August 27 – Fiona Apple – Tidal

I found this for a buck at my local Housing Works and was thrilled. While I was handing over the dollar I said out loud how it was more than worth it for just the one song. “Criminal,” stated the young woman with short spiky green hair and a single nose piercing, who stood on the other side of the counter. “Criminal” it was indeed. Fiona Apple was pretty major with her debut album. At just 19 she came across as someone wiser, more jaded than her age, and her deep voice added to the mystique of an old soul. When you think of it, there’s kind of a congruence between her and the newly late Lauren Bacall, who also made a first big impression on the world and Humphrey Bogart when she was all of 19, with her deep voice and been around the park once or twice aura. But let’s get back to Fiona Apple. Even if “Criminal” didn’t have a totally hot video accompanying its release as a single, which was made more erotic and less trashy by Apple’s total aloofness, how could you not absolutely love a song that begins “I’ve been a bad, bad girl” and contains the lines “What would an angel say – The Devil wants to know.” Unfortunately, aside from “Shadowboxer” and “Sleep to Dream,” for me at least, the music falls short and gets kind of repetitious. And aside from the aforementioned songs, the CD is not workout worthy. But it did give me the chance to listen to the entire CD and not just play “Criminal” over and over and over.

As I don’t want to exercise to Tidal anymore, and don’t want to start mulling over another article about another artist until this has been posted, plus I can’t peruse my tape collection, I pondered last night, what should I exercise to. Oddly, I suddenly heard Rod Stewart’s voice in my head singing “Only a Hobo.” Not even close to being a favorite, but there it was. And, if we think back to the S’s and the second of my Rod Stewart collections, the first being the Faces, and the second railing against Rod for what he has been doing lately to music, we will remember that Gasoline Alley made it to the Ram alternative list of 20 albums to which I would like to exercise again. And “Only a Hobo” is on that album. No, it is not the best workout album, but I really like it, and hearing it makes me move. And I’m doing it again tonight.