Moroni's Review of Fiona Apple's "The Idler Wheel ..."

The name of this album is "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do."

Whew!!  What a title!  I am not sure Twitter would let me post the link with all of those characters!  Still, it is not as long as the title of Fiona Apple's other album, "When the Pawn..." - and that is abbreviated!

That said, I am not that familiar with Fiona Apple's music.  When she broke onto the scene in 1996, I had just moved out to my ranch, living off grid.  I wasn't exposed to music much during the time period.  I did hear about her, liked her name, and even saw a video for her song, "Criminal".  I really wasn't that into it.  It was too jazzy.  But that's really about it.  I have a close friend who is a huge fan and has been bugging me since June to do a review of this album.  So here it is, Nikki!

This month, I downloaded Fiona Apple's fourth album, which I will not type again, but henceforth call "The Idler Wheel.."  What is it like to listen to an entire album of an artist who already has an established career, and you have not listened to a single album?  Do you really have to listen to the whole catalog in order to get a good sense of who the artist is?  I think not.  I am able to get a refreshing look without being hampered by hype and previously preconceived notions about the artist.

My first impression of Fiona Apple...  Like her album title, she is wordy!  Whereas I am sure that this is one of the reasons her fans love her, it doesn't do much for me.  In music, I like lyrics that convey an image rather than a message.  (However, I noticed that her song "Hot Knife" has some nice imagery to it.)  If I listen to lyrics, I listen to them in context of the music rather than trying to decipher a meaning.  I sing along with songs all the time without even being aware of what they are trying to convey.  My favorite band is Cocteau Twins, for heaven's sake.  They never use real words, and, if they do, they don't mean anything.  I know people that are driven nuts by this.  They have to know what is being said in order to appreciate the music.  Such people usually don't like music in other languages, either.

That said, I am feeling like the genius of Fiona's music is passing over my head like a Boeing 787, because the music in many places is minimalist and loaded with words from start to finish.

This album is like a fine wine.  At first, it tastes as bitter and overwhelms your olfactory senses, but the more you sip on it, the better it tastes.  At first listen, it annoyed me.  Ask my wife Martha, I kept saying it over and over.  But the more I listened, the more I started to like it.  Now, I think the album is genius.  I think that Fiona Apple is the female equivalent of Tom Waits.  And that is the best possible review I can give this album.  She is a female Tom Waits.  That's a pretty, damn glowing review, Nikki.  LOL

I think that the reason it takes so long to get adjusted to this album is because - undoubtedly - it is so eccentric.  She is so eccentric.  In a crazy cat lady kind of way.  Like Tori Amos.  Like Regina Spektor.  From afar you recognize the genius of the artist.  If you engaged them in conversation at a cocktail party, you approach them, because they are easy on the eyes.  But soon you would be itching to escape.  Because the conversation would be so random, so nonlinear, so incoherent that you could not make the proverbial heads or tails of it.  I mean, this is a woman who just cancelled her world tour to spend time with her dog.  (Go on tour, buy twenty dogs when you get home.)

The first song off of "The Idler Wheel" is "Every Single Night" which starts out like a music box, and then soon is dominated with Fiona's definitive contralto voice.  The next rest of the album is fairly minimalist.  What I mean by this - the music is mainly percussion and piano with very little interposition of many other instruments.  What becomes obvious is that Fiona's secret weapon is her voice.  She is very dramatic with it.  She expresses great emotion with it.  Sometimes her voice seems a hoarse whisper, and the next she is raging about something.  My personal favorite songs are "Valentine", "Left Alone" (love her voice is this one), and "Periphery".  The album ends up nicely with many voices layered on "Hot Knife".

This album is very jazzy, kind of cabaret,  As a whole, it kind of has a feverish feel to it, like a fitful dream that one can't wake up from.  I can't compare it to any other artist, because, really, there is no other female artist around like her.  It does make me think of one song - "This Devil's Workday" by Modest Mouse.  This album evokes a similar feel to me.

This is a very excellent album.  But it is an acquired taste.  Like smoked salmon.  Or sea cucumber.  Both of which I love.  But you might not.

Moroni's Review of Muse's "The 2nd Law"

I have been waiting to do this review for a while.  It should be known that Muse is one of my absolute favorite bands.

In 2001, I bought the soundtrack to the film "Swordfish", because I love electronica.  My favorite song was "Newborn" by a band called Muse.  Of course, it was a Paul Oakenfold remix.  But the voice - the singer had the voice of an angel.  I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was positively divine.

I researched the band and found a review for their 2nd album, "Origin of Symmetry".  I still remember clearly what the reviewer said.  He said that the introduction of this album - which was the song "Newborn" - was the best intro to an album since Pixies' "Doolittle".  And "Doolittle" is my favorite rock album of all time.  I was hooked.  I had to find this album.  Since I live in rural Arizona - in the days before I was downloading music - I had to wait until my next trip to Phoenix.  I found a copy of "Origin of Symmetry" in a CD shop.  But it was only available in import, which means it was ridiculously overpriced.  So I passed  (I shouldn't have.)

That was the last I heard of Muse for several years, although "Newborn" made it onto virtually every mix CD I would make.

In 2005, I was doing a job in Connecticut.  I was hanging out in my apartment, getting ready for work while watching MTV.  I caught the tail end of a video.  It was a hard rocking song, and the guy had pipes like Freddie Mercury.  "Who the hell is it?" I wondered.  "This has to be Muse."

Sure enough.  It was Muse.  It was their song "Time is Running Out".  And they freaking rocked!

A few weeks later, I was doing a job in San Diego, and I was making a trip home with Martha.  I stopped by a Best Buy to get music for the drive home.  They had the new album "Absolution" in stock, and I bought a copy.  I listened to it the whole album the whole way home.  I listened to it the whole drive back to San Diego.  It never left the car the whole time I was in San Diego.  I kept listening to it over and over.  And then on another trip home, I stopped by the outlet mall in Barstow and bought "Origin of Symmetry".

Muse quickly became a favorite band of - not just mine - but of the whole family.  It was hard to describe them to people.  Yes, they were definitely prog rock.  One moment it could be pianos and violins, and the next moment it was electronica, and after that it would be rocking hard.  The thing that I liked about Muse was the technical precision with which they played.  Even though it was hard rock, it was like classical music in its complexity.  And his voice - yes, it was a man.  Matthew Bellamy with his voice of an angel reminded me of either Jeff Buckley or Freddie Mercury.  And Muse definitely took a page from Queen or Led Zepplin.  Plus they had a quirky side.  Their music was spacey and science fiction-y.  There is a definite affinity to conspiracy theories, which gives the music a distinctive flavor.

Then came Twilight...

My teenage daughter was into the Twilight books, and Stephenie Meyer had posted a list of music that influenced her writing.  My daughter was suddenly raiding my music to listen to this music - which included Muse.  When the movie came out, a couple of Muse songs were on the soundtrack.  Suddenly, every tween girl and her werewolf were into Muse.  I was happy for their success, but they were no longer this hidden gem that existed only for the private listening pleasure of me and my family.

Earlier this year, when I started hearing previews of the new album by Muse - "The 2nd Law", I started getting very worried.  It was all dubstep-y.  Anyone knows me knows that I am not averse to dubstep.  I was deejaying dubstep before it became all the rave.  I am huge into Skrillex and Bassnectar.  But if I want dubstep, I do not want to go to Muse for it.  When I think of Muse, I think of grandiose, operatic vocals over hard rocking guitars.  And I read an article where many fans abandoned Muse because of the dubstep.

However, I downloaded the whole album on the day it was released.  Within the first thirty seconds, I knew that I had nothing to worry about.  The first track is "Supremacy" starts out softly with violins, and suddenly Matthew Bellamy lets out a piercing caterwaul.  I played this song for my ex-wife, who is also a huge Muse (thanks to me), and she let out a resounding, "Yes!"

It is still Muse!

"Supremacy" sounds like the intro to a James Bond movie.  I later heard that it was written with that in mind, but that the title song for "Skyfall" went to that fat British singer, what's her name again?

The next track is the main single called "Madness".  I heard this song before the album came out, and I really didn't like it.  It had the aforementioned dubstep influence.  But the more I listened to it, the more I liked it.  It has a mellow, soulful vibe.  Subsequently, this song is my ex-wife's favorite song on the album.

The next song, "Panic Station" is the only song on the album that I don't like at all.  Muse, please never experiment with funk again.

"Survival" was the official theme of the Summer 2012 Olympics.  It is a random Queen-inspired anthem.  I didn't watch the Olympics at all this year, but I can't imagine this song heralding in the Olympics.  It's too eccentric.

"Follow Me", "Animals", and "Explorers" are straight-up Muse songs.  They could have been on any of the albums.  "Big Freeze" sounds like it could be U2, and "Save Me" sounds like it could be Tears For Fears.  One of my favorite tracks is "Liquid State" which is pretty much the only heavy metal on this whole album, a track written by bassist Chris Wolstenholme.  Then the album finishes out with two concept songs - "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" and "The 2nd Law: Isolated System".  One is dubstep, and the other sounds like the score of a movie.

All in all, this is a great album.  I would recommend it to anyone.

Shortly after I downloaded this album, I put it onto my ex-wife's Zune.  (Yes, she has a Zune.)  Several days later, I asked her what she thought.

"I love it," she said.  "It is by far THEE best Muse album!"

"Really?" I asked incredulously.

It is not as good as "Absolution", "Origin of Symmetry", or "Black Holes & Revelations".  However, it is better than "The Resistance" - and that is still a pretty good album.

"Yeah, I like how they blend the dubstep in there," she said.

"That's what I don't like about it," I said.

She pretended to slap me.  "Oh, just give it a year.  You'll like it."

And that is a woman who knows me too well.  That post-modernist trait that is common in my generation - don't trust anything that is too mainstream.  But once the mainstream relinquishes it, it will be all yours again.  The last Twilight movie comes out this month, and soon the craze will be all over...