The year is 1996. You pull Fiona Apple’s debut album, Tidal, out of its CD case as her icy blue eyes stare at you from the front cover. She sings over moody jazz rhythms, her words as sharp as a knife’s edge: “I tell you how I feel, but you don’t care/ I say tell me the truth, but you don’t dare/ You say love is a hell you cannot bear/ And I say gimme mine back and then go there for all I care.”
Thirty years since its release, Tidal continues to influence new generations of confessional songwriters, while Apple is adored by everyone from Olivia Rodrigo to Lady Gaga. Alongside its genre-upending sound and poetic moodiness, her unflinching honesty helped build the foundations of pop music as we know it today.
