Fiona Apple - O' Sailor (2005)
** (of four)
Like Mr. Smithers once noted on a Halloween episode of "The Simpsons," "Women and seamen don't mix." But here's Fiona Apple, six years after her last coming, trying to prove Ol' Waylon wrong. She is unsuccessful at an almost embarrassing level, and I'm used to giving Fiona the benefit of the doubt. I thought her 1999 When the Pawn album was an improvement over the first, and over the years I've expended at least a full pint of drool over her video for "Criminal."
Thirty seconds into "O' Sailor," though, my internal monologue went from, Oh cool, Fiona's back, to, Wait, this song sounds like an uninspired combination of "Shadowboxer" and "Limp", to, Geez, I used to love this girl, what the hell happened? Apparently nine years of suicide attempts and Tic-Tacs for dinner take their toll on a girl. She's pale, she's sickly, she's 93 pounds soaking wet, and she probably still thinks she's a fatass. No, gentlemen and ladies who fancy ladies, Fiona's not looking too good these days.
She's just as flighty and pretentious as ever, though. Fiona spends four minutes wandering the halls of luxury ocean liner Queen Mary, lying on her stateroom bed, looking out her rainy porthole and stalking the anonymous sailor from the song's title. Then she spends the second verse trapped in a chandelier at the bottom of a drained indoor pool while interpretive dance couples writhe around her, with the dry-ice machine on overload.
Eventually Fiona gets out of her well-lit cage and crowd surfs on top of the coed dancers while director Floria Sigismondi intercuts footage of Village People fetishists in white and red horizontal stripes and face makeup fisting the throttle on the ship's bridge. I think I just spotted an enormous iceberg, and Fiona Apple is headed straight for it.
Like Mr. Smithers once noted on a Halloween episode of "The Simpsons," "Women and seamen don't mix." But here's Fiona Apple, six years after her last coming, trying to prove Ol' Waylon wrong. She is unsuccessful at an almost embarrassing level, and I'm used to giving Fiona the benefit of the doubt. I thought her 1999 When the Pawn album was an improvement over the first, and over the years I've expended at least a full pint of drool over her video for "Criminal."
Thirty seconds into "O' Sailor," though, my internal monologue went from, Oh cool, Fiona's back, to, Wait, this song sounds like an uninspired combination of "Shadowboxer" and "Limp", to, Geez, I used to love this girl, what the hell happened? Apparently nine years of suicide attempts and Tic-Tacs for dinner take their toll on a girl. She's pale, she's sickly, she's 93 pounds soaking wet, and she probably still thinks she's a fatass. No, gentlemen and ladies who fancy ladies, Fiona's not looking too good these days.
She's just as flighty and pretentious as ever, though. Fiona spends four minutes wandering the halls of luxury ocean liner Queen Mary, lying on her stateroom bed, looking out her rainy porthole and stalking the anonymous sailor from the song's title. Then she spends the second verse trapped in a chandelier at the bottom of a drained indoor pool while interpretive dance couples writhe around her, with the dry-ice machine on overload.
Eventually Fiona gets out of her well-lit cage and crowd surfs on top of the coed dancers while director Floria Sigismondi intercuts footage of Village People fetishists in white and red horizontal stripes and face makeup fisting the throttle on the ship's bridge. I think I just spotted an enormous iceberg, and Fiona Apple is headed straight for it.
ALTERNATE OPINION
Courtesy of anonymous Fiona Apple fan site:
"The ballroom seems at once infinite and claustrophobic;
much like purgatory must feel...
There is an uneasy contradiction at play throughout the video -
it is very brightly lit and yet it seems so very dark."
Courtesy of anonymous Fiona Apple fan site:
"The ballroom seems at once infinite and claustrophobic;
much like purgatory must feel...
There is an uneasy contradiction at play throughout the video -
it is very brightly lit and yet it seems so very dark."
posted by daytime at 4:55 AM
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