Two's a charm

Fiona Apple's sophomore triumph

by Gary Susman

Say this for Fiona Apple: she sure knows how to get attention. Unfortunately, it's the kind that often distracts from her music. First, there was the Calvin Klein kiddie-porn vibe of her video "Criminal," which even fabulous wreck Courtney Love thought excessive. Then there was her notoriously ungrateful acceptance speech at the MTV awards a couple years ago, in which she said, "I'm gonna use this opportunity the way I want to use it. . . . What I want to say is . . . this world is bullshit, and you shouldn't model your life after what you think we think is cool." And then there's her whole persona, both in song and in the flesh, which combines her New York private-school princess upbringing with such irritating traits as the beatnik spaciness of a Rickie Lee Jones, the shaggy rage of an Alanis Morissette, the honky-tonk-via-Juilliard mannerism of a pianist like Tori Amos or Ben Folds, and the self-directed waifsploitation of a Britney Spears.

If all that wasn't enough, there's the title of her new album: 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 Know Where To Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, 'cuz You'll Know That You're Right (Clean Slate/Epic). That's 90 words, folks, almost certainly enough for the recordkeepers at Guinness, and probably the longest and goofiest album title since Tyrannosaurus Rex's My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair But Now They're Content To Wear Stars on Their Brows back in 1968. Hell, that's even longer than Mark Wahlberg's appendage when he played a porn star in Apple boyfriend Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights.

It's too bad that Apple's PR is so clumsy (if probably earnest -- her album title is a poem she used to recite at concerts to psych herself up), because it may turn listeners off from what's most important: her music. And that's where she really delivers. If her debut, 1996's Tidal, often had the tentative, wispy sound of a 19-year-old still very much discovering her own voice, her sophomore effort (let's just call it When the Pawn . . . ) sounds as if she'd found it with a vengeance. If her throaty alto chilled you on Tidal, it sounds even deeper and more robust here, with an eerie, world-weary blues sense well beyond her 22 years. And she pounds the keys with a newfound authority and sense of swing; even on her most serious songs, Apple sounds as if she might almost (dare I say it?) be enjoying her job.

Her arrangements, too, show a precocious maturity, as if she'd been listening not just to fellow Lilith Fair crooners but also to weirdos like Waits and Weill -- tastes you'd imagine would be unusual for a 22-year-old. Such eclecticism shows in the odd, funhouse moments where the harmonies turn a strange corner in songs like "On the Bound" and "Fast As You Can," or in the implausibly catchy choruses of "Mistake" and "Get Gone," where the melodies soar and swoop precariously, like a child testing her limits on a playground swing. Yet there's nothing so hard-rocking about the music that it would be out of place among VH-1 peers twice Apple's age.

Where Apple still shows her callowness is in her lyrics, notably in "Mistake," where she repeatedly demands the privilege of a teenager who doesn't happen to be a public figure to make her own mistakes. That's not unreasonable, but surely listeners would be more forgiving if she just went ahead and made the mistakes. And on "Limp," one of many songs in which she complains about the shortcomings of men, she taunts, "So call me crazy, hold me down/Make me cry/Get off now, baby/It won't be long till you'll be/Lying limp in your own hands." Now maybe there's something perversely empowering about that kind of masochistic contempt, but it sounds awfully creepy, especially coming from a woman who's actually survived a rape.

Still, Apple can be forgiven her awkward urgency because her music is ultimately strong and insistent enough to steamroller any opposition. As the title of her new album suggests, with its metaphoric combination of Kasparov and Ali, she can stare you down and wear you down into submission.