I’m still learning to be as chill about strife as “Extraordinary Machine” plays at, to see the quest to be “cool” as the act of futility and wasted time “ Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is telling me it was all along. It took time to see, say, “Carrion” - “My feel for you, boy, is decaying right in front of me, like the carrion of a murdered prey” - as a piece of deliberate melodrama. Here was someone who understood the intensity of teenage feelings but who had gained the necessary distance to view them as sort of silly. Back in 1996, when I was using Tidal lyrics to stoke the fires of doomed crushes on classmates, Fiona’s music was a light at the end of the tunnel of high school. It’s a story of an artist whose music has grown somehow a little more pure each step of the way, whose catalog is a breadcrumb trail leading the intrepid listener to startling revelations about love and self-sufficiency. The list below is a list of Fiona albums ordered by degrees of greatness. I should start by saying that in nearly 25 years of listening to Fiona Apple, I’ve never heard a bad album and have scarcely encountered a bad song. And we sure are lucky for it, because she's only gotten better and better at what she does.Apple’s catalog is a breadcrumb trail leading the intrepid listener to startling revelations about love and self-sufficiency. It's as raw and real and emotionally complex as anything she's produced, and it allows us to see how she's grown as an artist and developed her craft over the years.Īt least half the time, Tidal is a brooding, melancholy jazz album, and it's probably a fluke of the mid 90s music scene that it became popular enough that someone who makes music like Fiona could ever be considered a "pop star." In some ways, that level of scrutiny and attention wasn't so great for her, but to have such a commercially successful record put her in a position where she could take more control of her creative output. Tidal is Fiona's juvenilia, the art that was crafted during her youth. And because she was just starting out, she didn't really have a say in the production, or even have the experience to know what she wanted out of it anyway.īut still, there's something charming about her inexperience. Her singing is good, but you can tell she doesn't have a lot of vocal confidence yet. ![]() A few songs probably could've baked for a little longer. It's front loaded with the big energy songs, so the second half ends up feeling like a drag in comparison. It's a testament to Fiona's talent and resilience, as well as to the brilliant session musicians working with her, that Tidal is as good as it is. ![]() Fiona's voice, lyrics, composition, and musicianship were already so advanced at just 17/18 when she was recording.Īnd by all accounts, she didn't have an easy time making this record either, thrown into the fire of the music industry with barely any performing experience, being a teen girl suddenly surrounded by all these male 30-something professional musicians, and struggling with severe OCD and other mental health issues. Imagine being 18 and coming out swinging with the confidence and swagger of Sleep to Dream or the naked vulnerability of Sullen Girl and NIAP or the weary maturity of Shadowboxer or the dynamic drama of Slow like Honey. It's the unfiltered lyrical perspective of a teenage girl. She didn't have a handful of cowriters or get paired up with a career songwriter the way a lot of young musicians do these days. It's especially mind-boggling when you think about how a teenager was the sole songwriter. I'd rank Tidal as my least favorite Fiona album, but it's still an excellent record and an impressive debut. ![]() Does anyone else feel the same or am I just crazy?Įdit: I’d like to state, this is about Tidal’s production mainly and this is about the songs not listed above. I am 10000% aware of Sullen Girl's tragic backstory, so I really mean no hate for it (there is no hatred for it, but it's in the wrong place on the tracklist.) She did the same thing with Limp to Love Ridden which makes it hard to enjoy it at times, but on it's own, it's great). I also find the transition from Sleep to Dream to Sullen Girl (production wise) is just. ![]() I find the lyrics for Tidal though just truly remarkable but as a listener it's just not for me. I do like 'Sleep to Dream', 'Shadowboxer', 'Criminal', 'Slow Like Honey' & 'The First Taste' though. I have major respect for what Tidal did for her career though, but I'm just not loving it. meh? I don't want to offend at all, but every time I give it a try, I find myself going back to any of her other stuff. I'd like to preface this by saying that I enjoy most of Fiona's work (my first Fiona album was FTBC if this helps at all) but I find Tidal pretty.
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