fiona apple
Hear Fiona Apple on Song for The Rings of Power Finale
Fiona Apple has resurfaced in an unlikely place: singing a track from the upcoming season finale of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power. “Where the Shadows Lie” was penned by Rings of Power composer Bear McCready and produced by himself, Apple and Apple’s manager Andrew Slater. It had already appeared in instrumental form in the series’ debut episode. “As written, the poem was composed by the Free Peoples of Middle Earth about the origins of the Rings of Power and their relationship under the power of the One Ring,” Amazon says of the song. “The musical legacy of The Lord of the Rings brings to mind ethereal vocals carrying lyrical melodies over evocative harmonies, so it was my natural inclination to compose such a song for The Rings of Power,” adds McCreary. “Based on J...
Hear Fiona Apple Cover Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Love More’
Sharon Van Etten unveiled the final cover from her epic Ten reissue — and it’s likely that it’s the one you’ve been waiting for. Big Red Machine, IDLES, Lucinda Williams, Shamir, Courtney Barnett, and Vagabond contributed so far, but today’s comes from none other than Fiona Apple. In a lengthy Instagram post, Van Etten explained Apple’s influence on her music and how thrilled she is that the singer-songwriter is covering one of her songs, despite having never met. See her statement in full below. Listen to her version of “Love More”. [embedded content] Epic Ten is the belated 10-year anniversary of Van Etten’s Epic, which was released in 2010. In celebration of the anniversary, Van Etten will be performing the album in full at a livestream this weekend from th...
Fiona Apple Takes Home Best Alternative Music Album Grammy for Fetch the Bolt Cutters
Fiona Apple took home the Best Alternative Album golden gramophone for Fetch the Bolt Cutters, beating out Brittany Howard (Jaime), Beck (Hyperspace), Tame Impala (The Slow Rush), and Phoebe Bridgers (Punisher). This was her first win of the night. Apple is in good company, joining the likes of former winners including Vampire Weekend, David Bowie, Radiohead, the White Stripes, and the Black Keys. <!– // Brid Player Singles. var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ “div”: “Brid_10143537”, “obj”: {“id”:”25115″,”width”:”480″,”height”:”270″,”playlist”:”10315″,”inviewBottomOffset”:”105px”} }); –> See a full list o...
Sharon Van Etten to Release epic Anniversary Edition Featuring Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, IDLES and Courtney Barnett
Sharon Van Etten’s epic was one of the best albums of the 2010s. Last year, the album turned 10 and to celebrate its (now) 11th anniversary, the set is getting a pretty great tribute. epic Ten will be released as a double anniversary album, with one part featuring the original and the other containing an all-star cast of artists covering it. Those artists include Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, Courtney Barnett with Vagabon, Big Red Machine (Aaron Dessner of the National and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon), IDLES, Shamir and St. Panther. Each artist was tapped by Van Etten to perform a song from the album. Moving forward, every Thursday, Van Etten will unveil another cover from the collection. Listen to “A Crime” by Big Red Machine below. [embedded content] “Sharon is one of m...
Fiona Apple Teamed With Phoebe Bridgers and More to Cover Waterboys Tune
Last November’s finale of the Showtime drama The Affair included a cover of the Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon” by none other than Fiona Apple with Phoebe Bridgers on backing vocals. Now, a video of an emotive Apple cutting the tune in the studio has surfaced. The caption for the video, which was apparently shot and posted by filmmaker Zelda Hallman, explains that Apple asked Tony Berg to produce her version of the 1985 single. He recruited all-star players including drummer Matt Chamberlain, Patrick Warren, Ethan Gruska, guitarist Wendy Melvoin from Prince’s band the Revolution, and of course, Bridgers. “This was the first time she had met Wendy and Phoebe and fell in love with both of them,” Hallman’s statement accompanying the video says. This collaborat...
The 30 Best Albums of 2020
After a deluge of canceled or delayed tours, drive-in experiments, Bandcamp Fridays and bedroom livestreams, we’re finally here. Yay? It’s hard to celebrate much of anything in 2020. But one encouraging sign from the music industry has been the number of artists innovating on the fly — figuring out ways to sustain their careers through the madness. And as fans, at least we’ve had new albums to help us process our continuing semi-apocalypse. Having (mercifully) reached the end of this awful year, we have even more perspective on the functionality of a great record. The 30 we’ve assembled here have prompted us to dance, helped us grieve, made us laugh, or even just allowed us to escape into a transportive riff or soundscape. We assume they did the same for the artists themselves. Let us reme...
The 35 Best Videos of the Last 35 Years
SPIN launched in the peak MTV era, when an innovative — or even just salacious — music video could make or break an artist. Thirty five years later, YouTube is an obligatory part of any promotional push, but no one’s counting on a mind-blowing clip to sell a record. (The views do often matter — just not always the creativity.) A sizable chunk of the best videos came out during the ‘90s alternative bloom, when directors like Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Hype Williams experimented with the style and substance of this malleable medium. But the format hasn’t died with MTV: artists like Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and Miley Cyrus all made this list for a reason — and it wasn’t to meet a decade quota. Here are the top 35 from the last 35. Ready or not, here we go again. – Ryan Reed 3...
Fiona Apple Reconnects With Real ‘Shameika,’ Former Classmates Collab on New Remix
Fiona Apple dropped a new video for “Shameika” off Fetch the Bolt Cutters, along with a remix of the track featuring the song’s real-life inspiration, Shameika Stepney. Directed by Matthias Brown, Apple’s “Shameika” video is a continuous black and white animation focused on a pair of lips that run across the screen. It directs viewers to listen to Apple’s lyrics, namely the line “Shameika said I have potential.” “I have no memory of anybody ever getting in the way of somebody else being shitty to me,” Apple told Pitchfork in a feature where the pair caught up. “From when I was a kid to when I was an adult, except for this one moment where this girl walking by saw something going on, and leaned down and said, ‘Hey, why do you...
Fiona Apple Slyly Endorses Joe Biden in Voting PSA
Early voting is in full swing, and Fiona Apple’s encouraging people to go out and vote the best way she knows how: through song. Apple’s good friend Zelda Hallman shared a video on Instagram of the singer-songwriter singing George and Ira Gershwin’s “Bidin’ My Time,” from their 1930 musical Girl Crazy – a sly endorsement to the Democratic nominee Joe Biden — and holding up her “I Voted” sticker. The post is simply captioned “Vote.” It’s no surprise Apple voted for the more progressive candidate. She recently narrated a short film that demonstrates how to document ICE arrests, campaigned to help indigenous groups fight COVID-19, and pledged to donate two years of TV and movie placement royalties from Fetch the Bolt Cutters tracks “Heavy Balloon” and “...
Fiona Apple Live-Debuted Three Fetch the Bolt Cutters Songs at the New Yorker Festival
When Fiona Apple released her masterful new album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, in April the world had already gone into lockdown. She wasn’t able to bring those powerful songs to life on tour, and didn’t opt for livestreaming like many other artists chose to do this year. However, the singer-songwriter agreed to perform at the New Yorker’s virtual festival over the weekend, where she finally live-debuted three songs from the record: “I Want You to Love Me”, “Shameika” and the title track. The event marked Apple’s first live performance in three years. In addition to the set, Apple also chatted with New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum, who penned a fantastic profile about her ahead of the album’s release. Watch her performance and see clips from the interview below. [embed...
Fiona Apple to Perform Virtually at the New Yorker Festival
Fiona Apple is slated to perform virtually at this year’s New Yorker Festival on Oct. 10. The show begins at 8 p.m. EDT and will also feature the singer in conversation with the magazine’s Emily Nussbaum. Tickets are $19.95 and available here. The Grammy-winning singer/songwriter has put out five studio albums since 1996, most recently, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, which was released to critical acclaim on April 20 of this year. The New Yorker Festival will be held virtually from Oct. 5-11, 2020. Additional festival guests include Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Yo-Yo Ma, Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph. Recently, Apple narrated a new short film that outlines how to document arrests by ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the follow-up interview ...
The 25 Best Soundtrack Albums of the 1990s
In the 1980s, music and film collided for cross-promotional blockbusters both transcendent (Purple Rain) and transcendently cheesy (Footloose). In the ‘90s, soundtracks continued to sell in the millions, capturing cultural moments like the Seattle grunge of Singles or the Britpop and electronica of Trainspotting. Auteurs like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson reached deep into their record collections to set the mood while movies like Above the Rim and Menace II Society pioneered the concept of soundtracks as hip-hop mixtapes. A great soundtrack can propel an unsuccessful single, like Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose,” to the top of the charts, or revive a decades-old hit, like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It can also push a cult singer-songwriter like Elliott Smith or Aimee Mann to an Oscar perf...
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