Fiona Apple: How to Get Into the Fetch the Bolt Cutters Artist

Today, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter/beloved legend Fiona Apple has released Fetch the Bolt Cutters, her first album in almost eight years. Its title is a line spoken by another ‘90s icon, Gillian Anderson, in British police procedural The Fall—exactly the type of dark, complex, and sophisticated series you’d imagine Apple binge-watching.

Since Apple emerged a quarter of a century ago, she's been written about rapturously but also at times reductively—she’s said she felt “screwed” by an unflattering 1997 magazine profile titled “Girl Trouble.” Despite keeping a low profile in recent years, she’s remained relevant; her signature hit “Criminal” even soundtracked a scorching J.Lo dance sequence in last year’s Hustlers. A few months before the movie’s release, Apple pledged to donate two years of royalties from the song—including her Hustlers fee—to refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border.

As fans and those less familiar with Apple prepare to immerse themselves in her latest work, here’s a guide to diving into this proudly individual and supremely talented singer-songwriter.

She Made a Splash with Tidal

Apple, the New York-born daughter of Broadway performers, was just 18 when she dropped her 1996 debut album, Tidal. Her richly expressive voice and jazz-inflected piano playing impressed music critics, but Apple became a phenomenon because her incredibly candid and self-aware songwriting sounds as startling and culturally resetting today as it did then. Start with “Sullen Girl,” on which she sings about closing herself off emotionally after being raped at the age of 12.

That Controversial “Criminal” Video

Another Tidal highlight, "Criminal"—which Apple says is about "feeling bad for getting something so easily by using your sexuality"—won a Grammy and remains her most streamed (and recognizable) song. The accompanying video captures the song’s scuzzy sensuality in a way that’s meant to be slightly uncomfortable, but was unfairly criticized at the time for being too sexually suggestive.

The sight of Apple in bed with half-naked men doesn’t seem quite so risqué today, and some of the criticism now smacks of unjust body-shaming, but “Criminal” undoubtedly cast a shadow on her career. In 2005, The New Yorker wrote that Apple’s public image had been “minted” by shots of her “slinking around miserably in her underwear and looking like an underfed Calvin Klein model.”

Her Takedown of Vacuous Celebrity Culture

One of Apple’s defining moments came when she collected a Moonman at the 1997 VMAs. “This world is bullshit,” she told fans. “You shouldn't model your life on what we think is cool, and what we're wearing and what we're saying and everything. Go with yourself."

Today, Apple’s message would almost certainly be hailed as an empowering celebration of individuality, but back in 1997, it was immediately painted by some commentators as “ungrateful” and “weird.” Apple had declared herself “a bad, bad girl” on “Criminal"; it was easy for these words to be used against her.

She Practiced What She Preached on Her Sophomore Album

Apple named her 1999 follow-up… take a deep breath... 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.

Thankfully, the music is much less onerous. “Paper Bag,” a lusty yet wistful ballad about a romance that fails to live up to expectations, has become a firm fan favorite.

Her Fervent Fanbase

Long before "Free Britney," there was freefiona.com, a fan campaign lobbying Apple’s label to release her delayed third album, Extraordinary Machine, which would document her break-up from director Paul Thomas Anderson. Rumors at the time suggested Epic had shelved the record because it wasn’t “commercial,” but Apple later said it was her decision to re-record songs with hip-hop producer Mike Elizondo, who gave them a more immediate, beat-driven sound.

When Extraordinary Machine finally arrived in 2005, two years later than expected, just two tracks remained unchanged from her original sessions with When the Pawn… producer Jon Brion. One of these is the charming title track, a self-deprecating character study set to a whimsical Disney-ish backing. It’s a song so unexpected, it almost feels like a clap back to suggestions that Apple had surrendered creative control.

Her 2012 Song “Hot Knife” Is a Fetch the Bolt Cutters Precursor

Before its release, Apple hadn’t shared anything from Fetch the Bolt Cutters, but her bass player Sebastian Steinberg said the album was closest sonically to “Hot Knife,” a brilliantly off-kilter pop gem from 2012’s The Idler Wheel…—her last album until today.

Steinberg also told The New Yorker that Apple’s new album is “very raw and unslick” because her "agenda has gotten wilder and a lot less concerned with what the outside world thinks—she’s not seventeen, she’s forty, and she’s got no reason not to do exactly what she wants."

And when an artist as gifted as Fiona Apple really throws caution to the wind, the results are bound to be incendiary.

First he changed the sound of popular music. Then he revolutionized fashion and sneakers. Now, Kanye West is redesigning the very building blocks of family life—food, clothing, and shelter—and he’s claimed thousands of acres in Wyoming as a test site for his ideas. We followed West from Cody to Calabasas, and from Cabo San Lucas to Paris, to see it all firsthand—and to talk to him about his next album, his “altered ego,” and his renewed faith in God.

Originally Appeared on GQ