I admit I’ve always been a closet Fiona Apple fan. I liked “Criminal” when it came out and particularly remember the brutally grimy hard-and-frontal flashcube lighting the video employed. I also liked “Shadowboxer.” She was lumped in with all of the other angry white girl soloists of the time—products calculated by the industry to fill in the gap Alanis was leaving behind—but even then I knew she was superior to Alanis and the others. She was tiny and waifish yet also kind of manly and her masculine piano-based composing made me think more of a future Tori Amos.
But man was she confessional. And her lyrics were hideous. Or a lot of them were, anyway. Sure she was trying for something a little more poetic and intelligent than the other white-girl product the labels were churning out, and hey, she was only nineteen, but man, some of her verses were cringable. And did I say confessional? And clearly a little bit of a head case as well.
Around the time “Magnolia” came out I learned that PT Anderson and Fiona Apple were dating and I went out and bought her sophomore effort based on this information and a cursory listen to the first single,“Fast As You Can,” in a NY movie theater. I figured if my favorite director can see something in this girl-becoming-a-woman then my closeted-and-not-acted-upon fandom might just be validated. I went out and bought “When the Pawn” and it was excellent, excellent. I noticed that Jon Brion (Anderson’s composer) produced, and I have tremendous respect for him as an artist, so there you go, with all of these people respecting the confessional waif-girl, maybe I was right all along to like her.
But man was she confessional. Things seemed tempered a little bit this time around, but that self-indulgent core of victimy confession was still all up in my grille. Can’t she sing about something other than Men Doing Her Wrong? Sheesh.
So the new record, “Extraordinary Machine” came out Tuesday and I bought it at the iTunes store for ten dollars (which is what a record should cost, BTW), and it too is excellent. This is a great record. A great great record.
But man she’s more confessional than ever. Some time in the six years it took to make this record PT Anderson and Apple broke up and she’s dragging all of her angst and rage right into the public view. If I had to say what “Extraordinary Machine” is about, I’d say this record is about PT Anderson being an asshole. The biggest most abusive asshole in the world. What a dick—I mean really. The shadow of Anderson looms in every song, assholing all over the place. What an abusive piece of shit. Someone should call the authorities.
Now, I gotta admit that I’m kind of siding with my namesake on this one. I have no doubt that he’s a sarcastic jerk of a megalomaniac, but I would be even worse under the circumstances. First of all, it took her 6 years to put out this record. What is she doing with her life all of this time? How does she spend her days? I’d start getting a little sarcastic too if I came home from directing “Punch Drunk Love” and found my girlfriend watching TV and being needy. So I’m already a little prejudiced and in every nasty resentful line she spits out I think about the situation as a whole that probably went down and how Anderson was probably justified in his assholery and how she—prone to hysterics and hyperbole (a bad combination)—is probably blowing things out of proportion and exaggerating for effect.
So this is why this intrigues me so much: Like M. Night Shyamalan’s "The Village," Fiona Apple manages to divide my logical and emotional sides right down the middle. I hate what Fiona Apple stands for (privilege, sloth, self-indulgence, neediness, public confession) but I love her music. It’s angry and beautiful and sad and lonely and spirited music. And sometimes her lyrics do work and I’m saying “Damn you, Fiona, damn you to hell! Real men don’t like this music!” In her second record she belts out this one line: “Baaaa-by lay your head in my lap one more time” and the way she sings it always slays me no matter how many times I hear it.
This time around, after an eleven song Deluge of Vitriol:
"Curious you looking down your nose at me while you appease"
"Oh you stupid silly pastime of mine"
"I took my glasses off when you were yelling at me once"
"When I was looking with calm affection you were searching out my imperfections what wasted unconditional love on somebody who doesn’t believe in the stuff"
And some particularly acidic passages:
"It doesn’t seem fair that your wicked words should work in holding me down"
“What is this posture I have to stare at?” that’s what he said when I was sitting up straight."
"But I’m not being fair, cause I chose to listen to that filthy Mouth"
"But I’d like to choose right, take all the things that I said that he stole, put em in a sack + walk into a lovelier light"
Fiona does a surprising thing:
She relents…confessing the thing, the real thing…not the tough raging thing she wants the world to think she’s confessing. She sings (and it’s not in the lyric sheet, which is telling) very softly, after an loud and angy rant…she sings “I miss that stupid ape….”
I miss that stupid ape.
And that kind of says it all, really. I don’t hate her anymore. I don’t hate her at all. I actually feel kind of bad.
But not enough to want to date her.
2 comments:
I'm telling you, switch to Bjork. Half the time you don't know what she's singing about, especially on that new one of hers, and it doesn't matter. It's all about the voice. I have to say that Fiona's voice kind of put me off to begin with--too faux vulnerable. That bugs.
As for confessional: isn't it whether it's good confessional, and not the whole category? I sometimes think--and not necessarily saying this is you, sleepy-e--that the denigration of the confessional is a reaction against the feminine. I say this not because all confessors are female, but because telling that hurt story is a girl-thing to do. It seems to me that the reaction against confessional poetry, for instance, is a kind of misogyny in disguise. Certainly not you, of course. Anyhow, I'll give the new Apple a listen--nobody has anything but good to say about it.
Hmmm. I don't know. If a woman writes a play about two men who refuse to ask for directions when they are very very lost, does that mean she's anti-male (since this is such a standard male behavior)? I don't like too much makeup on women but most women do wear a lot so am I misogynistic to comment negatively on it?
But I think you are right, it is kind of male to internalize one's problems and not talk shit thru w/ one's homies. And as an "artist," I just believe more in the power of the "thing left unsaid" and all that. As a male and an "artist" and a "male artist" things just seem to work out better that way. Obviously all writing is confession to some degree, so perhaps it's just a matter of degree? Maybe I should have said "on the nose" or "heavyhanded inwardness" something else instead.
On a lighter note, yes, I am a big Bjork fan as well. I love how her sometimes slilted English generates unexpected lyrics...Like in "Modern Things" from "Post": All the modern things like cars and such have always existed, they've just been waitng in a mountain for the right moment, listening to the irritating noises of dinosaurs and people dabbling outside."
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