Apple
This article is about two things. What it’s NOT about are apples, even though they are my favorite fruit, and I eat at least one every day, nor Apple Computer, cause Macs suck. I’ll admit, though, that my Apple iPod plays into it a bit. More on that later.
Actually, I’m talking about Fiona Apple. I’ve always liked Fiona, and I feel bad for her, because I think she’s really gotten a bum rap from the public. Recently, she’s put out a new album, Extraordinary Machine, that was a good six years in the making, and almost didn’t happen at all due to reticence on the part of Sony Music that it didn’t contain a ‘hit’, and a little, I’m sure, because of Fiona’s bum rap.
Despite all that, Extraordinary Machine is a great album. In fact, though I haven’t done a full review of my top ten favorite album list in a while, I expect it’s a serious contender. My favorite songs are “Get Him Back”, “Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)”, and “Window”.
From the very beginning, with her first release, Tidal (released when she was 19, but much of it written long before), Fiona Apple showed a maturity of sound and a lyricaldepth that was highly unusual for someone so young. And that was the problem.
She was lumped in with her contemporaries of age and gender, like Jewel, and never taken seriously.
And it didn’t help that, like most 19 year olds rocketed to stardom, she said and did some stupid things. But really, were any of those things so bad that they justified the vitriol that became associated with her name? I feel the need to run through the worst of her offenses.
The most aggregious offense was probably her infamous video for the single Criminal. It was the hit that pushed her into the public eye, and it is, admittedly, filthy to most puritanical American sensibilities. Fiona is almost 20 in the video, but she looks like a 14 year old runaway, cavorting about in skimpy underwear or outright nude. It’s a video that makes you feel like you’re commiting a crime just watching it.Which, I think, was the point.
But of course, Americans are so quick to be offended, that we all had to get up in arms about it. Why bother changing the fucking channel when we can form parents groups and lodge protests and scream ourselves hoarse. How DARE she look young! How DARE she be skinny! Doesn’t she realize that young women will treat her as a role model?!
Well, yeah, actually, she did, which leads us to her second offense, the infamous acceptance speech when she won “Best New Artist in a Video” for Criminal at the 1997 MTV Music Awards. In it, she said to her fans outright: “This world is bullshit. You shouldn’t model your life on what we think is cool, what we’re wearing and what we’re saying.”
But the music community, much like Hollywood, has no sense of humor about itself, and no ability to self reflect. And we, as Americans, worship fame and celebrity. We have no patience for some girl coming along and pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, and that we are squandering our lives worshiping an illusion.
She went on to do other annoying things, like support P.E.T.A. (so does Paul McCartney, you know. No one holds it against him, so matter how many animal testing labs P.E.T.A. fanatics burn to the ground), and natter on about how she loves Maya Angelou.
Then, as a goof, she made the title of her new album a 90-word poem she had written:
What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight
And He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters the Ring
There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might
So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand
And Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights
And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land
And If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right
Free Fiona
The sad part is that the title really overshadowed what was an amazing album. Songs like “On the Bound”, “Limp”, and my favorite, “Paper Bag” come straight from the gut, and are packed with raw emotion. Fiona Apple is a little crazy, sure, but who amongst us isn’t? What’s amazing is that she KNOWS it, and shows a level of self-reflection on it in her music that is really extraordinary. And let’s not forget the ENORMOUS fucking voice that comes out of that tiny, waifish girl.
She was so crucified by the public over those few things that it torpedoed her career just as fast as that infamous scream ruined Howard Dean. She didn’t write anything for years, and I figued it was all over.
And it looked like it was, because even when she got to writing again, Sony passed on her new album at first. It was only after the tracks were leaked onto the internet and all the closet Fiona fans came out and caused a buzz that they relented.
Technology is awesome
So I’ve been listening to the new album a lot, along with her iTunes Originals album, which is also great. I’ve had her whole catalog on random for the last week or two (much to my wife’s dismay, since she is one of the many people who despise Fiona Apple.)
It occurred to me that her first CD, Tidal, was enhanced, and had the video for Shadowboxer on it. Sometimes the older enhanced CD’s don’t have the same protections as the new ones, and you can pull the video files right off them. On a whim, I looked on the CD, and sure enough, there was a Quicktime file on there which I could just copy to my computer.
I don’t have an iPod Video. my current iPod is about two and a half years old, which makes it a fucking dinosaur in iPod years. It holds 20GB of music, though, so I can’t really complain. That device changed my life. It breaks about once every 90 days now, because I think they are designed to break after a year to make you buy a new one. The battery used to last like 12 hours, but now it’s down to 3-4 if I’m lucky, and it keeps giving me the iPod fucking hates you icon, and crapping out entirely. I’m not exactly sure what’s wrong with it, but if I pop it open and blow on all the connections and press on them to make sure they’re tight, it comes back from the dead.
It’s a pain in the ass, but the way I see it, iPods are advancing so fast that if I can make this one last until the next generation comes out and I can get a 100GB iPod Fullscreen with Death Ray, or whatever the new version will be, I’ll be content. I’m tired of buying expensive things that become obsolete before I get them out of the box.
But anyway, since I don’t have an iPod Video, I took the Quicktime file and converted it to an .avi file using Quicktime Pro. Then I put it on my phone.
I repeat. I PUT A MUSIC VIDEO ON MY FUCKING PHONE.
How fricken’ awesome is that? Ten years ago, when I bought that CD, I nearly shat myself that I could watch a whole video on my computer. Could I ever have imagined that I would be able to put it on my portable phone?
Shit, in 1996, could I have imagined having my own cell phone? Only drug dealers had cell phones.
In 2000, when I bought my first cell phone, could I ever have imagined I could put video on it? Even fucking Star Trek Communicators didn’t have video. My phone is smaller than Kirk’s communicator, and can do ten times the stuff. Think about that. Technology today has, in many ways, surpassed the science fiction of even 10 years ago. I feel like we’re so immersed in it that we don’t take the time often enough to stop and say “Holy Donkey Shit!”
Take e-mail. Fifteen years ago, people had to type their letters on the computer, print them out, and send them though the US Postal Service. Ten years before that, people wrote by fucking hand. Jesus. Can you imagine writing even a fraction of the e-mail you do every day by hand? It boggles the mind.
RFK said “May he live in interesting times” was a curse used by the Chinese, but I say bollocks to that. I am so thankful to live in the time that I do. Forget George Bush and the culture wars and the Middle East. I am so happy that I get to see the world changing so rapidly and irrevocably, built on technology and human achievement. Before the industrial revolution, things were at a standstill for hundreds of years, and even the huge speed we’re moving forward at will probably have to level off eventually. But right now, at this moment, things are rocketing ahead so fast that we can barely comprehend what’s in front of us, much less what’s around the next bend.
Syrinx nanosurgery, maybe?
Cross your fingers.
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