Tidal

by

Fiona Apple

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Tidal is a poweful, passionate, poetic piece of work, from a woman whose art, voice, and personality would seem to possess all of the aforementioned qualities as well.

From the first track, Sleep to Dream, Fiona grabs you with her strong vocals, both in their performance and their lyrics. Fiona effortlessly transitions from such passionately angry pieces as Sleep to Dream to quieter, piano-centered pieces like Sullen Girl, giving us, through voice and lyric, a musical journey through the range of emotions that make up the ebb-and-flow of a young woman's journey through romantic life (that ebb-and-flow being the inspiration of the album's name, Tidal.)

Other notable pieces are of course the quite famous Criminal, with its jazzy, self-impugning look at romantic sin; The First Taste, combining a dance beat with all of Fiona's subtle lyrical poeticism, and the perhaps underappreciated Never is a Promise, a breathtakingly beautiful, melancholy song about the limits to which one can communicate one's essence, even to those one most deeply cares about.

Fiona sings with a maturity, her lyrics reveal a depth, her music demonstrates a passion most would say was "beyond her years." To me, Fiona demonstrates clearly that popular music created by a young person (Fiona was only 18 when this was released), need not sound like the general conception of what popular music created by a young person sounds like (e.g.. the Pop Princess Cabal.) No, this is the beautiful work of a profoundly mature young artist, and it is one that you cannot afford to miss.