AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Fiona Apple

Artist:Fiona Apple

Song:Criminal

Album:Tidal

Fiona Apple was 19 years old when her debut album Tidal was certified 3XPlatinum and the single Criminal was a top 30 pop hit. This was mostly due to the music video airplay on MTV. It was all downhill from there. She was born Sept. 13, 1977 in New York City. Her father is actor Brandon Maggart, best known for the Showtime series Brothers. Her sister is cabaret singer Maude Maggart. Fiona learned piano and started writing as a child. She would play along with jazz standards and she was a big fan of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. After being raped at age 12, Fiona developed an eating disorder due to depression. She moved to Los Angeles to live with her father and attended high school there. One of her demos got the attention of Sony executive Andy Slater and he signed her to Columbia's Work Group label. Slater is best known for producing Warren Zevon. Fiona's 1996 debut album Tidal was certified 3XPlatinum. The single Criminal reached #21 on the Billboard Hot 100. The success of the album was probably because the music video for Criminal was in heavy rotation on MTV. She won Best New Artist at the MTV Music Video Awards. The video was certainly controversial at the time. Fiona wrote all the songs. Pianist Jon Brion went on to produce Fiona's next  album. Fiona began a relationship with director Paul Thomas Anderson after meeting him at a photo shoot. Her 1999 album When the Pawn... didn't do nearly as well. She recorded a third album which Epic rejected as not commercial enough. It was scrapped and Fiona re-recorded it with Brian Kahew of The Moog Cookbook and Dr. Dre associate Mike Elizondo. After numerous delays, Extraordinary Machine was released in 2005. The Jon Brion produced recordings surfaced in the bootleg market. The album didn't do as well as previous albums. Since then Fiona has released two albums. The latest was Fetch the Bolt Cutters in 2020. She still records for Columbia but I don't think she will be able to repeat the success of Tidal which is available as a budget CD. Here's the video for Criminal by Fiona Apple.