Fiona Apple’s “Idler Wheel”

Fiona Apple
Photo Credit: Dan Monick

When Tidal was first released in 1996 the world was introduced to the "Sullen Girl," an eighteen-year-old Fiona Apple who would soon become a Grammy award winner with little patience for fame and expectations within pop culture. Her songs and music videos were likely misunderstood by those expecting a jovial sound from the pretty girl behind the piano, but, like any woman that has had enough, she remained unapologetically herself.

In 1999 she released her second album titled, When The Pawn..., proving herself a more assured and lyrically mature songwriter and musician. "If you wanna make sense, what you looking at me for?" she asks. It would be seven years before Apple would release another album, Extraordinary Machine, which due to a controversial last minute change in producers has two versions - both similar, but the original much more playful and explorative instrumentally than the official release.

Her most recent work, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, is entirely acoustic and finds Fiona Apple at her most bare lyrically, vocally and musically. The production is vastly different from her previous albums, and it's clear she was able to be more deliberate through its creation.

Like many folk musicians, Fiona Apple doesn't hide any tricks up her sleeve when it comes to performing. Her smooth mellow voice, the loud bellow of a piano, and vivid lyricism is all that's required for a solid record, and her discography follows the progression of a young artist with so much to say, to a self-aware musician finally able to exercise the power and force of raw emotion and intellect musically. This record is an echoing defiance from past musical styles, dissonant and electric - but still always lyrical.