Biography
Fiona Apple never aligned neatly with any single musical movement. Her nearest approach to a collective spotlight occurred early on, as her opening album Tidal surfaced right when the alternative rock surge crested in 1996. She appeared in MTV's Buzzbin and joined Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair revue, securing a hit single ("Criminal") along with platinum certification, yet she fit neither as a folkie nor a punk rocker. Jazz, show tunes, and classic '70s singer/songwriters shaped her foundation, an idiosyncratic mixture that grew more distinct on her second album, When the Pawn. When the Pawn reached listeners in 1999, it drew notice for its emotional intensity, unconventional arrangements, and eccentric flair, qualities that anchored her appeal across later decades of steady, meticulous output. As releases grew less frequent—she needed six years to finish her third album, Extraordinary Machine, and another seven before its sequel, The Idler Wheel, emerged—her stature as a daring artist only increased. The Idler Wheel and its 2020 follow-up Fetch the Bolt Cutters showed Apple pursuing aural risks while retaining her core strengths as a singer/songwriter, a balance that sustained her loyal cult audience.
Born in 1977 to singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart, Fiona Apple began composing and performing songs at age 12 to process a traumatic childhood that included rape at 11. She kept writing and left high school for Los Angeles at 16. A demo tape secured her a Sony Music contract in 1995. Working with producer Andrew Slater, she recorded her debut Tidal and released it in summer 1996.
Tidal built slowly, gathering critical praise and a following that surged once the controversial video for "Criminal" turned both the single and album into hits. Mark Romanek's seedy, suggestive clip carried overt sexual content—an approach Apple notably avoided afterward—yet it succeeded, lifting the record into the Top Ten and earning her a Grammy. Despite that moment of titillation, Tidal connected with mainstream listeners, a direction Apple rejected outright on her next album, 1999's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King.... The full title formed a 90-word poem, an early sign of the artistic scope inside. Produced by Jon Brion, the album proved dense, literate, and melodic, falling short of the debut's commercial reach but strengthening her cult. Although she was romantically linked to director Paul Thomas Anderson and contributed to the soundtrack of his 1999 magnum opus Magnolia, Apple withdrew from public view, nurturing an air of mystery that intensified amid repeated delays for the next project.
By 2003 the lack of a follow-up had become a fixation on certain music message boards, where speculation claimed Sony had rejected her new material as uncommercial. In the year that followed, unfinished mixes leaked online and the story reached mainstream outlets, including coverage in The New York Times. The attention helped bring the album to completion in fall 2005, when the original Brion productions were reworked and expanded with producer Mike Elizondo to shape the final version of Extraordinary Machine. The record received generally positive reviews—some drew not entirely favorable comparisons to the leaked versions—and achieved healthy sales. In its wake, Apple maintained a moderate presence, touring with Nickel Creek in 2007 and appearing with the Watkins Family during their residency at the Largo in Los Angeles. In 2012 she previewed three songs from her fourth studio album, which carried the characteristically enigmatic title The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, before an enthusiastic crowd at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. Produced by Apple with her touring drummer, Charley Drayton, the album earned excellent reviews upon its June 2012 release.
Apple spent the next several years contributing songs to films and television, including writing "Container," the theme for the Showtime series The Affair. In 2015 she appeared on Watkins Family Hour, the debut album from Sean and Sara Watkins' Los Angeles-based collective, and the following year she featured on Andrew Bird's Are You Serious. Apple released her fifth solo album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, in April 2020.
Born in 1977 to singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart, Fiona Apple began composing and performing songs at age 12 to process a traumatic childhood that included rape at 11. She kept writing and left high school for Los Angeles at 16. A demo tape secured her a Sony Music contract in 1995. Working with producer Andrew Slater, she recorded her debut Tidal and released it in summer 1996.
Tidal built slowly, gathering critical praise and a following that surged once the controversial video for "Criminal" turned both the single and album into hits. Mark Romanek's seedy, suggestive clip carried overt sexual content—an approach Apple notably avoided afterward—yet it succeeded, lifting the record into the Top Ten and earning her a Grammy. Despite that moment of titillation, Tidal connected with mainstream listeners, a direction Apple rejected outright on her next album, 1999's When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King.... The full title formed a 90-word poem, an early sign of the artistic scope inside. Produced by Jon Brion, the album proved dense, literate, and melodic, falling short of the debut's commercial reach but strengthening her cult. Although she was romantically linked to director Paul Thomas Anderson and contributed to the soundtrack of his 1999 magnum opus Magnolia, Apple withdrew from public view, nurturing an air of mystery that intensified amid repeated delays for the next project.
By 2003 the lack of a follow-up had become a fixation on certain music message boards, where speculation claimed Sony had rejected her new material as uncommercial. In the year that followed, unfinished mixes leaked online and the story reached mainstream outlets, including coverage in The New York Times. The attention helped bring the album to completion in fall 2005, when the original Brion productions were reworked and expanded with producer Mike Elizondo to shape the final version of Extraordinary Machine. The record received generally positive reviews—some drew not entirely favorable comparisons to the leaked versions—and achieved healthy sales. In its wake, Apple maintained a moderate presence, touring with Nickel Creek in 2007 and appearing with the Watkins Family during their residency at the Largo in Los Angeles. In 2012 she previewed three songs from her fourth studio album, which carried the characteristically enigmatic title The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, before an enthusiastic crowd at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. Produced by Apple with her touring drummer, Charley Drayton, the album earned excellent reviews upon its June 2012 release.
Apple spent the next several years contributing songs to films and television, including writing "Container," the theme for the Showtime series The Affair. In 2015 she appeared on Watkins Family Hour, the debut album from Sean and Sara Watkins' Los Angeles-based collective, and the following year she featured on Andrew Bird's Are You Serious. Apple released her fifth solo album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, in April 2020.
Albums
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
2020
The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
2012
Extraordinary Machine
2005
When The Pawn...
2002
Fast As You Can EP
1999
Tidal
1996
Singles
