Tag: Fiona Apple

audio review : When The Pawn ( album ) … Fiona Apple

audio review : When The Pawn ( album ) ... Fiona Apple

The full title of this album reads like poetry.

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 nobody 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 wont matter cause you’ll know that you’re right.

Good thing for sweet Fiona Apple, who’s gorgeous when she’s not gum grinning, titles don’t matter much when it comes to the quality of an album. It’s based mostly on how it sounds. That part she has covered. Even as you realize her poems are mostly just romantic ramblings, her style is enchanting enough to make them mean something.

It’s Jon Brion who directs the music, composed mostly of classical instruments you’re not used to hearing on a modern-day pop album like the violin and the cello. His soundscapes gloss what may have otherwise been mere Love songs with dreamy elegance; the kind that never really goes out of style. Highlights include I Know and Paper Bag.

my rating : 4 of 5

1999

audio review : On I Go ( song ) … Fiona Apple

I don’t know what Fiona Apple’s Going for here, but she needs to head back and try again. This song; I use that term loosely; is abominable. She repeats the same incoherent vocals over and over again, which might not be so bad if they weren’t off-beat.

“On I go, not toward or away,” she says to what sounds like people banging on pots and pans. It’s probably the worst song she’s ever made; certainly the worst she’s put on an album. It sounds like something that came out while she was on the toilet.

my rating : 1 of 5

2020

audio review : Fetch The Bolt Cutters ( album ) ... Fiona Apple

audio review : Ladies ( song ) … Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple’s man is leaving her. She’s not bitter though, at least not on the outside, as she offers her personal items; the ones she has at his house; to his other/future Ladies. “There’s a dress in the closet,” she reveals, “You’d look good in it.”

The beginning and ending bits in which the singer repeats herself tunelessly should’ve been cut, but there’s a good song in the form of a feminist power anthem in-between. The best parts are when the background humming comes in.

my rating : 4 of 5

2020

audio review : Fetch The Bolt Cutters ( album ) ... Fiona Apple

audio review : Fetch The Bolt Cutters ( album ) … Fiona Apple

audio review : Fetch The Bolt Cutters ( album ) ... Fiona Apple

Perhaps the title doubles as a reference to how long it took for Fiona Apple to release this album. At this rate, it’ll be about another decade until we get another one. With that it demands careful and repeated listens, at least for her loyal and patient fans.

I’m one, though I haven’t liked a Fiona Apple album since Extraordinary Machine, the best songs of which were produced by Jon Brion. He also moved The Pawn, probably her best album. Is it coincidence the quality of her music declined when they split ways?

Fetch The Bolt Cutters sounds more like The Idler Wheel, which offered Anything We Want and Valentine; Largo would easily be the best song if it were actually on that album; as highlights. Most of its songs are middling though, which is also the case here.

It seems Fiona Apple needs to be reacquainted with melody, at least at the breaks where it matters. Most of these songs aren’t bad, but she’s too comfortable repeating awkward bars of fortune cookie poetry; “Evil is a Relay sport”; and passing it off as a hook.

The Mellotron riff on Rack Of His sounds enchanting though, even as Apple offers little of substance to accommodate it vocally. She does better on Cosmonauts, where she actually manages a cutesy chorus, and the feel-good feminist anthem Ladies.

my rating : 3 of 5

2020