The only Fiona Apple song to reach the mainstream charts
During the mid-1990s, it was becoming clear that rock music no longer needed to be confined by traditional male stereotypes. Although the grunge revolution may have been sparked by an influx of male-dominated acts like Pearl Jam and Nirvana, an equally powerful movement called riot-grrl was erupting, bringing with it a feminist slant with acts like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill gaining major traction. Though Fiona Apple may not have come along until the Lilith Fair era of the movement, she made the best first impression possible on Tidal.
Getting her first record contract while still in her teens, Apple’s smokey alto range was the perfect flipside to what the alternative acts were doing. Whereas artists like Billy Corgan were writing songs about how miserable their lives had become, Apple was looking to create music with a grander scope, breaking down the intricacies of relationships with unique pieces of poetry.
Though not every song on the record catered to the mainstream audience, the opening piano lines of the song ‘Criminal’ was enough to give Apple her first significant hit, reaching number 21 in 1997. Being a fixture of the adult alternative scene, ‘Criminal’ was a clever piece of commentary on the way that Apple feels that women have been objectified, featuring a music video intended to ironically jab at various commercial models that project certain body expectations.
Although Apple succeeded in getting a hit on the charts, the song was praised by two distinct sides of the conversation. While it may have had the message of being a parody of fashion tropes, there were just as many people who used the song for more suggestive reasons, even becoming a popular strip club song for a while.
Apple’s success may not have deterred her from her main ambition, but she was unwilling to play the game with the rest of the music world. Upon receiving an MTV Award for the video for ‘Criminal’, Apple approached the stage and gave a strong message to the young, ambitious artists watching at home: “For all of you watching at home, this world, this world is bullshit”.
Even though ‘Criminal’ reached the top 30 on the mainstream charts, it would be the last time Apple was bothered with troubling the charts. On her next album, When the Pawn Hits, Apple adopted a more sophisticated approach to songwriting than her debut, making tracks with delicate orchestration overseen by producer Jon Brion.
As she ventured into the 2000s, Apple also took time to work alongside music legends. Away from her main studio output, she would often pop up on tracks by rock mainstays, like adding a delicate harmony vocal on Johnny Cash’s version of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’.
While Apple would go into artsier directions on albums like The Idler Wheel is Wiser and Fetch the Bolt Cutters, she felt that her career was best without the pop charts as an albatross around her neck. Apple may have had her fair share of mainstream success, but artists of her calibre don’t need a top ten single to be considered one of the greatest in their field.
