Fiona Apple
McAfee Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is a
Grammy-winning American singer-songwriter. She is best
known as Fiona Apple.
Early life: Apple is a member of a family rich
with roots in entertainment. Born in New York City, she
is the daughter of singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon
Maggart. Her older sister, Amber Taleullah, sings
cabaret under the stage name Maude Maggart. Her brother
Spencer is a director and directed the video for her
single "Parting Gift". Her half brother Garett
Maggart starred in the TV series The Sentinel. In
addition, her maternal grandparents were Millicent
Green, a dancer with the George White's Scandals, a
series of 1920s musical revues similar to the Ziegfeld
Follies, and Johnny McAfee, a multireedist and vocalist
of the big band era; her grandparents met while touring
with Johnny Hamp and his Orchestra.
At the age of twelve, Apple was raped upon returning
home from school to her mother's apartment. The rape is
mentioned subtly in some of her work (as in the song
"Sullen Girl"), but is not necessarily a major
theme. While the media latched onto the story of Apple's
dark past experience, the singer said the only reason
she even mentioned the rape to an interviewer was
because she didn't want it to seem like something of
which she should be ashamed. There was a rumor that she
had called Tori Amos the "poster girl for
rape", but this was taken out of context from an
interview in which she referenced Amos's song "Me
and a Gun" and talked about the song's strong
message for those who have experienced rape.
As a child, there was concern she had anti-social
tendencies, as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
She underwent therapy as a child after telling a
childhood friend that she was going to kill herself as
well as her older sister Amber when she was twelve years
old. This prompted several therapy sessions, which
ultimately led her to believe that there must actually
be something wrong with her if she required therapy.
Career: Apple's break into the music industry
came when a friend, who babysat for a record executive,
handed her employer a demo. Apple's rich contralto
voice, piano skills and lyrics got the attention of Sony
Music executive Andy Slater, who signed her to a record
deal.
Tidal: 1995–1998: In 1996 Apple's debut album,
Tidal, was released by a subsidiary of Sony. The album
went on to sell 2.7 million copies and was certified
three times platinum in the U.S. "Criminal,"
the fourth single, became Apple's breakthrough hit. The
song reached the top forty on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
and garnered a great deal of attention, mostly due to
its controversial Mark Romanek-directed music video.
While manager Slater says he considered the clip a
"tribute to [director Gregg] Araki and
[photographer] Nan Goldin", some interpreted it as
a "sex tease". Years later Apple said:
"The shit that got me popular was the stuff that I
was not proud of ... I wanted to be like every other
girl you see in videos, and that's why it's
embarrassing. But the way that I justified [the
treatment] is that the song is about someone talking to
God about a mistake they've been making ... But I think
the thing that screwed it up is how fuckin' horrified I
look". Years later, she said that the video fit
with the song and that it was "beautiful."
Other singles from Tidal included
"Shadowboxer", "Slow like Honey",
"Sleep to Dream", "The First Taste"
and "Never Is a Promise". After a series of
fiery public appearances, Apple's public image began to
suffer in some circles. Most notoriously, while
accepting the 1997 MTV Video Music Award for "Best
New Artist", she proclaimed: "This world is
bullshit, and you shouldn't model your life on what you
think that we think is cool, and what we're wearing and
what we're saying", referring to the mainstream
music industry. She quoted Maya Angelou: "Go with
yourself". Though her comments were generally
greeted with cheers and applause at the awards ceremony,
the media backlash was immediate, with host Chris Rock
making a derisive comment about her speech.
Some considered her remarks hypocritical, seeing a
contradiction between her appearance in a risqué music
video in only her underwear, and her telling young women
to ignore celebrity culture. She was unapologetic,
however: "When I have something to say, I'll
fuckin' well say it". Stand-up comedian Denis Leary
included a satire of this speech on his album, Lock 'N
Load, titled "A Reading from the Book of
Apple". Janeane Garofalo parodied Apple's lofty
comments in light of the fact that her video reinforces
the very celebrity fixation on weight and appearance
that Apple so dramatically comdemned. Apple, who
admitted she was a fan of Garofalo's, was angry about
this, mainly because Garofalo had talked about her
struggles with her own weight. Apple seemed to
misunderstand the nature of Garofalo's satire, feeling
the bit was a cheap shot at her emaciated appearance.
Garofalo reportedly replied, "It's comedy. Deal
with it". During this period Apple contributed
covers of The Beatles' "Across the Universe"
and Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to
Love" to the soundtrack of the film Pleasantville.
When the Pawn...: 1999–2001: In 1999 Apple's
second album, When the Pawn..., was released. Its full
title is When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like
a King 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'll Know Where to
Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You Know That
You're Right. The title is a poem Apple wrote after
reading the readers' letters that appeared in Spin after
an article had cast her in a negative light in an
earlier issue. The title's length earned it a spot in
the Guinness Book of Records.
The album was cultivated during Apple's relationship
with film director Paul Thomas Anderson. When the
Pawn... received a positive reception from publications
such as The New York Times and Rolling Stone, but some
music journalists immediately dismissed the album. A
review in the aforementioned Spin magazine quoted the
title, and then underneath said "Whoops. Now we
don't have room for a review. One star".
When the Pawn... used more expressive lyrics,
experimented more with drum loops, and incorporated
Chamberlin. It did not fare as well commercially as her
debut, though it was an RIAA-certified platinum-selling
release and sold 917,000 copies in the U.S. The album's
lead single, "Fast as You Can", reached the
top twenty on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and
became Apple's first top forty hit in the UK. The videos
for two follow-up singles, "Paper Bag" and
"Limp" (directed by then-boyfriend Anderson),
received very little play. Some critics felt the album's
lyrics were often difficult to decipher, due to the
archaic and creative wording.
In 2000, at a concert at the Roseland Ballroom in New
York, Apple became dissatisfied with the venue's sound
and broke down on stage, berating music critics and the
audience with vulgar language, before ending her set
early and storming off stage.
Extraordinary Machine: 2002–2006: Apple sang
with Johnny Cash on a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's
"Bridge Over Troubled Water" that ended up on
Cash's album American IV: The Man Comes Around and was
nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Country
Collaboration with Vocals". She also collaborated
with him on Cat Stevens's "Father and Son",
which was included on Cash's 2003 collection Unearthed.
Apple's third album, Extraordinary Machine, which was
produced by Jon Brion, was submitted to Sony executives
in May 2003. Sony was reportedly unenthusiastic about
the finished product, and the project was shelved for
over two years. In 2004 and 2005 tracks were leaked on
the Internet in MP3 format and played on U.S. and
international radio; subsequently, MP3s of the entire
album, believed to have been produced by Brion (although
he later claimed the leaked tracks were
"tweaked" beyond his own work), went online.
Although a website distributing the album was quickly
taken offline via the DMCA copyright law, they soon
reached P2P networks and were downloaded by fans. A
fan-led campaign, Free Fiona, was launched in support of
the album's official release.
In August 2005 the album was given a release date for
October. Production had been completed by Mike Elizondo
(though known for his work with hip-hop artists such as
Dr. Dre, he had previously played bass for Apple on
Pawn) and co-produced by electronica experimentalist
Brian Kehew. Spin later reported: "Fans erroneously
thought that Apple's record label, Epic, had rejected
the first version of Extraordinary Machine... in
reality, according to Elizondo, Apple was unhappy with
the results, and it was her decision to redo the record,
not her label's". Two of the eleven previous leaked
tracks were relatively unchanged, nine were completely
retooled, and one new song was also included. According
to Elizondo, "Everything was done from
scratch".Extraordinary Machine became the
highest-charting album of Apple's career in the U.S. on
its release (debuting at number seven) and was nominated
for a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Vocal Album".
It was eventually certified gold and sold 462,000 copies
in the U.S., though its singles ("Parting
Gift", "O' Sailor", "Not About
Love" and "Get Him Back") failed to enter
any Billboard charts. Fiona Apple's video for "O'
Sailor" was shot on the Queen Mary in Long Beach,
California.
It was revealed in late 2005 that Sony was initially
unhappy with the work, and Apple and Brion sought to
rework the album. Sony reportedly made caveats on the
process, to which Apple balked. After a long period of
waiting, she began an attempt to rework the album with
close friend Kehew (also a friend and former roommate of
Jon Brion). Elizondo was brought back as co-producer to
complete the tracks he had begun with Brion and Apple.
Despite suggestions that the album had caused a rift
between Brion and Apple, they regularly perform together
at Largo, a club in Los Angeles, including a joint
appearance with Elizondo on bass just before the news
broke of an official release.
Apple went on a live tour to promote the album in late
2005, and from early 2006 supported Coldplay on their
tour of North America. In June 2006 Apple appeared on
the joke track "Come over and Get It (Up in 'Dem
Guts)" by comedian Zach Galifianakis. Galifianakis
previously appeared in the music video for Apple's
"Not about Love". The joke track is a complete
departure from Apple's previous work, both lyrically and
musically. It is a hip-hop/rap/dance track which
features Apple singing lines such as "Baby, show me
your fanny pack/I'll show you my fanny".
Apple recorded a cover of "Sally's Song" for
the special edition release of the soundtrack, released
in 2006, for the Tim Burton-produced film The Nightmare
Before Christmas. In May 2006 Apple paid tribute to
Elvis Costello on VH1's Decades Rock Live by performing
Costello's hit "I Want You"; her version was
subsequently released as a digital single.
Personal life: Apple is a vegan and supporter of
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In
1997 she recorded a message on PETA's hotline expressing
her concern for the plight of turkeys on Thanksgiving.
In reference to a Butterball Turkey hotline people could
call to get tips on cooking their turkeys, she claimed,
"There's no proper way to kill and cook these
beautiful birds". She continued, "Millions of
people are learning that a vegetarian diet is the
healthy choice for themselves, the Earth and the
animals". This stance inspired the Saturday Night
Live spoof "Basted in Blood", written and
performed by Sarah McLachlan. Apple has dated magician
David Blaine and film director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Fiona Apple Profile,
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