Introverted But Willing To Discuss Tori Amos

It's happening!! 🤩 With Tori's 2026 U.S. tour kicking off in less than 48 hours, we're in full pre-tour geek mode. In this special tour-eve episode, we're answering your listener questions —mostly about the tour— plus a handful of fun surprises. Come join the frenzied excitement, the wild speculation, and the joyful anticipation. 

Let's GO! ❤️🎹

We are gay gasping in excitement as we celebrate Pride month by having a much needed - and much requested - dialogue about Tori’s passionate, lifelong relationship with and connection to the queer community. As if that weren’t SINsual enough, we have the absolute delight and privilege of doing so by welcoming true Renaissance Man, Very Famous Homosexual, and most importantly, staunch Toriphile, John Arthur Hill to the podcast. 

Chances are you already know John - either from his wickedly funny social media presence, or from his Sirius Radio shows The John Hill Show and A...

In this savory and sweet episode of Introverted but Willing to Discuss Tori Amos, we are joined by Timothy Pakron, cookbook author, photographer, food stylist, recipe architect, gardener, and the creative force behind Mississippi Vegan.

Timothy’s acclaimed cookbook Mississippi Vegan reimagines Southern, Cajun, and Creole cuisine through a plant-based lens, with recipes rooted in the food, land, traditions, and family stories of his Mississippi Gulf Coast childhood. His work celebrates place, memory, beauty, queerness, ritual, and the ever-evolving idea of comfort.

But behind all that lush, edible magic is something else we obviously needed to...

Welcome to all of our sonic librarians and album archivists! In this episode we are doing something extremely dangerous to our reputations in the Tori fandom, and maybe even with Tori herself… We are ranking the albums.

AAHHHHHHhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before anyone lights a candle circle around their #1 album and starts sending nasty messages, this is not definitive, objective, or scientific Tori scholarship. This is just three longtime fans having fun and seeing where our hearts land right now, in this particular moment, because honestly In Times of Dragons has scrambled our brains a little bit. The ne...

We’re joined today by John Philip Shenale. AGAIN! What a compliment. JPS is a producer, composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, and one of Tori Amos’ most essential longtime creative collaborators. He’s been behind some of the most defining sonic worlds in her catalog for decades.

In this episode, we go deep into 23 Peaks, the closing track from In Times of Dragons. And while we don’t seek to be completist or archivist with this look at 23 Peaks, we know that people want more. This song is not really just a song. It feels more like crossing a thresh...

This is a truly momentous occasion as we bring you an exclusive track by track review of Tori’s long awaited new album  - her first in 5 years - In Times of Dragons, which imagines another woman we’ll call Tori escaping the clutches of her Peter Thiel-quoting, billionaire “Lizard Demon” husband and going on a literal and metaphysical journey to both reconnect with her estranged daughter and seek help from a circle of Dragon Queens to remove the blade-like scales growing from her spine before ultimately realizing her destiny is indeed to give herself over to the Ancient Order and...

Calling all of our fellow setlist scholars and lounge lizards 🦎 👩‍🏫 🎹 

We hear and feel your palpable excitement about Tori on tour right now, and honestly, we are still geeking out in real time as the setlists roll in each night too. So we thought we’d keep capturing that magic and excitement.

Tonight, each of us has picked five songs that we desperately want to see Tori perform on the In Times of Dragons tour. As of now, a few shows in, none of these have appeared in the setlist yet—and we haven’t shared our picks with...

Welcome to Introverted but Willing to Discuss Tori Amos — the podcast for quiet thinkers, deep listeners, and anyone who has ever had a life moment soundtracked by a Tori Amos song.

On Episode 3, Kristen, Matt and Joey discuss something that lives somewhere between ritual and road trip: Tori Amos on tour. 

Because a Tori tour isn’t just a series of concerts — it’s a living, breathing, moving cultural conversation. Songs shift, setlists breathe, old tracks reappear in new emotional colors, and every night becomes its own little universe.

Whether you’ve followed Tori across...

On our 2nd episode of season 3, we have the pleasure and privilege of being joined by the one and only Rod Thomas, better known as the iconique Bright Light, Bright Light, an artist, songwriter, producer, and DJ who has released five studio albums since 2012, his most recent being the UK top 10 selling Enjoy Youth from 2024. 

While being a fully independent artist, he has recorded with some of the music's biggest names, including Sir Elton John, Scissor Sisters, Justin Vivian Bond, Erasure, Madonna's backing singers, Nikki and Donna, and Ultra Naté. 

He has also toured the wor...

For our Season 3 premiere we are going to zoom in on Tori’s relationship to cinema. I (Matt) have always been inspired by the movies, movies are my earliest memories. They were my first love, my longest relationship and for a long time, my bread and butter. 

On our season 2 episode featuring JPS JV asked him how he would describe Tori’s music. We see Tori as a great auteur, someone who creates worlds that are cinematic and immersive. In that respect, she is like the Martin Scorsese of singer-songwriters: a director who can handle any genre throw...

A wise man (not really, it was just Matt Mazur) once said "Tori Amos invented sex," and in this season finale, we’re proving it. Whether she's falling in love in the snow or commanding the piano bench, Tori knows how to turn it up a notch. We’ve got a "DTF" playlist ready for you to enjoy the winter chill that bends. We’re introverted, we’re obsessed, and we’re ready to discuss the steamier side of Tori Amos.

One Night Stand: TA DTF playlist

There’s not just one Tori Amos.

There’s the mystical Tori. The one who whispers and stirs your soul with a single, dramatically drawn breathy sigh. Ethereal and enchanted. Imagine her as a church choir girl sun, faerie moon and a mermaid rising if you’re into astrology. 

Then there’s the sensual Tori. The one who moves like honey, undulating on the piano bench, eyes half-closed, turning her microphone into a… lover. Desire and divinity inhabit the same body, and she always finishes on top. ;) 

And then there’s the Tori who bares her...

We are honored to have a producer, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, musical visionary in our presence. He's worked alongside some of the biggest legends in music history, and he also happens to be Tori Amos' longtime write or die right-hand man across many decades and many projects. Most recently, this dynamic duo collaborated on the wildly whimsical soundtrack that accompanies the New York Times best-selling children's book Tori and the Muses, please welcome our friend, the maestro, John Philip Shenale.

We've heard you love our list making so we're coming at you with yet another list. This time...

In this episode, we open the mailbag and dive into your burning questions. Will there be a 2026 tour? Is a new album on the horizon? We share our takes, speculate wildly, and cover the topics you most wanted to hear about. 

We’re doing things a bit differently as we welcome our very first guest for a very special episode, where we’ll attempt to scratch the surface of Tori’s complicated relationship with the media over the past three decades. We’ll explore not only how she’s been represented (and misrepresented) by an often unforgiving and unflattering press, but also the ways in which Tori’s intuition and perceptiveness allowed her to have the upper hand, talking circles around and discomfiting her inquisitors, and making clear that she wouldn’t back down from her ideals or be silenced by patriarchal...

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 celebrated, less heard by the ge...

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 obsessive. Sometimes “people” don’t like us playing our gir...

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 with heat, history, and a little bit of blood memory.Now, let’s pu...

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-searing sonic landscapes.

Tori Amos’ “Silly Songs” have always been a part of the fabric of her musica...

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 figures in contemporary popular music. With hundreds of beloved, canonical songs under her belt, it would be a fool’s errand to try and discern...

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 their favorite redheaded singer-songwriter’s most sought-after compositions and the complex history behind song...

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 👩🏻‍🦰

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. Playlists: MM  KK JV

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 shattered psyche, Boys for Pele might actually be the anti-pop record. Ironically, Tori’s biggest-selling single off the record (her biggest-selling single...

“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 intricate. T would make sure I totally got it, explaining ever...

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 songwriters were saying these really malicious things … and I really felt … that a generalized image of the antiwoman, antigay heterosexual man had hijacked Western male heter...

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 to Sin (2009). If that album found Amos floating above a palette of darkly-glowing synths and sultry beats, then Geraldines was firmly grounded in what many would deem the Amos “signat...

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 a bonus live disc that was released on September 21st, 1999, my 17th birthday...

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 exploring roles, ADP’s real gag was stunningly Cindy Sherman-esque: Amos would manifest her characters in a new way, by literally be...

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 something a David Lynch character might sob inconsolably to while draped over a diner jukebox.  This juxtaposition is the essenc...

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– if any– albums from debut artists sustain the kind of power and resonance of Little Earthquakes. Amos dared to make the...

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. Yet, inexplicably, she still was forced to face down misogynistic criticism in all corners of the male-dominated world of music journalism, even...

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 where she plays a woman willing to get her man back by going to any length. Themes include European history, betrayal...

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 the visualettes that accompanied the album and the alternate narratives they presented. They explore the idea of Tori as a character actress, the experimentation i...

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 Messing with the Master on YouTube and Instagram (@messingwiththemaster)

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 Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy - the soaring original song “Flicker” - making global headlines as she once again lent her voice to victims...

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 undisputed masterpieces, Scarlet’s Walk, which this past fall celebrated its 20th anniversary. Scarlet's Walk playlists:  Joey | Kristen | Matt Find Messing with...

A quick preview of Joey, Matt, and Kristen discussing Scarlet's Walk. The first episode of Messing with the Master coming February 2024! :D