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List Price: $19.95 | | Publisher: Hal Leonard
Salesrank: 290236
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| Our Price: $4.14 |
| Used Price: $3.69 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
How did the shy and conflicted daughter of a minister become one of today's most important artists? Tori Amos is a unique voice in rock. She is an artist, a poet, an emotional chanteuse, a wordsmith, a pianist, and most of all, an entertainer who has opened herself up to her audience in a way most musicians would never dare. Tori Amos was a musical prodigy, so talented that she was the youngest child ever to be admitted to one of the world's most prestigious musical academies - and so rebellious that she was eventually thrown out. She is a feminist who questions the core values of feminism. She was a little girl who played piano in gay bars. She is a pioneering businesswoman. She is a rape victim who has transcended tragedy, and has drawn inspiration from the darkest incidents of her life. Tori Amos is a complex artist in a complex world. "I'm an acquired taste," she once told Rolling Stone magazine, but her fans are obsessive in their love. Jay S. Jacobs has written a detailed and passionate portrait of this controversial, kooky, and multifaceted singer. Pretty Good Years is an honest and comprehensive look at this bracingly original performer.
Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos Reviews:
A Pretty Good (But Nowhere Near Great) Biography 
2007-08-18 - 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.
Pretty Good Year 
2007-02-23 - 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.
A detailed look at her times and her trend-setting ways.
2006-11-05 - 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.
Unimpressive 
2006-10-07 - 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.
Proofreader, please? 
2006-09-13 - 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.
