I'm a fan (and you should be too) because...Tori is an absolute genius, and I get shivers from her songs a thousand times over. She encompasses a whole landscape of musical styles, which definitely keeps me continually interested. The first couple of hundred times or so that I listen to a song, I hear something new. And then a live version is a whole other story! Her music is interesting, tells stories, betrays incredible emotion (I always cry for a week when a new album comes out, but it’s a happy cry), and makes me want to dance and sing unlike anything else! Tori is elegant and brazen, outspoken and humble, smart, politically charged, unbelievably beautiful, and she caries a sparkling aura that you cannot deny. Tori also helped me marry my Marys!

I’ve heard no other artist who has the ability to reach into my soul and find so many connections. I don’t know if she calls in the goddesses to get a connection to her listeners, or if she’s just so damn smart to figure out the relevance of their influence, and the connection we feel is just a byproduct of how incredibly awesome she is! Either way, it works, and it gives her music an identifiability that we can all connect with in some way.

When Little Earthquakes came out I was 16, and, like many of you, I clearly remember hearing her for the first time. Nothing dramatic – a friend played it for me in her bedroom as we were conspiring on our homework. Maybe if my friend had quit singing along , I would have gotten it right away, but probably not, because almost all of her music takes an adjustment period before I really get it – so I can get to know all the girls!

Well, once I had a chance to hear her again, I knew that I had to get that album (tape, actually, at the time), which was a big deal for a girl with no money. It’s been a spiral of passion since then. I now own multiple copies of every studio recording, plus bonus discs, singles, bootlegs, covers, soundtracks. I never pass up the chance to purchase a song I don’t have. My music player claims that I have 45 different discs, 498 songs (with some duplicates and many live versions), total of 2.2 gigs of just Tori. And it’s not that money is no problem at all, it’s just that Tori is what I live for. I shop second-hand, gave up vices, pinch pennies for myself more than my family, because then I can justify spending what it takes to buy all of her music and go to a few shows. This year will be shows number 8 and 9, and if all goes well 10 and 11, too. I have not taken but one day off in the last two years so that I could request the time off needed to go to shows. My family knows that they will lose me for a week or so when Tori comes to town (well, state, region…), although my husband will come with me to one show (as he has many times in the past), and this year will be my oldest daughter’s first show.