Posted in: Pop by Aaron Chan on May 14th, 2009 | 0 Comments
A teenager who actually has something intelligent to say. Could this be true?
As someone who grew up during the ’90’s, compared to today’s music, it was a great decade of music. Acts from the Spice Girls to Sarah McLachlan to Third Eye Blind to Nirvana were all popular. The music in these years were grittier in sound, unafraid to push and go past boundaries previous artists didn’t seem to cross (apart from, perhaps, Madonna and her burning crucifixes). Out of the numerous established musicians came a 19 year old girl, signed to Sony (one of the major music labels) and her first album, Tidal. Thus began the start of Fiona Apple.
If you’re ever in a depressed or bitter mood, Fiona’s music is what you want to listen to, which isn’t to say that Fiona herself is an unhappy person. For a mere 19 year old, the collection of 10 tracks on her debut album reveal an incredible maturity, not only as a person, but as a musician and lyricist. The opening track, “Sleep to Dream” begins with percussion, including a rolling drum, which coats the song with the anger; her sophisticated lyrics are present in the chorus, with lines such as “This mind, this body, and this voice cannot be stifled by your deviant ways/So don’t forget what I told you, don’t come around/I got my own hell to raise.”
Apple’s silky alto voice is the perfect instrument for her songs. She manages to get enough emotion out of “Sullen Girl”, an account of her personal experience involving rape. And while her voice suits the slower, melodic songs, it does have its range of styles, like in “Criminal”, arguably her best-known single. If all the Britneys and Rihannas in the music world knew how to write music instead of all the different ways to sing about how much sex they want to get, they’d at least come up with intelligent songs about it. “Criminal”, which went on to win a Grammy for Apple, is about “feeling bad for getting something so easily by using your sexuality.”, something today’s youth don’t seem to relate to. But that’s another topic altogether.
In addition to writing all ten tracks by herself, Apple is a standout pianist. She croons on “Slow Like Honey”, something that could easily be heard in a smokey jazz lounge-type setting, and another single, “Never Is a Promise”, played at a relaxed and loose tempo (rubato, for those who know those Italian terms), reveals how misunderstood she must have felt.
Like with most debut records, there are bound to be faults; though Fiona’s songwriting is outstanding, especially considering her age, her sense of melody bounces around at times. “Pale September” sounds almost like an improvisation, with no fixed verse melody. Furthermore, the chorus resembles the range of notes in the verses a little too closely, which makes the entire song sound almost monotonous, unfortunately. The lack of instrumentation in the verses of the closing track, “Carrion”, sound off at first, but the grand chorus in waltz time provides the contrast between the two. However, it leaves the song feeling undeveloped unbalanced than it should be.
Fiona Apple paved the way for strong, female singer-songwriters who actually had something to say. For a first effort, Tidal is a great accomplishment — an album exploring sadness, moodiness, and real teenager issues, and not the bubblegum happy-go-lucky life featured in High School Musical. Thank god we have this Apple to enjoy.
Grade: B
