Forget Carmen San Diego. Where in the world is Fiona Apple? It’s been six years since the release of “Extraordinary Machine,” an album Rolling Stone counted among the top 50 albums of the entire decade. Since then, the soulful singer has blended into the crowd better than a hipster at a Death Cab for Cutie concert. Even when Billboard announced a new album would drop in spring 2011, the season silently sailed by, music-less.
When she and her producer, Jon Brion, contributed a track to this summer’s star-studded tribute album, “Rave On Buddy Holly,” I exclaimed, “She’s alive!” Clearly, I hadn’t done my due diligence before lamenting her absence, because I recently learned that she’s been right here in Los Angeles, occasionally contributing to benefit concerts, collaborating with other artists and discreetly playing Club Largo every now and then.
I may sit here and champion Fiona Apple’s brilliance, but I don’t beg you to agree. I’ve known some who are glad she has fallen off the map, and they’ve got sound reasons. Many remember her as an overly poetic, whiny teenage girl full of angst who achieved success with other overly poetic, whiny teenage girls full of angst with her first album, 1996’s “Tidal.” (This is true.) Released when she was 19, this album was a commercial success, though Apple’s aversion to commercial success saw her railing on MTV when she won Best New Artist at the 1997 MTV Awards. Several magazines labeled the outburst ridiculous and ungrateful (also true). Still, her jazzy style and musicality were undeniably beyond her years, if unpolished.
Strangely, anyone I know who wrote off Apple after hearing her music and witnessing such behavior over the years knew nothing about her. A quick skim of her Wikipedia page reveals, most notably, that Apple was raped by a stranger at age 12. In the years following this trauma, she withdrew, experienced violent dreams and sunk into a severe depression. In a 1998 interview with Rolling Stone, she admitted the rumors of an eating disorder were true, which frustrated her because assumptions of anorexia were in fact untrue. “For me it wasn’t about getting thin,” Apple said. “It was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body.” So, yeah, I think some of her issues can be viewed with a bit more compassion.
When her second album, 1999’s “When the Pawn,” was unveiled with a 90-word album title, eyes rolled. The title was a poem she wrote in response to negative press in Spin magazine, beginning with the line “When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king.” Rolling Stone parodied the poem, calling it, “When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Oh the Hell with It.” However, the album garnered even more critical acclaim than her first album. Although it was an RIAA-certified platinum album, its commercial success did not live up to her debut, a certified three-time platinum record in the U.S.
After a tour in 2000, in which she melted down on stage in New York, Apple considered retiring from music. She collaborated with Johnny Cash twice during this downtime, which might be the perfect way to spend a hiatus. But in her weekly lunch with friend and producer Jon Brion, he convinced her to record an album of her own again. Thank you, Jon. Her third album, full of sardonic wit and new perspective, showed us an artistic evolution from her days as a teenage provocateur who felt like a “Criminal” needing punishment to a sophisticated, polished 28-year-old confidently heralding a “Better Version of Me.” Her elastic contralto voice carries the structurally solid album with heart-rending charm. “In a genre hardly noted for springing surprises on its listeners,” the Guardian wrote, “Extraordinary Machine sounds like a real achievement: however torturous the gestation, it seems worthwhile.”
Sure, people still scoffed because she uses words like “stentorian” in her lyrics, but would we rather she wake up and brush her teeth with a bottle of Jack? explain what days of the week follow Friday? No, Apple’s insights have always belied her age, even back in her college days. I hope she hasn’t decided to end her recording career on the high note that was “Extraordinary Machine.” For now, I’ll give Billboard the benefit of the doubt and say there is indeed a new album coming. If Fiona Apple has taught us anything, it’s patience. And a little angst. But mostly patience.
