“This world is bullshit.”
This was the oft-misquoted, controversial claim Fiona Apple made at the 1997 VMAs. “You shouldn’t model your life about what you think that we think is cool… go with yourself.” Never one to color inside the lines, this aphorism captured the essence of Fiona’s attitude; which is not one of teenage angst or apathy as it was frequently misconstrued, but of holding strong in your own truth and not wavering for anyone else. This attitude has been a consistent theme throughout Apple’s work, from the 90-word poem that When the Pawn… was promptly titled after, to confronting ridiculous public scrutiny all the way to her fifth record Fetch The Bolt Cutters, discussing freedom from within from tracks one to thirteen.
Fiona Apple has always been a fierce social advocate, as one could gather from her most recent single Pretrial (Let Her Go Home), a musical call to action deeply personal to her discussing pretrial incarceration. Apple has spent the last few years organizing within her community and volunteering with the Free Black Mamas DMV Campaign raising money to bring mothers home from an unjust and premature incarceration. Her advocacy is sprinkled throughout her entire catalogue, from the track For Her, showing her support for the #MeToo movement, to her stance on the current presidential administration. Despite this, she is a considerably private public figure. Her life speaks for itself through her work.
It is no surprise then that she has accomplished in only five albums what very few are able to achieve in ten or more. With the exception of her first two, each of her albums are spaced out by six or more years. They each occupy different sonic and thematic worlds, strung together by only her voice and impressive piano playing. Over time, she has developed a more percussive, DIY sound, and has become more confrontational and direct in her lyricism. While no two albums are comparable, and it feels shameful to consider any one worse than the other, we will try our best to rank her timeless and inimitable catalogue of work.
Come along as Rough Trade NYC's Evan & Kenya rank the cult singer-songwriter's prolific discography.
5. Extraordinary Machine (2005)
The subject of controversy prior to its eventual release (and existing in two delightful versions), Extraordinary Machine is just that: the product of extraordinary circumstances. While maybe not Apple’s most striking effort, it still contains some of her best work (see Oh Well, Waltz, and Red Red Red) and some fine, fine words to keep you in a deliberate pace (“I am likely to miss the main event / If I stop to cry or complain again"). Its title track is one of the most accurate songs in her discography to showcase the ethos of her entire career: “Be kind to me / Or treat me mean / I’ll make the most of it / I’m an extraordinary machine.” The entire record is littered with unique and whimsical songs, isolating it from her prior dark and more melancholic attitude that we had all come to adore.
2005 was an especially transitional time in Apple’s career and personal life, still trying to fully battle the complexities of early adulthood. She had already solidified her place in the industry as a deeply articulate and honest woman.
"Maybe Extraordinary Machine was not her most distinctive work, but still holds it own in Fiona’s discography, and her musical footprint would be as deep without it. Be refreshed and let the damned breeze dry your face!"
Kenya & Evan
4. Tidal (1996)
“They don’t know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea/But he washed me ashore/And he took my pearl/And left an empty shell of me.”
Although she was just shy of 19 when it came out, her debut album shows writing prowess and wisdom beyond her years. “Is that why they call me a sullen girl?” Apple sings on the album’s second track. Her emotionally stirring lyrics are only heightened by the dreamy production and Fiona’s rolling, sea-like piano accompaniment. It is hard to believe someone so young was capable of writing with such clarity and intensity.
What keeps me coming back to this album is not just Fiona’s unsurprisingly stellar songwriting or even her voice (more subdued here than on later projects), but the twinkly, celestial production, which is unlike any of her other albums. Other highlights include the chilling string arrangement in Never is a Promise courtesy of the legendary Van Dyke Parks, the relentlessly catchy The First Taste, and the album’s explosive closer Carrion.
Evan
3. Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020)
“And I know none of this will matter in the long run, but I know a sound is still a sound around no one.”
Eight years post her intimate and evocative The Idler Wheel..., an older and somehow even wiser Fiona returns with her most unconfined and intensely personal work yet. A true top to bottom masterpiece of percussive heartbeats, poetic, raw lyricism and fiercely visceral melodies. Seamlessly filled with everyday noises of her dogs barking, hand clapping, foot stomping, scatting, banging on her walls and letting the natural echo fill each song, Fiona paints the story of a woman unshackled. A woman who has been freed from years of frivolous expectations and being silenced by those around her: “Kick me under the table all you want / I won’t shut up.”
Every track on this record hypnotizes any listener from the theatrical, sporadic lingering childhood memory of Shameika, to profoundly honest Newspaper, all the way to the carefree self-manifesto that closes the record with On I Go.
An often forgotten highlight of this record for me is right in the middle at track eight Ladies. The song starting with the melodic chant that ebbs and flows through a frustrated yet quite playful attitude not frequently highlighted in Fiona’s work: “There’s a dress in the closet / Don’t get rid of it / You look good in it / I didn’t fit in it / It was never mine / It belonged to the ex-wife of another ex of mine / She left it behind…”
To me, it’s quite impossible and almost unfair to claim Fiona has any sort of “magnum opus” in her career. There is not a single record that does not evoke a mesmerizingly emotional world for the listeners to experience- how lucky we are. To come back after so long and create an immediate classic is truly something only a once in a lifetime artist like Fiona Apple could do. In a cultural time of such utter isolation Fiona put into words what so many were feeling, “Fetch the bolt cutters / I’ve been in here too long.”
Kenya
2. The Idler Wheel... (2012)
The Idler Wheel… marks the start of a new sonic direction for Fiona. Instead of the lush orchestral atmospheres created by Jon Brion and other collaborators in her previous albums, The Idler Wheel... is sparser, more deliberate and, as a result, more intimate. Her lyricism is also some of the starkest and most unyielding of her career. Every song here is a career highlight, from the heart-wrenching Valentine, the poignant and metaphor-laden Werewolf, to the straight-up banger Hot Knife.
The centerpiece of the album is Left Alone, which starts with just the sound of a thumping drum and crescendos into an ominous piano hook followed by a string of lyrics only Fiona would think to write, rhyming “orotund mutt” with “moribund slut” (her brain!). You cannot help but anguish with her as she repeatedly wails the question, “How can I ask anyone to love me/ When all I do is beg to be left alone?”
This album sonically lays the groundwork for her next album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, the cultural impact of which is arguably greater, but I have a personal preference for the intimacy and lyrical directness of this one.
Evan
1. When the Pawn... (1999)
“Hunger hurts / And I want him so bad / Oh it kills / Hunger hurts / But starving works / When it costs too much to love.”
Following her piano-driven and emotionally powerful debut Tidal, Fiona’s sophomore and critically acclaimed record When The Pawn… arrived just three brief years later, often times shortened from its original 90-word title, a poem Fiona herself wrote:
"When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring
There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you're right"
At the time it was written off as a cry for attention. In reality, it sets up the themes explored in the music that shortly followed beautifully: reclaiming her power as an artist and reminding herself authenticity is arguably the most crucial attribute to properly nourish her creative mind and sanity. Discovering this record years after its initial release (sadly, I was not born yet) and listening from top to bottom, I remember welcoming my lifelong affinity I’d inevitably have to Fiona’s work with open arms. Wrapping her “I’m not shy, I just don’t speak if I don’t have anything to say” honesty into an intense alternative jazz inspired 10-track record, Fiona explores self sabotage, the frustration and struggle of feeling misunderstood and tumultuous relationships. “He said it’s all in your head / and I said so’s everything / but he didn’t get it,” Fiona woefully sings on Paper Bag, one of the most admired song on the record for its relatability within vulnerability and bluntness grappling with the all-too-exhausting yearn for romantic closeness.
When The Pawn has always been not only a standout favourite within Fiona’s discography for me, but a rare all-time record that I hold dear to my heart for far more reasons than one, and far more reasons than I'd have time to discuss. Its textural depth and ability to transcend genre along with jaw-dropping, chilling melodies swirled throughout make it impossible to not be swept off into Fiona’s storytelling. The snippiness of Fast As You Can and fervor of Get Gone are enough to make this record listening experience intoxicatingly addicting all the way to the closing track, maybe Fiona’s finest ballad, I Know.
In a world where women are so often not only desired to be but flat out expected to be: softer, smaller, sweeter Fiona is not afraid to take up space. To this very day her words continue to dance down and echo throughout the hallways of schools empowering young women and girls to reclaim the (deeply misogynistic) stereotype of a “dramatic, sensitive woman" to be flat out unequivocally angry. Moody, furious, pissed off. To understand it is outright bullshit for women to be forced to diminish how they feel to be taken seriously in any sense of the word. “Do I wanna do right? Of course. But do I really wanna feel I’m forced to answer you? Hell no.”
"When The Pawn is, to its core, a flawless album of epic proportions. Utterly timeless and nothing short of a masterpiece that will live on and reverberate through new music for decades to come."
Kenya and Evan