjective and personal to the individual listener? Is a song underrated because Tori rarely or never performs it? Or is it a song that’s been played so many times that we’ve taken it for granted and can no longer hear the genius and the grit that went into its creation? Or perhaps it lives on a latter-day Tori record that’s less celebrat...
Jun 28, 2025•2 hr•Season 3Ep. 6
We are Introverted but Willing to Discuss Tori Amos, as always, but on this episode, we’re gonna need some thoughts and prayers because we’re going to talk about something else… sorta. No, we’re not giving a Father Lucifer bridge-style middle finger to our audience. We are instead going to share our playlists of music by other artists that remind us of our favorite Tori Amos music.Let’s face it: being a Tori fan isn’t always glamorous and cool. Sometimes we are judged. Sometimes we are called ob...
May 25, 2025•1 hr 57 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Greetings to the cowboys, the snakes, and the kin among us. Tonight we have a real southern tale to tell. Somewhere out past the cat’s whiskers and royal palm, where the air hangs heavy with history, there’s a sound—low, humming, ancient. Maybe it’s a siren calling from a forgotten Southern shore, or the echo of Datura blooming under an October moon. Or maybe—just maybe—it’s the land calling back.Tonight, we’re following that sound through Tori Amos’ most Southern-infused songs—the ones laced wi...
Apr 13, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Known for her dramatic intensity and often-dark, broodingly romantic compositions, Tori Amos has perhaps unfairly gotten a reputation for being very, very serious. To be fair, sometimes she is (and we love it!). However, contrary to popular belief, when you take a closer look, Tori also has an extremely funny side. Her particular tongue-in-cheek brand of wit often translates directly into key songs that provide moments of oppositional levity and sweet relief amidst some of her most emotionally-s...
Mar 23, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Tori Amos’ expansive body of work over the past 30-plus years has covered most musical terrain. From confessional outpourings of emotion, to thunderously-programmed electronic beats, blips and whirrs, to stinging guitar-driven diatribes directed at the religious Right, Tori has become known as both an architect and an adventurer, as well as a consummate player. She has transcended the “singer-songwriter” or “girl with a piano” labels once assigned to her to become one of the most important figur...
Feb 22, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 2
On a storied, starry night in Nashville, in 2023, Tori Amos stopped what she was doing, and asked the audience if she should release a record full of unreleased songs. While we don’t yet have an exact answer on the fate of this project, it got us thinking: what existing songs would we add to our own personal B-sides & Non-album tracks playlists? The possibilities are infinite! In this new episode, Joey, Kristen, and Matt kick off the second season of their podcast chatting about some of thei...
Jan 17, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 1
We have a new name! Messing with the Master: Tori Amos is now Introverted But Willing To Discuss Tori Amos ! Join us to talk about our favorite redhead 👩🏻🦰
Jan 14, 2025•1 min•Season 2Ep. 10
It's a HOLIDAY (POSSE) BONUS! In this very special holiday episode of 'Messing With The Master', we delve into Tori Amos's holiday music across many decades, exploring her artistic evolution, personal memories of that amazing Midwinter Graces promo tour, and the significance of family in her work. We discuss the impact of Tori's upbringing and her respect for holiday traditions, while acknowledging that The Woman We Call Tori can rock the fuck out of anything, including Christmas music. Playlist...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In terms of narrative, composition and sheer scope as a record, Boys for Pele is one of the most audacious “pop” records to come out of the 1990s. Make no mistake: despite its twisty narrative, mysteriously confrontational lyrics and non-traditional take on song structure, Pele was a considerable mainstream success, selling more than 2 million copies worldwide and going platinum in the United States. Part harrowing journey into darkness and fury, part coming to terms with the aftermath of a shat...
Oct 22, 2024•2 hr•Season 1Ep. 14
“I think the thing that just astounds me about Tori is that she can take a bit of something like a melody or harmonic sequence for some of these pieces that were the inspiration and create something truly her own, showing how truly powerful her own creative stamp is. I think of Night of Hunters as a 70-minute song with 30 pieces of music held together by 13 sets of interlocking lyrics. Now that’s composing! Tori was able to keep the narrative in my head at all times, very articulated and intrica...
Sep 01, 2024•1 hr 38 min•Season 1Ep. 13
With Strange Little Girls, Tori Amos approached the covers album as concept album, offering reinterpretations of 12 diverse male-authored tracks from the perspectives of an assortment of female characters. The project was inspired originally by by the homophobic and misogynistic messages which Amos believed to be prevalent in popular song at the beginning of the 21st century. “People were talking to me about how popular music was getting more violent,” she recalled in Piece by Piece. “Male songw...
Aug 10, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 12
As she turned 50 in the spotlight, Tori Amos’ 2014 album Unrepentant Geraldines dropped and was greeted with headlines trumpeting the singer-songwriter’s “return to form” and “comeback”. But here’s the kicker: she never went anywhere. Although she had written a musical for the stage (The Light Princess, 2013), and composed a 21st century song cycle (Night of Hunters, 2011), Unrepentant Geraldines was Amos’ first record of entirely original compositions in five years, since Abnormally Attracted t...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Content warning: this episode discusses pregnancy and child loss. Please take care while listening. On this week's episode, we book a round trip ticket To Venus and Back. Tori's surprisingly prompt follow -up to 1998's From the Choirgirl Hotel. After an epic world tour, Tori had implied that she'd be taking a break from recording for a while and planned to release a live album with a few new bonus tracks. As Tori's want to do, those bonus tracks developed into a full -blown 11 -track album with ...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Ever feel like just being someone else? With the regal and roaring opus American Doll Posse, Tori Amos gave her listeners permission – and a psychic road map – to become the characters who hide in plain sight in all of our brains; even the “character” of ourselves. With healthy doses of showmanship and flamboyance, American Doll Posse saw Amos sonically embracing a towering, modern production style tinged with classic and country rock elements. No stranger to being a sonic character actress expl...
Jun 27, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Content warning: this episode briefly discusses DV and suicide. Please take care while listening. “So what if you find you like to tango alone?" Tori Amos asks in the final moments of “Birthday Baby," the closing track of her 15th solo album Ocean to Ocean, released on October 21, 2021. An ode to the unexpected ways we collectively learned to both mourn and celebrate during the years-long isolation of the COVID-19 crisis, the song vacillates between a rousing eleven o'clock musical number and so...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Content warning: this episode discusses SA. Please take care while listening. Objectively speaking, Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes is one of the all time great debut records. On the latest episode of Messing With The Master, Kristen, Matt and Joe lovingly look back and contextualize this seminal album, which laid down the foundation for the mythology of Tori and created a language all her own. The bracing new musical vocabulary of Little Earthquakes truly signaled the birth of a star. Very few– i...
Apr 28, 2024•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Content warning: this episode discusses child and pregnancy loss. Please take care while listening. Tori Amos’ blazing fourth album From The Choirgirl Hotel claims a rightful place amongst legendary music by contemporaries such as Madonna, PJ Harvey, Hole, Beck and many others who released similarly iconic work in 1998.At a career high point, Amos intuitively plugged in a full band to achieve the record’s signature space-rock atmosphere and conjured some of her most electric live shows to date. ...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 53 min•Season 1Ep. 6
In this episode, Joey, Kristen, and Matt discuss Tori Amos' 2005 album The Beekeper. They explore the intersection of The Beekeeper with Tori's book with Ann Powers, Piece by Piece, 2000s fashion, and Tori's last record with major record labels before her emancipation day. Joey shares his track listing, focusing on the theme of betrayal. Kristen shares her track listing, a modern take on the 3 Marys, and Matt's track list is inspired by the 1973 film Ash Wednesday, featuring Elizabeth Taylor whe...
Mar 30, 2024•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Content warning: brief discussions of suicide. Please take care while listening. In this episode, Joey, Kristen, and Matt discuss Tori Amos' 2009 album 'Abnormally Attracted to Sin'. They explore the background of the album, including Tori's independence from major record labels and her collaboration with John Philip Shenale. The hosts also discuss the playfulness and dark themes present in the album, as well as the influence of Tori's previous album 'American Doll Posse'. The hosts delve into t...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 4
On this week’s episode of Messing with the Master, Matt, Joey, and Kristen travel to a (sonic) desert garden in Taos, New Mexico, to explore Tori's sophomore album Under the Pink. Joey explains how Tori Amos turned him gay, Matt recalls how a Drag Queen at the Gold Coast brought Tori into his life, and Kristen discusses being emotionally unavailable as the Heterosexual-in-Residence. Themes of queer identity, womanhood, betrayal, and romance are explored. Under the Pink playlists: KK, JV, MM Find...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Content warning: This episode includes discussions of SA, DV, suicide. Take care while listening. On this week’s episode of Messing with the Master, Kristen, Matt and Joey unpack the mystical complexities of Tori Amos’ 2017 gem, Native Invader, which chillingly encapsulates the doomsday tensions of the era in an atmospheric sonic snapshot of the personal, the political and the otherworldly. The year prior to the album’s release saw Amos in full-fledged activist mode with her contribution to the ...
Feb 15, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Three lifelong Tori Amos fans reflect on the iconic singer-songwriter’s catalog by thoughtfully and intentionally reorganizing each album into fresh playlists that explore Tori’s musical legacy as well their own interconnected personal narratives and friendship, which began with a shared passion for Tori’s music over 20 years ago. This week on the first episode of Messing with the Master, Joey, Kristen, and Matt are taking a sonic road trip across a post 9/11 America with one of Tori’s undispute...
Feb 04, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 1
A quick preview of Joey, Matt, and Kristen discussing Scarlet's Walk. The first episode of Messing with the Master coming February 2024! :D
Feb 01, 2024•56 sec•Season 1Ep. 1
