by
Fiona Apple
- Record Label: Epic
- Release Date: Jun 19, 2012
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- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Jun 15, 2012Stripped of all her carnivalesque accouterments, Fiona Apple remains as rich and compelling as she ever was, perhaps even more so.
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Jun 18, 2012"Left Alone" is nothing short of a vocal masterclass. It has the singer going from the verses' rap-like cadence to the hook's curlicue jazz stylings to the operatic long notes of the bridge-- notes that slowly curdle underneath their own exasperated weariness.
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UncutJul 2, 2012It's Apple's refinement as a writer that makes this harrowing psychodrama so gripping. [Aug 2012, p.69]
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MojoJun 25, 2012It's a hyper-vivid and intensely musical affair that takes us deep inside Apple's skittish, fretful mind. [Jul 2012, p.82]
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Jun 18, 2012The tension created by the lyrics and music is wonderful and uneasy, ensuring that The Idler is endlessly fascinating and unlike anything else you're likely to hear this year.
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Jun 19, 2012The Idler Wheel... is a challenging album. The songs are intricately arranged but sonically stark, foregrounding Apple's piano and the stupendous drumming of Charley Drayton. There's not a single big, chewy hook on the album. Sometimes the songs drag... But Apple's kooky energy pushes through the slow spots.
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Jun 15, 2012The Idler Wheel… is a really incredible album, where Apple has quite cleverly developed musically in just the right way, creating something utterly distinct and different to her earlier work whilst still retaining all the characteristics that won fans over to begin with.
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Jun 22, 2012Another singular album from a truly idiosyncratic voice, Apple has once again invited us into her lushly conflicted inner monologue.
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Dec 20, 2012It's an album that demands something of the listener, but rewards it in spades.
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Jun 26, 2012Apple's most ingenious collection of songs to date.
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Jun 19, 2012The beauty of The Idler Wheel… is how it transmits each of those feelings in excruciating, frank, and lovely detail.
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Jun 18, 2012The unexpected triumph lies not in the spectacle of the singer raw-dogging her emotions, but in her total command of the anarchy that results.
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Jun 19, 2012To her immense credit, Apple never flinches at such uneasy insights and insoluble contradictions, which makes The Idler Wheel a tough but rewarding listen.
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Jun 18, 2012The Idler Wheel succeeds in creating a singular world more daring than any of Apple's previous records and one of the most daring pop records in recent history.
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Jun 15, 2012It isn't easy listening. But it's worth it.
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Jun 18, 2012The Idler Wheel captures what's made Apple one of the defining artists of her generation: a persona that's reflected changing views of private versus public spheres. The results have often been misunderstood, but Apple has continued to present herself as someone who refuses to resort to niceties of tact or self-censorship when she engages with her audience.
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Jun 25, 2012There's no such thing as universal appeal, but The Idler Wheel, despite its brittle sound and frequent fury, is galactic, at the very least.
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Jun 19, 2012Apple's return to music is not only undeniably powerful, but Idler is arguably her best work yet.
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Jul 10, 2012With a confectionery of similarly colored assortments, The Idler Wheel... retrenches most of her past output, whether its wistful balladeering or sultry jazz, as a means of expelling a truly uncharacteristic voice.
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Jul 2, 2012It is perhaps the most unforgettable work of her career.
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MagnetJul 18, 2012Beguiling and brilliant. [No. 89 p.51]
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Jun 19, 2012For all the foot-stomping vitriol that seeps out here and there, The Idler Wheel... is the sound of a brilliant songwriter putting away childish things, and waiting tensely for what comes next.
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Jun 19, 2012Apple has been here before, but it makes her new album no less arresting.
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Jul 19, 2012Still the same Fiona Apple: bigger than "all the fishes in the sea."
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Jun 15, 2012It is punchy, vibrant, compelling stuff.
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Jun 15, 2012Like an open wound, The Idler Wheel isn't always pretty, but it pulses with life, brutal and true.
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Jun 25, 2012In The Idler Wheel's ten phenomenal songs, Fiona Apple seems to lay everything out on the table.
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Jun 27, 2012Handsome almost in spite of itself, The Idler Wheel is poignant, nuanced and quietly unforgettable.
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Jun 19, 2012It's essential 2012 listening for anyone interested in popular music as art.
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Jun 19, 2012Her fourth album is arguably her funniest ... but also her leanest and most melodically daring.
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Jun 19, 2012The result is an album that was absolutely worth the seven-year wait, not to mention the mountain of hype atop which Apple has sat since her big comeback at SXSW in March.
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Jun 18, 2012It makes for a raw, unsettling listen, tempered by shots of dark humor.
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Jul 16, 2012The Idler Wheel... is her most adult work yet, a record that's underpinned by the fundamental grown-up characteristic of embracing one's own ridiculous, stubborn dysfunction because, Hell, what other option is there?
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Jul 24, 2012An album that's damn catchy after all.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 319 out of 353
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Mixed: 9 out of 353
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Negative: 25 out of 353
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Jun 19, 2012
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Jun 19, 2012
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Jun 20, 2012